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Solidarity Stories: "The Berry Pickers"

Join the Mount Rainier Branch Library and Prince George’s County Office of Human Rights for our monthly book club! This month we hope you can join us as we discuss the "The Berry Pickers" by Amanda Peters.

July 1962. Following in the tradition of Indigenous workers from Nova Scotia, a Mi’kmaq family arrives in Maine to pick blueberries for the summer. Weeks later, four-year-old Ruthie, the family’s youngest child, vanishes. She is last seen by her six-year-old brother, Joe, sitting on a favorite rock at the edge of a berry field. Joe will remain distraught by his sister’s disappearance for years to come. In Maine, a young girl named Norma grows up as the only child of an affluent family. Her father is emotionally distant, her mother frustratingly overprotective. Norma is often troubled by recurring dreams and visions that seem more like memories than imagination. As she grows older, Norma slowly comes to realize there is something her parents aren’t telling her. Unwilling to abandon her intuition, she will spend decades trying to uncover this family secret. “An unforgettable exploration of grief, love, and kin,” (The Boston Globe), this show stopping debut by a vibrant new voice in fiction is a riveting novel about the search for truth, the shadow of trauma, and the persistence of love across time.

Borrow the book from PGCMLS: Print | eBook | eAudiobook | Large Print

The Solidarity Stories: Community - Led Book Discussion takes place the 3rd Tuesday of each month in the upstairs lounge area of Mixt Food Hall in Brentwood, MD. Limited parking is available via the garage on 39th Street and Rhode Island Ave. Parking is free for program participants and no purchase is required, but participants are welcome to order snacks, drinks, or dinner from Mixt’s vendors. For more information, visit their website: https://mixtfoodhall.com