Read Woke Challenge: Home

What is Read Woke?

Read Woke is a reading challenge started by School Librarian Cicely Lewis with the intent of encouraging her students to experience the voices of authors and characters from a variety of backgrounds and life experiences. According to Lewis, a read woke book must:

• Challenge a social norm
• Give voice to the voiceless
• Provide information about a group that has been disenfranchised
• Seek to challenge the status quo
• Have a protagonist from an underrepresented or oppressed group.

The challenge has expanded from the school library into a nation-wide effort. The Saratoga Springs Public Library is offering our community members the chance to participate in our own Read Woke Challenge.

How the challenge works:

1. Sign up through Beanstack
2. Earn virtual badges by reading books in each of the categories, or checking out some of our suggested activities (see suggested titles and events by clicking through the tabs on this guide)
3. Earn 5 badges to be entered in one of our quarterly drawings for a Read Woke t-shirt to declare your commitment to reading and learning about a world's worth of different voices

T-shirt drawings will take place in February, April, July, and October of 2021. Anyone who has completed their 5 badges in the three months prior will be entered in that quarter's drawing.