REGISTRATION REQUIRED. Join us for an outdoor book club that focuses on our natural world. We discuss our all-time favorite nature titles, both fiction and non-fiction. The book club meets at parks throughout St. Johns County, practically in your own backyard! This month we will be meeting in Canopy Shores Park and will be reading “Ecology of a Cracker Childhood,” by Janisse Ray.

Ray grew up in a junkyard along U.S. Highway 1, hidden from Florida-bound travelers by hulks of old cars. In language at once colloquial, elegiac, and informative, Ray redeems her home and her people, while also cataloging the source of her childhood hope: the Edenic longleaf pine forests, where orchids grow amid wiregrass at the feet of widely spaced, lofty trees. Today, the forests exist in fragments, cherished and threatened, and the South of her youth is gradually being overtaken by golf courses and suburban development. A contemporary classic, Ecology of a Cracker Childhood is a clarion call to protect the cultures and ecologies of every childhood.

This event is free and open to the public, but registration is required. If the weather is sunny, please bring your own camp chair for sitting out under the trees. If it’s rainy, we’ll be sitting in the park pavilion. Feel free to bring your own snacks & beverages! Please notify us at least 3 days in advance if you should need a sign language interpreter. The book is available in e-audiobook format on the library’s Hoopla platform. If you have questions or would like to request a print copy of the book, please contact Amy at aackerman@sjcfl.us or 904.827.6934.

This book club is a partnership between the St. Johns County Public Library System and the St. Johns County Parks & Recreation Department.  Some materials are supplied by the Friends of the Main Library St. Augustine.