This Thursday, State and Federal offices across the country will be closed in observance of our newest official federal holiday, Juneteenth! 160 years ago on June 19th, 1865- 250,000 enslaved people were finally emancipated two years and a war after Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. Despite this, Jim Crow laws continued until the mid-1960s, another hundred years after the liberation. Today’s Book Club Spotlight, The Nickel Boys, (also a 2024 movie) takes place during the tumultuous 1960s at the end of the Civil Rights Movement inside of a Florida reform school. The 2019 book by author Colson Whitehead won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, making Whitehead one of four authors to have won the award twice. 

There are three versions of Elwood Curtis. The young, intelligent Elwood dreams of attending college and making something of himself beyond his segregated Tallahassee home. The Elwood of the authoritarian Nickel Academy Reform School, is a righteous young man striving to follow the words and ideals of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. But the Academy is stronger and crueler than love can conquer; torturing him and his peers to either submission or death. Finally, there is the Elwood who escapes and lives on. A haunted man, trying to find his way in the world with nothing but his name. How was this goodhearted boy with a bright future ahead of him sentenced to such a life? The truth lies with the bodies of young men hidden on the grounds of Nickel.

The Nickel Boys is, unfortunately, based on a real reform school in Florida that was shut down in 2011. The Dozier School for Boys, much like Residential Schools, was a state-sanctioned way to force children into submission and assimilation under the guise of civility and patriotism. After the school was closed there was an outpouring of stories from former students who told of the horror faced there, including beatings, sexual assault, and murder. Dubbed “America’s Storyteller”, Whitehead doesn’t shy away from our tragic history, and his influence in writing The Nickel Boys came from a need to make sense of the world and fight back against the “larger culture of impunity”. Book Club groups can discuss the influences of thought and worldviews found in the novel, especially in how they play out between our main characters Elwood and Turner as they must adapt to the school’s barbaric rule of law and its lasting consequences. How do we cope in a world without justice?

Further Resources on The Dozier School for Boys:

• The Official White House Boys website
  • Run by survivors of the school

• “For Their Own Good”
  • An article detailing stories from survivors 

• The Reformatory by Tananarive Due 
  • A 2023 fictionalized novel about the school

Lincoln Juneteenth Events (2025)

• 6/19: Legal Fight for Freedom: Student Research Panel and Keynote Address – UNL
• 6/21: Malone Center Juneteenth Event

To read more about Juneteenth and related topics, The National Museum of African American History & Culture has curated a “Juneteenth Reading List”, which features titles from our Book Club Collection!

If you’re interested in requesting The Nickel Boys for your book club, you can find the Request Form here. There are 7 copies. (A librarian must request items)

Whitehead. Colson. The Nickel Boys. Doubleday. (2019)

A muse is a powerful creature. Love and praise may fall on deaf ears to an unrealized man. But whisper tales of mortality, fleeting beauty, and adoration, the desperation of the damned will overtake them. As it overtakes the young man, he, in a pit of panic, pledges his soul so the burden of time will be placed upon his mirrored self in portraiture. Young Dorian Gray. A beautiful muse and love of painter Basil Hallward, and the manipulated mentee of the hedonistic fast-talking Lord Henry, tears through the polite society of London, leaving all who approach ruined in his wake. While his portrait decays in his attic, exposing the monstrous degradation of his soul.

To the people of the Victorian era, perception was everything. The women had to be beautiful, charming, but unobtrusive. The men, stoic masculine providers with no time for frivolities or deviant behaviors. And Dorian Gray is the perfect young Victorian man. He is beautiful, charming, and has all the merits his class dictates. His impressionable mind is warped by voyeuristic Aesthete Lord Henry, into an existential crisis that leads to selfishness and cruelty all in the pursuit of pleasure. This is what made The Picture of Dorian Gray so subversive in its time. It held a mirror to society, forcing it to look at its faults and secrets, and even at Wilde’s beloved Aestheticism Movement. Book Club Groups can explore the themes of love, art, beauty, and influence through each unique character carefully crafted by Wilde, and the conflicting realities held within them. To help guide discussion, our copies include an introduction by Penguin Classics Editor, Robert Mighall, and a backmatter of notations to provide the modern reader with further context and knowledge for the novel.

Oscar Wilde in a letter to Ralph Payne (1894):

I am so glad you like that strange coloured book of mine: it contains much of me in it. Basil Hallward is what I think I am Lord Henry what the world thinks of me: Dorian what I would like to be – in other ages, perhaps.

If you’re interested in requesting The Picture of Dorian Gray for your book club, you can find the Request Form here. There are 16 copies. (A librarian must request items)

Wilde. Oscar. The Picture of Dorian Gray. Penguin Classics. (1891)

Five-year-old Jack lives with Ma in Room. There, they play, learn, brush their teeth, exercise, and look out Skylight. Every night, he goes to sleep in Wardrobe while a mysterious man comes to visit. Ma doesn’t seem to like Old Nick, but Jack likes it when he brings them new things like clothes, food, and sometimes candy! To Jack, Room is all there is, and he wants everything to stay the same forever. But now that Jack is 5 years old, his curiosity is harder to contain, he gets in fights with Ma, and Old Nick gets so upset that their power is off for days! Maybe he should have just stayed 4. Ma is changing too. She decides it’s time to tell Jack a story, a real story this time, about a place called Outside. And about a plan where Jack must be brave, get to Outside, and save Ma.

Engaging for Mature Teen and Adult readers, Room is a sociological exploration of what makes our reality, and the persistence of the human race to thrive against all odds. From discussing faith, the sensationalism of tragedy, and the spirit of motherhood, love is at the forefront of this novel. Narrated by Jack’s unusual and childish voice, Room’s language will take a second to get used to and is not for everyone. We follow his malleable young mind as it opens up and tries to process this place that was previously far beyond his understanding. But once the reader is enveloped in his unique world, it’s hard to leave and return to Outside.  

Room was adapted by Emma Donoghue into an academy award winning movie of the same name starring Brie Larson and Jacob Tremblay.

If you’re interested in requesting Room for your book club, you can find the Request Form here. There are 11 copies and an Audio CD. (A librarian must request items)

Donoghue, Emma. Room. Little, Brown and Company. (2010)

“We arrive in the blizzard of 1993, coming from rice paddies, mango trees, and the sun to February in the Empire State.” At three years old, Ký Lý and her family of 6 are sent to the United States, as part of a humanitarian effort to relocate South Vietnamese prisoners of war. Though she doesn’t quite understand it, Ly’s father was one of those men, confined in the Viet Cong re-education camps of torture and indoctrination. However, America was not the fresh start they were sold. The family struggles in poverty, resorting to endless nights of sewing garments in their cramped and dirty apartment to barely make ends meet. As she grows, Ly recognizes the dour circumstances around her, and her parent’s ceaseless effort to create a life for their children- free from the horrors of the past. In an attempt to protect her family from more hardship, Ly learns to hide the cruelty of others from her parents and to hide herself as well.

For Adult Book Club Groups who are fans of moving family memoirs like Educated and The Glass Castle, House of Sticks is a story of filial piety, and how the trauma of our parents move within us and propel our lives. How pressures of helping support a family, and neglect can weigh on a child into their adult years. Though Tran spends much of her memoir away from her family, they are a part of her and influence every step she takes. She was especially her traumatized father, but her ability for compassion and understanding helped bridge the long-worn gaps between them. Reading stories like House of Sticks can open us up to new perspectives and peoples. When we celebrate the melting pot of the United States, like with AAPI month, it’s important to take the time and learn about our history together. Even before we were a country, Asians, Pacific Islanders, and Native Hawaiians have been a part of our legacy.

If you’re interested in requesting House of Sticks for your book club, you can find the Request Form here. There are 8 copies and an Audio CD. (A librarian must request items)

Tran, Ly. House of Sticks. Scribner. 2022.

It’s National Library Week once again, and as always, the best way to support your library is to use your library! At the Commission, we provide Book Club Kits, which are available for any public library or school in Nebraska to use. We have a wide selection of titles available and reading the Book Club Spotlight is a great way to get to know our incredible collection! Today’s Book Club Spotlight, Other Words for Home by Jasmine Warga, has been listed as a notable book for the Association for Library Service to Children, a Forbes Best Kids Book of 2019, and a Newbery Honor Book! Half-Jordanian, Warga was inspired by her community to write a story about how love and generosity can transcend country borders through the eyes of a young girl, arriving in America.

Jude is an average girl who enjoys her peaceful and fun life on the coast in Syria. She loves running around with her friend Fatima, and visiting her dad at his store as tourists bustle in and out. Whip-smart and confident, Jude often gets in trouble for talking too much, constantly being told to “skety!” (hush!) Her older brother, Issa, fights with her dad a lot about the future of their country, and Issa even moves out so he can better focus on helping others. Suddenly, their home isn’t so safe anymore. Jude and her pregnant mother move across the Atlantic Ocean to stay with family in far-flung Cincinnati, Ohio. There, Jude has to deal with all the normal middle school problems, but in a whole different country! She makes friends, learns English in her ESL class, and even auditions for the school play! It’s hard being the new kid, and here in the United States, she’s suddenly not so normal anymore. 

Being from Syria, Jude’s first language is Arabic, and to express the expressive and lyrical Arabic language in English, Other Words for Home is written in free verse – meaning that it is written with poetic intent and metaphor that flows rhythmically but doesn’t have to rhyme. This can be a great introduction to readers learning about the different ways to write and tell stories. All ages of Book Club Groups can discuss how even though Jude faces difficulty in her new country, she stays true to herself. Warga hopes young readers will be inspired by Jude’s big dreams, confidence, and love for her culture. Like other middle schoolers, Jude is trying to navigate growing up like anyone else, learning to fit in and find where to call “home”. 

If you’re interested in requesting Other Words for Home for your book club, you can find the Request Form here. There are 10 copies. (A librarian must request items)

Warga, Jasmine. Other Words for Home. Harper Collins. 2019.

“Mad Honey”- a sweet comfort turned poison by the pollinators we thought we could trust. In a small New Hampshire town, beekeeper Olivia McAfee has worked hard to keep her teenage son away from the world’s poison, including her abusive ex-husband. But now Asher’s girlfriend, Lily, is dead, and all fingers point towards him. All the while, Lily’s own story falls back through time, from the day she died to her first meeting with Asher. It was true love. Sure, he could get angry, but it was love- wasn’t it? In the present, Olivia must work through the pain of seeing her child accused of murder, not knowing if she can trust the boy she raised, while mourning for the tender girl they lost.  

Told in dual timelines, Mad Honey shines in one cohesive text, drawn together by the dangerous reality of womanhood. The reader, like Olivia, goes back and forth throughout the novel, unsure of Asher’s innocence, scared that he’s not. But will the truth change the reality of Lily’s fate? A suspenseful novel for mature young adults and adult Book Club Groups, Mad Honey asks how much our identities and the past shape us. And how far would we go to defend a loved one. For fans of Picoult, her recurring character Jacob McAfee from The Pact, Nineteen Minutes, and Salem Falls makes an appearance as the family’s whip-smart lawyer. 

If you’re interested in requesting Mad Honey for your book club, you can find the Request Form here. There are 5 copies. (A librarian must request items)

Picoult, Jodi and Jennifer Finney Boylan. Mad Honey. Ballantine Books, 2022.