A new virtual book club is starting up with a specific interest in the Great Lakes.
Called Great Lakes Great Read, the initiative encourages people to read a children's and/or an adult book with a connection to the Great Lakes and join the authors for upcoming webinars.
For this chapter of the book club, the two featured books include The Water Walker by Joanne Robertson is the children’s selection, and the adult selection is The Best Part of Us by Sally Cole-Misch.
The Water Walker is the true story of a determined Ojibwe grandmother, a “nokomis” named Josephine Mandamin, who walks to raise awareness of the need to protect “nibi” (water). Robertson wrote and illustrated the book, published in 2017.
Published in 2020, Sally Cole-Misch’s award-winning novel The Best Part of Us explores a family’s connections to an island in the Canadian waters of an inland lake just north of Lake Huron, and how those ties are tested through nature and family dynamics.
The webinars kick-off with a talk by the Wisconsin Water Librarian, Ann Moser, this week, Sept. 25 at 7 p.m., followed by individual author webinars with Sally Cole-Misch on Oct. 2 and with Joanne Robertson on Oct. 9.
All three webinars start at 7 p.m. (CT) and registration is required. You can register at this link this link.
Local public libraries and bookstores can host watch parties, and individuals can register on their own or host their own watch party. Flyers are available to share with communities at this link. The authors are available for in-person and online conversations and presentations with libraries, book clubs and other groups throughout the region during the 2024-2025 period.
Great Lakes Great Read is modelled after One Book One Community and state- or province-wide annual reading programs that choose one book for libraries, citizen groups of all kinds, and the public to read and enjoy over the course of a year.
Whether you live near the Great Lakes or far away, their beauty, history, and significance are impossible to ignore.
They’ve been home to 120 bands of Indigenous people, provided drinking water for millions, held flourishing biodiversity and 20 per cent of the world’s surface freshwater and more.
The Great Lakes Great Read website, greatlakesgreatread.org, offers further details on the authors, their books, book discussion questions, a toolkit and other resources, including who to contact in your state and province to participate in the program.
This initiative is made possible by an Ideas to Action grant from WiLS in Madison, Wisconsin. In-kind support was provided by the staff with the Wisconsin Water Library at UW Madison, Wisconsin Sea Grant, the Wisconsin Library Association and UW-Parkside. Wisconsin Sea Grant and the University of Wisconsin Water Resources Institute support the Wisconsin Water Library.
