Need a summer read? Join this Great Lakes -wide book club

By KAYLA NELSEN
Capital News Service

LANSING — Readers across the Great Lakes states and Canada this year will participate in a basin-wide book club hosted by the Library of the Great Lakes.

From now until September 2025, participants will read Michigan author Sally Cole-Misch’s The Best Part of Us and Ontario author Joanne Robertson’s children’s book, The Water Walker. 

The inaugural Great Lakes Great Read program is similar to community reading programs like Michigan Reads. This time the invitation is extended beyond state lines to the entire region.

 The Best Part of Us (She Writes Press, $17.95) takes place on an inland lake near Lake Huron and deals with family history, heritage and place-based attachment.. 

Cole-Misch, who lives in Bloomfield Township,  said her background in environmental communication taught her that story-telling is a powerful educational tool. 

Inger Schultz, a co-founder of the nonprofit Library of the Great Lakes, said, “We’re working to develop a Great Lakes identity. 

“We’re asking what it means to live in the Great Lakes, how we can connect people to the water and to each other,” Schultz said. “Someone in Buffalo could be connected with someone in Milwaukee because they’re reading the same thing. It’s one big book club.”

Cole-Misch said communication through story-sharing is an impactful environmental education strategy.

“Escaping into another world helps you emotionally connect with other people, other places and other experiences,” said Cole-Misch, an environmental journalist and former public affairs officer for the U.S./Canada International Joint Commission.

 “It broadens your horizons. Novels really touch people in a whole different emotional way.”

Her novel explores the intersection between family, historical culture and the environment. It takes place on a Canadian inland lake north of Lake Huron – a setting with which many Great Lakes readers are familiar.

“So many residents in the Great Lakes region enjoy family cottages on inland lakes,” Cole-Misch said. “Whether you’re on a Great Lake or an inland lake, you’re still part of the Great Lakes region and you have similar topography. I felt that would be a relatable place.”

The goal of the book is to tell a story that presents the intergenerational value of nature, Cole-Misch said.

States in the region have long been known as part of the manufacturing “Blue Belt” of the country. An identity shift within the region is necessary to gain greater appreciation for the watershed, Cole-Misch said.

“The more that we collectively see the value of the lakes to our region and the gifts that they give us, the more that we will see ourselves that way, rather than as the leading industrial sector of the country,” Cole-Misch said.

The Water Walker (Second Story Press, $15) tells the story of the intersection between European and Indigenous heritage in protecting the Great Lakes.

Robertson’s children’s book is an illustrated true story of an Ojibwe family in the region. The characters reflect Robertson’s Anishinaabe and European heritage. As a baby, the author was adopted into a French and German family in Canada. 

The Library of the Great Lakes was founded in 2016 to connect local libraries on a foundation of watershed education.Schultz said, “The concept for the Library of the Great Lakes was to become a nexus where li

brarians across the region could talk to each other and share materials.”

The library will supply programming ideas and materials to to accompany reading the two selected books. On Sept. 25, it will host a webinar discussion with Cole-Misch and Robertson in collaboration with the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Two additional webinars with Cole-Misch and Robertson will take place in October.

Schultz said, “We live in such an amazing region of water and natural resources that are just going to become more and more valuable and threatened in the years to come. People are going to want our water. I felt it was urgent to try and connect with people to help them enhance their understanding and value of the lakes.”

“We are all one community and are crazily diverse,” Schultz said. “There are so many histories in the Great Lakes region and this is who we are. We wouldn’t be here without the water – it’s something to be cherished.”

Kayla Nelsen writes for Great Lakes Echo.