FAIRFIELD ANNOUNCES ONE BOOK ONE TOWN SELECTION FOR 2024

Fairfield Public Library and its community partners are pleased to announce Fairfield’s One Book One Town (OBOT) selection for 2024, Warrior Girl Unearthed by Angeline Boulley.

In this coming-of-age thriller, Perry Firekeeper-Birch has always known who she is—the laidback twin, the troublemaker, the best fisher on Sugar Island.  Her aspirations won’t ever take her far from home, and she wouldn’t have it any other way.  But as the rising number of missing Indigenous women in her community starts circling closer, as her family becomes embroiled in a high-profile murder investigation, and as greedy grave robbers seek to profit off what belongs to her Anishinaabe tribe, Perry begins to question everything.  Old rivalries, sister secrets, and botched heists cannot—and will not—stop her from uncovering the mystery before the ancestors and missing women are lost forever.  

Angeline Boulley is an enrolled member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians and a storyteller who writes about her Ojibwe community in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.  She is a former Director of the Office of Indian Education at the U.S. Department of Education.  Warrior Girl Unearthed is the stand-alone companion to Boulley’s 2021 debut best-selling novel Firekeeper’s Daughter.

“We’ve never selected a thriller or a book by an Indigenous author, so those were two things that immediately stood out to the OBOT Reading Committee,” said Jennifer Laseman, One Book One Town co-Chair and Head of Teen Services for Fairfield Public Library.  “But what really captivated us was how Boulley crafts her stories not just to entertain but to educate and inspire readers to think critically about issues important to the Indigenous population.  Like all OBOT selections, the book is intended to promote community discussion, with the additional hope that it will inspire readers to dive deeper into exploring the history and present-day life experiences of the Native American communities in our region.”  

For our middle-grade and elementary school-age readers, we have selected companion books that explore age-relevant themes related to Indigenous communities.  For middle-grade readers, We Still Belong by Christine Day tells the story of a girl whose hopeful plans for Indigenous Persons Day go all wrong—until she finds herself surrounded by the love of her Indigenous family at an intertribal pow-wow. For younger children, the committee chose Berry Song by Caldecott Medal winner Michaela Goade, a wonderful book about the stewardship of our land, as a grandmother and granddaughter forage for food throughout the seasons.

The One Book One Town initiative was inspired by a program created by librarian and author Nancy Pearl of the Seattle Public Library’s Washington Center for the Book, who wondered what would happen if everyone in the city read the same book simultaneously. Fairfield’s own community reading initiative— One Book One Town—began in 2008.  Each year starting in summer the OBOT Reading Committee--comprised of librarians from Fairfield Public Library and representatives from many of our community partners--starts the process of reading and reviewing books in search of the next year’s selection. This year’s OBOT partners include Experience Fairfield, Fairfield Museum & History Center, Fairfield Public Library, Fairfield Public Schools, Fairfield University, Fairfield University Store, Friends of Fairfield Public Library, the Pequot Library, Sacred Heart University, and WSHU Public Radio.

Copies of Warrior Girl Unearthed and its companion books are available to borrow at either location of Fairfield Public Library and at Pequot Library, or for purchase at the Fairfield University Store.  Author Angeline Boulley will speak at the Quick Center for the Arts at Fairfield University on Tuesday, March 5, at 7:00pm.  Registration for this event opens on February 1st; please visit our website at https://fplct.librarymarket.com/events/month/2024/03 to register.

One Book One Town and its attendant programs are made possible by the generous support of The Friends of Fairfield Public Library.

All programs at the Fairfield Public Library are free. To register, or for more information, visit us online at:  fairfieldpubliclibrary.org or call 203-256-3160. Follow the Fairfield Public Library on Twitter @fairfieldpublib and Facebook @fairfieldlibrary.