Good Books Young Troublemakers, a book club for middle graders that highlights potentially controversial content, began as a local venture at Dog-Eared Books in Ames, Iowa. Now that the organization has been granted nonprofit, 501(c)3 status, founder Tanvi Rastogi plans to establish chapters across the U.S., directing kids and caregivers to book selections that might be downplayed, or even censored, in their school libraries or communities.
Dog-Eared Books opened in March 2021, and Rastogi—who works as the store’s inventory manager and youth book clubs manager—started Good Books Young Troublemakers that April. A former youth services librarian in New Jersey and at the Ames Public Library, Rastogi already loved working with kids, “so I asked if I could do a social-justice-themed middle school book club. Middle school is my favorite age to work with.” The club’s name is inspired by the late Georgia Congressman and civil rights leader John Lewis, who urged activists to get into “good trouble.”
Rastogi began assigning a “fairly recent” book every month, with an emphasis on diverse perspectives and identities. Kelly Yang’s Front Desk, about a Chinese American immigrant girl who helps her parents manage a motel, was her first club selection. Other early choices included Kyle Lukoff’s Too Bright to See, a ghost story with a young transgender protagonist, and Johnnie Christmas’s graphic novel Swim Team, about a Black Brooklynite who moves to Florida and conquers her dread of swimming.
Novels and graphic narratives alike have made the list. “Some of the more recent ones have been Aya de Léon’s Undercover Latina, Amy Sarig King’s Attack of the Black Rectangles, Lisa Yee’s Maisie Chen’s Last Chance, and Esme Symes-Smith’s Sir Callie and the Champions of Helston,” Rastogi said. For each book, she created a discussion guide, and once pandemic restrictions eased and groups could gather in person, she “put a cap on the number of kids who can register, partly because of space limitations. I think it would be bigger if I didn’t cap it, but we’ve got a loft that can only hold so many people, and for quality of discussion I try to keep it a little smaller.” As of last fall, 15 middle schoolers were participating.
Demand for the club was strong, and Rastogi felt gratified that “the book club books are all sponsored by community members,” giving children access to chosen books at no cost. Rastogi believed the model for her club could expand far beyond Dog-Eared Books, and in May 2023, she filed the paperwork for tax-exempt status. While awaiting approval from the Internal Revenue Service, she gave a presentation on the club at Children’s Institute 2023 in Milwaukee, where she met booksellers willing to establish “test sites” and “help refine the GBYT model so we’re ready to launch nationally.” An online store in Chicago, plus stores in Maryland and Colorado, volunteered, as did a small-town library in rural Meservey, Iowa.
Second Star to the Right Books, a children’s and young adult book and toy shop in Denver, was among GBYT’s beta testers. Stu Luddecke, a bookseller and school events coordinator, worked with “about five kids per week, a couple of them being the same stalwart members.” Luddecke found the young readers “very participatory” and especially excited about the graphic novels. “I’m a former educator, and I still like engaging with kids in deeper ways than I can as a bookseller,” he said. “Having meaningful conversations about issues that might matter to them in their everyday lives has impacted me in a positive way and filled a gap” in the community.
Working with feedback from stores like Second Star to the Right, Rastogi foresees that “the nonprofit will have chapters, very similar to Drag Queen Story Hour, and once the chapters register with the organization, they’ll have access to all of the materials that they need to start their own book clubs.” So far, she is hearing from booksellers, librarians, and educators whose schools can support a book club as an extracurricular offering. At her own GBYT club, high school students who “age out” of middle school often want to stay involved as volunteer leaders or for community service credit. Every chapter reads the same book each month, which comes with a detailed discussion guide created by Rastogi in consultation with her board of directors.
Discussion guides are essential for people who aren’t trained educators, Rastogi noted. She gives the example of a shocking scene of bullying from Saadia Faruqi’s Yusuf Azeem Is Not a Hero, in which students corner a Muslim American character. “What we do in the book club is ask, what if you were in the hallway and you saw this happen? What would you do? And we talk through what all the different options are, whether they’re beneficial to the person you’re trying to help, and what risks you’re taking when you engage in a particular action.” Selections like Yusuf Azeem prompt conversations that “feel very organic,” she said, but “a tremendous amount of work goes into each study guide, because I’m figuring out how to introduce complex and sometimes sensitive issues to kids in a way that is appropriate for them. I don’t expect that every adult necessarily knows how to do that.”
Presently, chapters pay monthly dues to participate, and individual readers or their community sponsors need to purchase the books. Yet Rastogi expressed “a long-term goal that eventually we’ll have enough grants, sponsors, and donations that the book club would be accessible to chapters for free.” She hopes that nonprofit status will make it “easier for us to work with educators, publishers, authors, and illustrators, because I’m hoping to be able to have authors do virtual sessions,” simulcast to all the chapters and deepening the experience of the literary content.
Interested participants can sign up to start Good Books Young Troublemakers chapters now for programming that begins in July; Rastogi has selected books through December. “The book club is relating the books to current events and to larger issues,” she said. Good Books Young Troublemakers will be a success, she believes, if it gets readers “thinking about their own allyship skills, how they can use them, and preparing them for when something happens in real life.”
