Everyone’s Reading is a community wide reading program sponsored by metro Detroit public libraries in Oakland and Wayne counties. Now in its fifteenth year, Everyone’s Reading promotes community dialog through the shared experience of reading and discussing the same book.
In 1937 Shanghai—the Paris of Asia—twenty-one-year-old Pearl Chin and her younger sister, May, are having the time of their lives. Both are beautiful, modern, and carefree—until the day their father tells them that he has gambled away their wealth. To repay his debts, he must sell the girls as wives to suitors who have traveled from Los Angeles to find Chinese brides. As Japanese bombs fall on their beloved city, Pearl and May set out on the journey of a lifetime, from the Chinese countryside to the shores of America. Though inseparable best friends, the sisters also harbor petty jealousies and rivalries. Along the way they make terrible sacrifices, face impossible choices, and confront a devastating, life-changing secret, but through it all the two heroines of this astounding new novel hold fast to who they are—Shanghai girls.
This year for the first time, we are partnering with the Detroit Institute of Arts and its Art + Authors program. The DIA will host an author appearance April 12 and two book discussions April 15 and 16. More information about Art + Authors may be found on the DIA website.
