Tucson book club aims to build community, consider solutions

It has been a while since that noted philosopher, Dr. Seuss, reminded us that one voice can change the world we live in.

It belonged to JoJo, the youngster whose one, tiny voice saved Whoville in “Horton Hears a Who” — an early Seuss classic published in 1954.

JoJo couldn’t make it last week, but some 40 other Whos represented him well at the latest Solutions Focused Community Book Club at the Community Foundation for Southern Arizona.

They gathered to discuss “How We Show Up” by Mia Birdsong, a book that suggests many of the walls that divide us are self-made and that reaching out, opening up, and “showing up” can change our lives for the better.

That alone sums up the hopes CFSA President Jenny Flynn has for a program launched just five months ago.

“We’ve been looking for ways to build community, to bring people together to talk about our community,” Flynn said. “We thought a book club might be a low-key, non-threatening place where people could talk. We built it hoping people would come, and they have. The turnouts have been amazing.”

Attendance has ranged from 35 to 60 readers each month, and the three partners in the project — CFSA, Tucson Agenda and the Tucson Tome Gnome — are beginning to see what’s possible.

The next book club gathering, scheduled for Nov. 30, will look at “Poverty, By America” by Pulitzer Prize-winning author and investigator Matthew Desmond.

“It will help set the stage for Desmond’s appearance Dec. 12 at the Fox Tucson Theatre, a fundraiser celebrating the Primavera Foundation’s 40th anniversary. Tickets are available through foxtucson.com/event/matthew-desmond.

“It’s a great sign that other organizations are already coming to us as possible partners,” Flynn said. “We’re also working with the county’s End Poverty Now initiative to do a workshop here in October. We’re already part of important conversations, and we’ve only been doing this a few months.”

Many of us read books to escape the everyday swirl we live in. The Solutions Focused Community Book Club is for those who read books to learn more about that swirl.

Book club planners are selecting books that look at community challenges and invite readers to consider possible solutions.

In June, participants discussed “I Never Thought of It That Way” by Monica Guzman. The featured book in August was “The Reading List” by Sara Nisha Adams.

“We are trying to select books that are solutions focused,” Flynn said. “Things like poverty and homelessness are not small problems. There won’t be a simple solution. But the more people who understand the issues, the better chance we might start finding some solutions. And who knows where they might come from?”

The concept of an issue-oriented book club actually grew from a seed planted last spring by Caitlin Schmidt, a former reporter for the Arizona Daily Star.

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“I had gotten a grant from the Solutions Journalism Network,” said Schmidt, who now publishes the daily newsletter Tucson Agenda. “I was looking for something fun and different to do, so I asked the Tome Gnome if he might be willing to hide some books from our book list.”

The gnome and his three assistants — Emily Walsh, Mary Ellen Flynn and Jody Hardy — readily agreed, and books were “hidden” at appropriate locations around Tucson in May. There was an informal gathering at Borderlands in June. Since then, things have, well, evolved.

“When we first started talking with Caitlin last spring, none of us knew where we were going with this,” Walsh said. “We were just going to hide some books. Then we wondered if people would want to talk about them. Before long, it just felt like a book club.”

Presenting the idea to the Community Foundation was easy. Walsh works there. She is CFSA’s Chief Operating Officer and sees Flynn almost every day.

“Here at the foundation, we’d been talking a lot about how we could create a space for more community dialogue,” Walsh said. “We wanted to create a place where people could come together and talk about things that are important.

“Then, one day when I had my Tome Gnome hat on, I thought wait … aren’t we trying to do the same thing?”

The Tucson Tome Gnome has been paying it forward by “hiding” books throughout the area the last two years. Finders are encouraged to share their prize with someone they know, and Flynn sees the book club as a natural extension of their program.

“It’s a natural next step,” Mary Ellen Flynn said. “It’s not just finding and reading a book, it’s having a chance to talk about it. This takes us beyond where we were before, and that’s an exciting thing.”

Keep an eye on cfsaz.org/events for upcoming book club dates and more information.

FOOTNOTES

Colleagues and friends will celebrate their friendship with Aurelie Sheehan at a memorial service Saturday, Oct. 14, at St. Michael’s Church, 602 N. Wilmot Road. The program will begin at 11 a.m. Sheehan, a professor at the University of Arizona since 2000, headed the Department of English for five years when she stepped down in December. She died Aug. 4 at the age of 60.

A search is now underway for an Executive Director at the Tucson Festival of Books. Melanie Morgan, who had held the post six years, resigned to take a similar position at the Sonoran Glass School.

Poet Timothy Donnelly will read from his latest collection, “Chariot,” Oct. 19 at the UA Poetry Center. The program begins at 7 p.m. For more information, visit poetry.arizona.edu.

Author Kianna Alexander will be featured at the Pima County Public Library’s annual LGBTQ+ Author Talk Oct. 22 at the Loft Cinema. The event will go from 5 to 6:30 p.m. and include a conversation between Alexander and the library’s Jessica Pryde. Alexander’s latest books are “Can’t Resist Her” and “Can’t Let Her Go.”