In an effort to engage the diverse Grand Valley State University community in thoughtful discussion, the undergraduate research and integrative learning program has selected Isabel Wilkerson’s Pulizter Prize winning book titled “The Warmth of Other Suns” for the 2012 Community Reading Project.

Director of undergraduate research and integrative learning, Susan Mendoza, said the Community Reading Project is a one book, one community program for GVSU.

“Our ultimate goal is to bring the community together, regardless of status, to engage in deep dialogue about relevant real world issues,” Mendoza said.

In the past, books selected for the Community Reading Project have been narratives, Mendoza said, but the “The Warmth of Other Suns” is the very first historical non-fiction book to be selected for the project, which is now in its seventh year.

The book focuses on three young people migrating North and West during the America’s Great Migration, when six million African Americans fled the South in search of a new life.

Wilkerson tells the stories of Ida Mae Brandon Gladney, George Swanson Starling and Robert Joseph Pershing Foster, additionally interweaving the personal accounts of 1,200 people Wilkerson interviewed about their experience in the Great Migration.

Mendoza said they tend to select books outside of the mainstream due to topic or content, dealing with issues or themes that are relevant but often over looked.

“The topic of the Great Migration is one that many students and community members have not been exposed to although it has had a greater impact on US politics, economics and culture that the Dust Bowl Migrations,” Mendoza said.

The Community Reading Project is sponsored by the Brooks College of Interdisciplinary Studies, University Libraries and University Bookstores.

For more information about the Community Reading Project and “The Warmth of Other Suns,” visit http://www.gvsu.edu/read/.

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