Hi all,
Looking for some book recommendations and also some general advice and feedback.
I'm a youth worker, male/26, so I work in a supportive role with a lot of different teenagers. I run a few different youth clubs with one being a book club that's been pretty successful. I recently had an idea after hearing from a lot of the young male teens I work with and reading more into the "manosphere". I myself am a man and I've noticed a lot of the young men I work with struggle with things like comparing themselves to other men online, not sure of their place in the world, not feeling like they have spaces to just be themselves, feeling like they need to have a certain body type or life or career or everything really.
I was thinking how successful the book club I run, which is an LGBT teen boom club, has been in creating conversations around things like representation, identity, acceptance, etc. I was thinking with young men not feeling like they have a space to express themselves and then seeing women creating these incredible female book clubs I just thought why don't men create these spaces to talk and express themselves away from spaces where toxic masculinity seems to flourish.
I've had the idea to start a Young Mens Book Club. A Space where each month we read a book that has a healthy and diverse representation of masculinity in the books we read. A space for young teen men to talk about masculinity, to learn about how masculinity can vary and look different, to learn acceptance and tolerance and respect of differences along with self acceptance. I would get another male worker to co facilitate the group with me so there's different representations of masculinity within the group.
If anyone has any book suggestions and in general any ideas for the group I would love to hear it. So far I've got Percy Jackson and that's it. I'm gonna do some research but throw out any ideas. Again i think diverse representation of masculinity would be great.
Thanks everyone!
by Laoch_King