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A Most Beautiful Thing Book Discussion (Virtual)

Read the book, then meet the author!

Join us as we discuss this year's Meet the Author title, A Most Beautiful Thing by Arshay Cooper. 

In this deeply personal book, the author describes his life growing up in the 1990’s on Chicago’s West Side. In a neighborhood mostly known through stereotypes and bleak statistics, he lived in a one-bedroom apartment with his three siblings and single mother, a recovering drug addict. As a teenager, Mr. Cooper attended Manley High School, where less than 50 percent of the senior class graduated and only 10 percent matriculated to college.   As he witnessed murders and dead bodies on the streets and saw a world filled with drug dealers and gang rivalry, he felt “like God existed everywhere but here.” Mr. Cooper’s life was forever altered, however, when a Chicago-based coach began recruiting Manley students for a new rowing team. With great skepticism, Mr. Cooper and a handful of classmates, some from rival gangs, joined the team. Together, they rewrote their futures and transformed the sport by becoming the first all-Black high school crew team in the country.

Copies of the book are available at the library and ebook versions available for checkout through Digital Library of Illinois or the Libby app on your device. 

Registration will close two hours before the program begins and registrants will receive a link to join shortly thereafter.

Please email community@wilmettelibrary.info with any questions about how to access the program via Zoom.

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