Waldo Reads Together 

2024

Connecting you with community through reading & discussion.

Featured Book

The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store invites readers to enter the bustle and diversity of the Golden Age of Pottsville, PA in the 1930s. In the neighborhood grocery store, a mix of Jewish and Black neighbors come together into a mishmash of opportunity and marginalism.  MacBride veers with irreverence and humor among the realities of immigration, discrimination, entrepreneurship, culture, and capitalism.

Described by the Washington Post as a “vibrant, love-affirming novel that bounds over any difference that claims to separate us,” this fifth novel of McBride promises to stir hearts and minds of all readers.



James McBride

James McBride is an award-winning author, musician, and screenwriter. His landmark memoir, The Color of Water, published in 1996, has sold millions of copies and spent more than two years on the New York Times bestseller list.  McBride has toured as a saxophonist sideman with jazz legend Jimmy Scott, among other musicians. A native New Yorker and a graduate of New York City public schools, McBride has received degrees in music composition and journalism. In 2015, he was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Obama “for humanizing the complexities of discussing race in America.” He holds several honorary doctorates and is currently a Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York University.


Registration  opens @ Noon, March 11

Facilitated discussion sessions (both live and via Zoom) will be offered on various days and times of day in the first weeks of April. 

Register here--Apologies! We've been having technical difficulties with registration, which as of 3/21/24 seem fixed.  However, if you experience challenges, please go to registration page to review session  choices, then send your choices directly by email to dpendleton@rsu71.org.  


 Where to Get Your Book

To be added to our mailing list or FMI contact Literacy Volunteers at www.waldoreads.com or dpendleton@rsu71.org

“One Book, One Community,” created by the American Library Association, is a book discussion program that offers a community-wide read of one designated book over the same period of time with discussions and related activities about the book’s themes.  Waldo Reads Together is our local version of this program, offered in 2020 for the first time through the initiative of Aging Well in Waldo County and partner organizations to help alleviate some social isolation and connect community members.  The initiative has since been led by Literacy Volunteers of Waldo County, in partnership with Belfast Free Library, and a committee of community members.