Transformation Book Club

About the Program

The WVU Extension Resilience and Recovery Taskforce is a group of faculty from Family and Community Development; 4-H and Youth Development; and Agriculture and Natural Resources who are working collaboratively to build community resilience through social justice and inclusion.

In spring 2022, the group launched a statewide book club focusing on racial justice to educate faculty, community members and others, while also creating meaningful conversations around the topic.

How Can I Get Involved?

Participants select from two books: “The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration,” which chronicles the decades-long migration of black citizens who fled the south for northern and western cities in search of a better life. The book is lauded for its historical detail and accuracy written in a scholarly fashion while remaining readable. The second book, “Life Becomes A River: Dispatches from the Border,” is a New York Times Best Seller that follows Francisco Cantú, a member of the Border Patrol. Plagued by a growing awareness of his complicity in a dehumanizing enterprise, he abandons the Patrol for civilian life, where he learns the full extent of the violence the border wreaks, on both sides of the line.

This book club is supported by a WVU Transform This! Challenge grant, and participants received a free book.

Join Us for Future Discussions

In addition to the books noted above, WVU Extension county-based faculty members, staff and others regularly host statewide book clubs on a variety of topics affecting our West Virginia communities. These discussions provide varying perspectives that encourage people to explore and discover personal meanings of a text through their interaction with fellow participants.

Are you interested in joining one of our community book clubs? For more information, contact WVU Extension Agent and Associate Professor Ami Cook.

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