It was a heavy question to ask the group.

“Imagine you are ‘the man’ in your hometown, and you get kidnapped and taken to become a slave. How would you feel?” Shawn Filer, 18, asked.

“I’d be angry,” one of the boys said.

A moment later, another boy jumped up and broke into smooth dance moves in the middle of the circle that was talking about “The Kidnapped Prince: The Life of Olaudah Equiano.”

Filer smiled at Corion Henderson, 12, who had popped up a few times to show off his moves. This is how the discussion flows in this book club for tween boys that meets monthly in a converted fire station in Ferguson, Missouri.

The club’s founder, 11-year-old Sidney Keys III, is a wiry kid in glasses whose voice cracks occasionally while leading the meet-ups with the help of a “big bro” volunteer who keeps the group in check. On this Sunday in September, they are all wearing gray T-shirts that say “Cool Bros Read.”

More than a year ago, Sidney went viral in a Facebook Live video that his mom posted. It showed him engrossed in a book at EyeSeeMe, a St. Louis bookstore that focuses on books featuring African-American characters, culture and figures. Winnie Caldwell, Sidney’s mom, had planned a surprise trip for her son to the store as soon as she heard about it.

“I just wanted him to be able to see books with characters who look like him,” she said. Caldwell, 28, an entrepreneur and social media maven, had recently come back from a blogging conference where she attended a session on Facebook Live strategies. She was so impressed by the bookstore, she figured it was worth sharing and decided to try out the technology. She live-streamed a six-minute video of Sidney reading on the floor and gave a tour of the store. The video ended up being viewed 65,000 times.

“If I had known it was going to go viral, I would have put on some makeup,” Caldwell laughs.

She talked to store owner Pamela Blair about how to build on the momentum to encourage literacy among children. She and Sidney talked about a book club for boys his age.

“I said something corny, like ‘book club for boys,’ and he was like, ‘no,’” she said.

“I came up with Books and Bros,” Sidney said. Caldwell created a website within a few weeks and started promoting the idea on her Facebook, Instagram and blog.

When they launched, any boy between the ages of 8 and 12 could sign up for $20 a month to receive the monthly book selection with a curriculum she designed, a snack and small prize, along with an invitation to a meet-up. They’ve got nearly 60 boys signed up so far, and about 10 live outside the St. Louis area. (Now, the membership is $25). Blair typically suggests a few titles for Sidney to consider, and he goes to the store to peruse each book before deciding.

He looks for action-packed books that hook him from the start.

“I don’t like books that take a long time to figure out,” he said. Once, he stayed in the bookstore until he got to chapter five of a possible pick, while his mother waited.

“I can’t leave yet,” he said. “I have to figure out if I like this book.”

Sidney’s book club idea and his mom’s video attracted national attention, and even got a shout-out in O, The Oprah Magazine. Sidney said the visit to EyeSeeMe made him realize how few books in his school library featured African-American characters.

That’s exactly why Filer, a St. Louis-area high school graduate headed to Stanford University, decided to get involved.

“They are not going to read about kidnapped African princes in school,” he said. Boys read at lower rates than girls, and one way to counteract that is by keeping them engaged and connected to the content. The 2016 Kids and Family Reading Report by Scholastic found that boys trail girls in reading outside of school assignments. A larger percentage of boys (45 percent) say they struggle to find books they like.

The book club has done more than just bring together boys who like to read.

It’s given them a different way to imagine their own stories.

No little kid dreams of being a car salesman when he grows up.

But that’s the career my father landed in after he immigrated to America. And I’ve never heard a little girl say she wants to be a department store clerk one day. But after more than two decades of raising children, that’s the job that found my mother.

Both settled into careers of necessity that paid the bills, like so many people do. That’s not to say they didn’t have dreams of what they wanted to be when they were young.

“I always wanted to be a teacher,” my father said. He had two master’s degrees in political science and history when he came to the United States, and took a few education courses at the University of Houston. Then he learned how much teachers make in this country. It wasn’t going to be enough to raise a large family. He ended up in sales, and later, as a small business owner for many years.

My mother, who grew up in a time where the main expectation was to become a wife and mother, talked about the work she did with poor families when she was studying psychology and social work in college. Her primary role was as a stay-at-home mom while we were growing up, although she helped my father run his business, as well. When we were older, she took a job as a retail clerk at Macy’s.

I was glad when they both eventually retired from years of physically demanding jobs.

Finally, I thought, they can relax. Sleep in, travel, garden, hang out with their grandkids.

That wasn’t exactly what happened.

After several years at home, my father applied to become a substitute teacher at a school district about 45 minutes away. He was 70 years old.

“I just wanted to get busy,” he said. Nearly 80 percent of the students in the district are economically disadvantaged. He’s been subbing there full-time for four years now, and the students know him.

“Patience and listening are the two things you have to have to be a good teacher,” he said. “And a sense of humor really helps you a lot.”

He said he gets as much out of the interaction with students as they do. Some call him “abuelo,” grandfather in Spanish, and bring small gifts for him.

“Having this kind of connection with people at my age is a big thing,” he tells me.

Meanwhile, my mother spent a couple of months in traditional retirement. She started volunteering to help refugee families get resettled in their new lives in Houston. She would drive into poor neighborhoods, find out what they needed and take young mothers and their children under her wing.

They call her Mama.

Within a year, she had started her own nonprofit, Mama’s Charity, which she uses to fund the medical, legal and educational needs of the communities she serves. She is busier than ever. Most of the texts I get from her are about the families she’s helping.

My parents are hardly alone in discovering their encore careers. A recent Pew Research Center analysis of federal employment data shows how retirement has evolved. In May 2000, 12.8 percent of those older than 65 held a job. By May of 2016, the number had climbed to 18.8 percent. In the past 16 years, employment rose among 65- to 69-year-olds: Close to a third now work. Among those 70 to 74, about a fifth work, and in the 75-plus population, the proportion is up to 8.4 percent from 5.4 percent.

Part of this trend is fueled by economic need, but another part is meeting the social and emotional needs of people as they age. After parents have raised their children, they are not needed in the same way at home. And after retiring from their jobs, they can feel even more adrift.

Humans need a purpose and a way to connect with others. Busy people are happy people.

These encore careers may not be the ones you do just for the money. It’s a chance to reclaim dreams.

In their late 60s and mid-70s, my parents are finally what they wanted to be when they grew up.

One of my dearest friends asked a simple favor not too long ago.

She wanted to know if I would speak to her Girl Scout troop about my career or my background -- really anything I wanted to talk about that would inspire or educate a group of grade-school girls. It was not a big ask. It would probably take a couple of hours, including the commute. And, like I mentioned, this is a person I admire and care about. But I was stretched thin with work, family and social obligations, and adding even one more small thing to a crowded calendar felt daunting.

You’ve been in this spot before, haven’t you? Caught in between the desire to say yes and the need to say no. There’s a point in our lives when we spend considerable energy juggling other people’s demands on our time.

Before I had a chance to think too long about this particular request (and talk myself into it), I quickly said no.

I noticed my friend seemed a little surprised.

A few years ago, I found myself saying yes far too often. I was burned out on board meetings, volunteering, organizing and speaking at events. It drained my creative energy, which I needed for work. It took precious hours away from my family. And I barely had time to see my closest friends. I remember telling a girlfriend that I wanted to drop out -- of everything.

“You need to exercise your ‘no’ muscle,” she told me. What in the world did that mean? For women, in particular, who are socialized to be people-pleasers, to avoid conflict and disappointing others, learning to say no without guilt is a skill that takes practice to develop. Ironically, it’s an ability that we all mastered as toddlers. It takes years to erode that confidence and ease of saying no. You have to relearn how to draw a boundary between your needs and those of the rest of the world.

This is the technique that worked for me: My boss would hear me on the phone frequently, trying to politely decline requests to speak to various groups or host their events. I am asked a couple of times a week, and every request feels important and worthy. It wasn’t like I didn’t want to find a way to accommodate each request; I did. But, I felt busy enough trying to keep my work and family life on track. Instead of telling others that I couldn’t commit to their event, my boss suggested that I limit myself to a couple outside commitments a month. Make it a rule, she said. I could blame her and say that I wasn’t allowed to dedicate more time than that.

It seemed so simple when she suggested it. At first, I did rely on using her as a scapegoat: “I would love to, but my editor doesn’t let me commit to more than two events a month.” But when I got into the habit of keeping track of that “bonus time” ledger in an exacting way, it became much easier to simply say that I was booked until “X” month. It felt honest, and the more I practiced it, the stronger my “no” muscle became.

I worked on saying it in low-stakes situation. I often tried to suggest another person who might be a good replacement. I also fought back feelings of guilt by focusing on feeling empowered.

This year, I said no more than I had ever said it before in my life. It gave me time that allowed me to work on a major creative project I could not have done otherwise. It allowed me to focus on areas that often get neglected. It’s important for us to prioritize our spouses or partners -- not only our children, which the vast majority of us already do. We must prioritize our closest friends. Prioritize our sleep.

My dear friend with the Girl Scout troop confessed months later that she had felt a little taken aback (and perhaps put off) when I refused her invitation. But then later on, she admired that I was able to hold firm to a boundary I had created for myself. Maybe it could inspire her to do the same, I thought.

This time of year, when the urge to give in and say yes is strongest, I give you permission to say no.

You can blame it on me.