Staff Reports
The Jackson County Public Library and Brownstown Public Library have announced the launch of the Evergreen Indiana Library Consortium Book Club.
In this online community, readers will connect with other library customers and community members through the enjoyment of reading and discussing books related to lifelong learning, social issues, literature, psychology and other user-submitted ideas.
The book club will connect through a private online forum where members can discuss the current book and network with each other. The group will spend approximately two months on each book, so participants will have plenty of time to read.
There is no cost to participate. Readers just have to get a copy of the book from their preferred source.
Free e-books are available for download for customers of Evergreen Indiana public libraries. People also may borrow the book in regular or large print or audiobook from a local Evergreen Indiana library.
Readers can sign up at pbc.guru/evergreenlibrary. Sign up by Oct. 22 to join the group for the first book selection, “The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek” by Kim Michele Richardson.
In the book, Bluet is the last of the Kentucky Blues — real-life people born with blue skin in the dusty hills of Troublesome Creek. In 1936, nearly 20 years old and blue-skinned, Bluet used up her last chance for respectability and a marriage bed.
Instead, she joins the historical Pack Horse Library Project and becomes a librarian, riding up treacherous mountains on a mule to deliver books and other reading materials to the poor hill communities.
Along her dangerous route, Bluet confronts many who are distrustful of her blue skin. Not everyone is so keen on Bluet’s family or the library project, and the impoverished country folk are quick to blame a Blue for any trouble in their small town.
Inspired by the real and historical blue-skinned people of Kentucky and the dedicated Pack Horse library service, Richardson provides an authentic Appalachian voice to a story of hope and heartbreak, raw courage and strength and one woman’s chances beyond the dark woods of Troublesome Creek.