5th annual St. Johns Reads program

Debra Rhodes Gibson reported to Historic City News that the St. Johns County Public Library System is inviting the community to join together in the enjoyment of reading and the 5th annual St. Johns Reads program.

The month of February has once again been designated for the St. Johns Reads community reading project, and this year activities will focus on March, a Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Geraldine Brooks.

St. Johns Reads is all about bringing together the entire community through the reading of a single book. Programming relating to March will be offered throughout the month of February including book discussions, films, re-enactors and other events on the topic of the homefront and battlefield during the Civil War.

A Publisher’s Weekly review describes March:

“Brooks’ luminous second novel, after 2001’s acclaimed Year of Wonders, imagines the Civil War experiences of Mr. March, the absent father in Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women. An idealistic Concord cleric, March becomes a Union chaplain and later finds himself assigned to be a teacher on a cotton plantation that employs freed slaves, or “contraband.” His narrative begins with cheerful letters home, but March gradually reveals to the reader what he does not to his family: the cruelty and racism of Northern and Southern soldiers, the violence and suffering he is powerless to prevent and his reunion with Grace, a beautiful, educated slave whom he met years earlier as a Connecticut peddler to the plantations.”

March is now available for checkout throughout the St. Johns County Library System. The community is encouraged to read a copy today to prepare for upcoming events. Also, be on the lookout for a complete February programming schedule. St. Johns Reads is sponsored by a partnership with all seven Friends of the Library groups.