The Community Foundation for Southern Arizona is teaming up again with Tome Gnome, Tucson Agenda, and an excellent panel of local experts to host the eighth Solutions-Focused Community Book Club!

This book club aims to bring together interested community members from all walks of life to bond over a shared desire to make our community better for all – and be inspired by a shared reading experience!

When: July 25, 2024 | 5:30 to 7:00 PM MST
Where: Community Foundation Campus
Book: True Biz by Sara Novic

Fragrance can be an access barrier! To help make the Solutions-Focused Community Book Club accessible to participants for whom chemicals or fragrances are an access barrier, we request that you come fragrance-free. Please refrain from wearing any scented products or washing with them. This includes clothing that has been laundered with fragranced detergent or fabric-softening products.

Please RVSP using the form below. Light refreshments will be provided.


True Biz by Sara Novic

True biz? The students at the River Valley School for the Deaf just want to hook up, pass their history finals, and have politicians, doctors, and their parents stop telling them what to do with their bodies. This revelatory novel plunges readers into the halls of a residential school for the deaf, where they’ll meet Charlie, a rebellious transfer student who’s never met another deaf person before; Austin, the school’s golden boy, whose world is rocked when his baby sister is born hearing; and February, the hearing headmistress, a CODA (child of deaf adult(s)) who is fighting to keep her school open and her marriage intact, but might not be able to do both. As a series of crises both personal and political threaten to unravel each of them, Charlie, Austin, and February find their lives inextricable from one another—and changed forever.

This is a story of sign language and lip-reading, disability and civil rights, isolation and injustice, first love and loss, and, above all, great persistence, daring, and joy. Absorbing and assured, idiosyncratic and relatable, this is an unforgettable journey into the Deaf community and a universal celebration of human connection.