Stuff We Love: Mega Book Clubs & Free Books

An American Sunrise by Joy Harjo launches in Petoskey

By Lynda Wheatley | March 5, 2022

Want to be part of the biggest book club in the nation? Be at Petoskey’s Crooked Tree Arts Center Ross Stokes Theater (461 E. Mitchell St.) at 5:30 on Wednesday, March 9. That’s the city’s kickoff to the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Big Read, a community reading program that, each year, selects a singular book for a nation of readers to read, celebrate, and discuss. This year’s book: An American Sunrise by Joy Harjo, who is not only Poet Laureate of the United States but also the first Native American Poet Laureate in our nation’s history. (i.e. She’s kind of a big deal.) We can’t recommend this book—about love, loss, beauty, survival, sin, morality, and more—enough. We also recommend, wherever you are, grabbing a copy and joining some of the North’s events related to it. Eagle Spirit Dancer Roberta Shalifoe (pictured) will perform at the Petoskey kickoff, and a host of other events for Big Readers in towns across the North (fans can join a virtual conversation with Harjo herself, live, at a Traverse Area District Library and National Writers Series event April 19) are planned through May. Learn more at petoskeylibrary.org.