Online
Northeast (Virtual) Book Group
Thursday, November 11, 2021 7 p.m. – 8 p.m.
Join us for an online book group discussion of this month’s title, The Leavers by Lisa Ko.
Read at your own pace and then join us at 7pm on Thursday, November 11th for a lively digital discussion. A link will be sent to the e-mail address associated with your library card one day prior to the event.
The Leavers is available for immediate download for free via Hoopla in eBook format. It is also available for download via OverDrive.
Download Now ➜ Direct Link to Title on Hoopla
Download Now ➜ Direct Link to Title on OverDrive
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Lisa Ko’s powerful debut, The Leavers, is the winner of the 2016 PEN/Bellwether Prize for Fiction, awarded by Barbara Kingsolver for a novel that addresses issues of social justice.
One morning, Deming Guo’s mother, Polly, an undocumented Chinese immigrant, goes to her job at a nail salon—and never comes home. No one can find any trace of her.
With his mother gone, eleven-year-old Deming is left mystified and bereft. Eventually adopted by a pair of well-meaning white professors, Deming is moved from the Bronx to a small town upstate and renamed Daniel Wilkinson. But far from all he’s ever known, Daniel struggles to reconcile his adoptive parents’ desire that he assimilate with his memories of his mother and the community he left behind.
Told from the perspective of both Daniel—as he grows into a directionless young man—and Polly, Ko’s novel gives us one of fiction’s most singular mothers. Loving and selfish, determined and frightened, Polly is forced to make one heartwrenching choice after another.
Set in New York and China, The Leavers is a vivid examination of borders and belonging. It’s a moving story of how a boy comes into his own when everything he loves is taken away, and how a mother learns to live with the mistakes of the past.