VoxPopuli: Trenessa, what’s the impetus for this book club you’re cooking up?

Trenessa Williams: I was substitute teaching to see if I wanted to teach in K-12, and I saw the gaps that I’ve read about. And to actually see them, I thought, something has to be done to help them spark that love for reading. Even on the college level, I came across students that were passed along through the system but no one double-checked to see if they could do the work on a higher level.

I call literacy the gateway of everything. Reading is the superpower. That's why they're fighting so hard to restrict our kids from reading and banning our books. Because reading is liberating.

Reading gives birth to critical thinking. It gives birth to your imagination. It makes you more empathetic. With reading, you're learning about somebody else's experience, becoming more empathetic about how they're lived. You become more knowledgeable about it, and you're able to understand what happened from that person's viewpoint.

And it’s the fuel for other fields that you want to work in. Even if you want to be a plumber, you have to be able to read.  If you are not a strong reader or able to think critically, you won't be able to do well in society.

VoxPopuli: You did some book giveaways. How did that lead to what you’re calling Book Club, Not Really?

Trenessa Williams: Two years in a row for 2023 and 2024, I collected books to give out during the summer. I think we collected about 200 books that were given out. And I was thinking to myself, how can I make this on a larger scale? Then I was like, let's do something where the kids get access to a free book a month. Our goals are to improve the literacy skills, celebrate Black culture, amplify Black voices, foster pride and identity and also cultivate leadership and nurture future leaders. I’m targeting those kids that are in book deserts.

VoxPopuli: What do you mean by book deserts?

Trenessa Williams:  You know how we have food deserts where people have to travel out [of their neighborhoods] because they don't have access to [a supermarket]? So, when I say book desert, they might have access to books, but they don't have access to books that truly represent them. You're not going to find Black history books or biographies of Black leaders. They might not have books that reflect the experience. With the book bans, they even took away books like I Love My Hair! [by Natasha Tarpley]. There are books that talk about representation and affirmations and the whole experience. They took those books out. So that can be part of the desert — books that show a reflection of them, that promotes the pride so they can read something and say, This is a reflection of me.

VoxPopuli: What does the leadership piece look like?

 My parents' motto was that you can't complain if you're not going to do something about it. So basically it was like, if you see something going on, you can't complain about what you don't like about it, you have to come up with a solution for what you're going to do. I knew at a young age if we didn't like [something], we advocated for a change or we wrote a letter. That's one of the things to teach our kids. We let them know that they can use their voices if they don't like something that's going on with how they're being educated. You know, write a letter to the school board.

VoxPopuli: Why do you call it “Book Club, Not Really”? Why isn’t your club a book club?

Trenessa Williams: We read books and we're a club, but we're not really a book club. It’s not restricted to everyone reading the same book at the same time. Kids can just be free readers. That’s why I’m like it’s not really a book club. Let’s just vibe with reading and you’re meeting some great people who are going along on the reading journey with you in your age, your grade. It’s having that safe environment, even if you’re at the very beginning of reading, you’re still connecting with somebody and doing fun activities with somebody else that’s reading.

VoxPopuli: Where will the books come from?

Trenessa Williams: It’s donation based. I’ve been pitching publishers because they will donate books to organizations that donate books. And when people purchase books through us, they can also donate to the book club. The community can invest in the students’ learning. They can feel like they’re part of the academic excellence.

VoxPopuli: What’s the next step?

 I'm still in the logistics phase. The goal is to launch it in fall of next year. I’ve been doing research to find the book deserts that are heavily in need of literacy. I’d like to partner with the organizations that serve those communities. And I would like to have teachers on board just to make sure that our program is aligned because I want to make sure that it's helping our students.