11yr Old Boy Starts Book Club Called Books And Bro’s Focusing On African American Literature

It is very rare that we hear about a boys book club going viral but one pre-teen decided to change that. 11 yr old Sidney Keys III has been in the news lately for a very good reason. After visiting a bookstore he decided 6 months ago to start a book club for boys his age who love to read.

His club is called Books N Bros a fun name for a club that celebrates African-American literature and culture.

“Books N Bros is a book club for boys and we read books and African American literature because every time I go to the library at my school, there aren’t many African American literature books there,” Sidney, 11, told St. Louis on the Air. “I already love to read, and since we don’t get that much time to read in school, we just discuss in groups. I wanted to read a book, but I also wanted to discuss it with other people.”

Mom Winnie Caldwell first introduced the world to her son when they visited the EyeSeeMe book store in University City, Mo. The bookstore focuses on African-American children’s literature and as her son sat quietly reading mom shot a video of him that got shared over 1000 times.

“He hadn’t seen [a bookstore] like that before and I certainly never had, so he was making himself comfortable on the floor, reading a book,” Caldwell said. “When you get to a point when he is 11 years old and it was so shocking for him to relate to someone on the cover in a positive aspect rather than it be some negative urban story we see a lot. I would like to make sure he sees himself in being whatever he can be.”

It was after that visit that Sidney and his mom came up with the idea of the book club:

“We specifically reach out to boys around ages 8 to 10 because that is statistically the age they stop reading—we wanted to combat that,” Caldwell told the radio station.

“My motivation is I already love to read, but it would be awesome, even better, to read with other people,” Sidney added. “I want to keep doing it because I don’t know what will make me stop reading because I love to read.”

Books N Bros meets monthly and so far they have around 10 members who collectively vote on what book to cover each month.

Via stlpublicradio.org

“We focus a lot on stories with an entrepreneurial backing,” Caldwell said. “Sidney has an entrepreneurial spirit already. The first book we read in the book was called ‘Danny Dollar,’ about financial literacy about a boy who started a lemonade stand. He was able to learn not only money management skills but also entrepreneurial skills.”

During that meetup, Sidney started a lemonade stand himself, selling chips and lemonade. As it turned out, the author who wrote “Danny Dollar” saw Keys reading his book in the viral Facebook video and he joined the book club via Skype.

Keys and Caldwell have also struck a deal with the Microsoft Store at the Galleria, where the book club meets. The boys discuss their books for an hour before each gets 30 minutes to play video games on a personal console at the store. A group called Serving with the Badge also donated 200 books to the book club so boys can take books home with them for their personal collection.

Some of the book club favorites so far have been “Danny Dollar,” “Hidden Figures” and “Supah Dupah Kid.” In February, for Black History Month, the group read “A Song for Harlem: Scraps of Time,” by Patricia McKissack, a St. Louis-based children’s book author.

Good job Sidney!