VB Reads...Motherhood By the Book

Motherhood by the Book is led by Claire, VB staffer, mother, and grandmother.

The book group meets on the second Sunday of every month at 2pm in the Readings Gallery at Village Books, for an hour of spirited discussion of books that celebrate the trials, tribulations, and rewards of motherhood, and what it means to be a mother. This group is by no means exclusive to moms with kids still at home. We read fiction and non-fiction, older and newer titles, all with the theme of Motherhood. Join us!

Sunday, March 12, 2pm  

All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley's Sack, a Black Family Keepsake by Tiya Miles
 
In 1850s South Carolina, an enslaved woman named Rose faced a crisis: the imminent sale of her daughter Ashley. Thinking quickly, she packed a cotton bag for her with a few items, and, soon after, the nine-year-old girl was separated from her mother and sold. Decades later, Ashley’s granddaughter Ruth embroidered this family history on the sack in spare, haunting language. 
 
Historian Tiya Miles carefully traces these women’s faint presence in archival records, and, where archives fall short, she turns to objects, art, and the environment to write a singular history of the experience of slavery, and the uncertain freedom afterward, in the United States. All That She Carried is a poignant story of resilience and love passed down against steep odds. It honors the creativity and resourcefulness of people who preserved family ties when official systems refused to do so, and it serves as a visionary illustration of how to reconstruct and recount their stories today