This month, we will be discussing Omar El Akkad's book, What Strange Paradise. More bodies have washed up on the shores of a small island. Another overfilled, ill-equipped, dilapidated ship has sunk under the weight of its too many passengers: Syrians, Ethiopians, Egyptians, Lebanese, Palestinians, all of them desperate to escape untenable lives back in their homelands. But miraculously, someone has survived the passage: nine-year-old Amir, a Syrian boy who is soon rescued by Vanna. Vanna is a teenage girl, who, despite being native to the island, experiences her own sense of homelessness in a place and among people she has come to disdain. And though Vanna and Amir are complete strangers, though they don't speak a common language, Vanna is determined to do whatever it takes to save the boy.
Copies of the book will be available for checkout at the reference desk. Refreshments provided by Mission Blue Coffee Shop.
LOCATION:Visitacion Valley - Visitacion Valley Meeting Room CLASS:PUBLIC TRANSP:TRANSPARENT END:VEVENT BEGIN:VALARM TRIGGER:-PT1440M ACTION:DISPLAY DESCRIPTION:Event Reminder - Book Club: Visitacion Valley Readers END:VALARM END:VCALENDAR