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Third Thursday Night Adult Book Club
This month's selection is The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead.
Summary: As the Civil Rights movement begins to reach the black enclave of Frenchtown in segregated Tallahassee, Elwood Curtis takes the words of Dr. Martin Luther King to heart: He is "as good as anyone." Abandoned by his parents, but kept on the straight and narrow by his grandmother, Elwood is about to enroll in the local black college. But for a black boy in the Jim Crow South of the early 1960s, one innocent mistake is enough to destroy the future. Elwood is sentenced to a juvenile reformatory called the Nickel Academy, whose mission statement says it provides "physical, intellectual and moral training" so the delinquent boys in their charge can become "honorable and honest men." In reality, the Nickel Academy is a grotesque chamber of horrors where the sadistic staff beats and sexually abuses the students, corrupt officials and locals steal food and supplies, and any boy who resists is likely to disappear "out back." Stunned to find himself in such a vicious environment, Elwood tries to hold onto Dr. King's ringing assertion "Throw us in jail and we will still love you." His friend Turner thinks Elwood is worse than naive, that the world is crooked, and that the only way to survive is to scheme and avoid trouble. The tension between Elwood's ideals and Turner's skepticism leads to a decision whose repercussions will echo down the decades. Formed in the crucible of the evils Jim Crow wrought, the boys' fates will be determined by what they endured at the Nickel Academy.
Titles selected for discussion on this date and for other library book clubs can be found on the library website.
- Date:
- Thursday, July 15, 2021
Show more dates
Thursday, August 19, 2021
Thursday, September 16, 2021
Thursday, October 21, 2021
Wednesday, November 17, 2021
Wednesday, December 15, 2021
- Time:
- 6:30pm - 8:00pm
- Location:
- Virtual Meeting
- Library:
- Hardwood Creek Library
- Audience:
- Adults
- Categories:
- Book Clubs
Upcoming books are:
August 19th, The Orchardist by Amanda Coplin
September 16th, Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck
October 21st, Me Before You by Jojo Moyes
November 18th, The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
December 16th, A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles