Our Work

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Boogie Down Books is a bookstore-without-walls™ for kids, teens, families, and educators in the Bronx and beyond. Through transformative reading experiences and inspiring community events, we push the boundaries of what a traditional children’s bookstore typically does by curating, designing, and facilitating programs and services that center young people and the grown-ups who read with them. We prioritize amplifying literature by and about members of BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and under-represented communities. We are a mission-driven for-profit social enterprise that prioritizes people and principles, not just profits. 

• JOY: We design and facilitate reading experiences for children, teens, and young adults that promote curiosity, wonder, exploration, experimentation, and risk-taking.
• JUSTICE: We hold ourselves accountable for ensuring that our work promotes independence, autonomy, choice, equity, freedom, and reparations for BIPOC communities.
• COMMUNITY: We cultivate experiences for readers of all ages that promote interdependence, connection, sharing, compassion, and empathy.

• A bookstore can be anywhere there are readers.
• Buying a book is a sociopolitical act.
• All people should have access to books.
• All readers should be able to make choices about what and how they read.
• All readers should see their own backgrounds, experiences, and identities reflected in the literature they read.
• All readers should have opportunities to participate in vibrant reading communities.
• Literacy instruction should provide students with opportunities for choice, community, independence, and autonomy.
• A student-centered approach to literacy instruction can combat white supremacy, social inequity, and injustice in our schools, across our community, and throughout our society.
• If you have more, you should pay more.