We're so excited that 2026 Durham Book Club has begun! All 5th through 8th grade students are invited to join us this spring/summer as we read four amazing books together, one book each month during April, May, June, and July.  Registration opened in early febuary and is closed. If you register before the deadline you will receive your first book in your school library soon or at your local library!

During Durham Book Club READS, you'll also have the choice to:

Meet other middle school students in small groups at Durham libraries to talk about the books

Play a book-related challenge to dive even deeper into each book

Win prizes if you complete the challenges

Meet and talk with the authors: Caitlin Alifirenka, Martin Ganda, and Liz Welch (co-author), James Ponti, Stacy McAnulty,  Linda Sue Park, Anna Dobbin, R.J. Palacio, Rita Williams-Garcia, and editor Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich!

Learn more about the Student Leadership Team who has been planning this annual event for the past eight months!

As always, this program is free to all participating students, thanks to the support of grants and donations and partnerships with Durham County Library and dozens of teachers and media specialists in Durham's schools.

So, wait - what is DBC reads all about?

We read great books with middle school peers from throughout Durham, NC.  We meet all kinds of people - students, community leaders, authors, you name it!! And we learn about different perspectives and experiences with books as our guide.  You can look forward to making new friends, meeting authors, playing games, winning prizes and thinking about reading in a whole new way!  Come join us!

Okay, so how are the books picked?

We ask middle grade students who like to read for their suggestions! Our Student Leadership Team is has 5 middle school students, who either find us on their own or they are recommended to us by someone in their school.  This group of students meets once a week throughout the entire school year, but we focus on the books during the fall. During the title selection period, we talk about some of our favorite books (and some of our not-so-favorite books!). Eventually, we narrow down what is usually a long list of titles by considering all kinds of criteria: genre, topic, length, reading level, diversity of character, diversity of author, and price. When the process is finished, voila! We have four titles that will be read by Durham Book Club students during the upcoming summer! 

PS This team is assembled every september. If you are interested in being part of it,email us at Durhambookclub.nc@gmail.com   and we'll give you the information you need to join!

Sounds fun, so what do I need to do?

It's easy!

Sign up in January: you'll see signs at school and in all the Durham libraries, emails with google forms, posts on social media, announcements all over this website, and surely all your friends will be talking about it!  :-)  Don't worry - you won't miss your chance!

Receive your books from your friendly librarian.  Probably in March.

Read the books. 

Attend monthly book discussions at the library. 

All of Durham's public libraries offer a small group discussion each month, so check out your favorite or closest library to see when they'll be meeting. Meetings are run by teen librarians and the conversations are often led by our very own middle school Student Leaders. So don't worry! It's kids chatting with kids. What could be more fun?

Participate in the book-related challenges. 

Each book will have a game, challenge, or activity that you can do on your own or with friends. Activities are created entirely by our Student Leadership Team and can be anything from Team Trivia to a virtual scavenger hunt. When you finish the activity, you usually win a prize!

Meet some awesome people and have fun!!!

Every fall, the Student Leadership Team chooses four titles for hundreds of middle school students to read together from April to July.  Do you know how HARD it is to choose only four titles??? There are so many amazing stories and authors to choose from!!! We want to share with you some of the books we love, interview authors about their writing process, and explore everything else in the world of books and writing. 

And so, our solution is a regular podcast in which we'll do all of these things: Welcome to DBCTalks, the podcast hosted completely by Durham Book Club's Student Leaders. We talk about books, reading, writing, and everything in between. Thank you for listening!

We try to post new episodes every two weeks, so subscribe and let us know what you think!