Join us for a discussion of Beartown by Fredrik Backman. Book copies are available across from the first-floor circulation desk for a month-long checkout. The book is also available through OverDrive as an ebook (click here to access) or as an audiobook (click here to access).  New members are always welcome!

This program will be held online using a communication app/website called Zoom. Registration required with an email address. Participants will receive an email with the log-in information for Zoom.

Library programs are open and beneficial to all. We invite people with physical and/or cognitive disabilities to attend any of our activities and will strive to support individual needs. If you need accommodations to participate, please contact one of our Inclusion Coordinators, Matt Krueger and/or Amy Holland, one week prior to the program.

Book description: By the lake in Beartown is an old ice rink, and in that ice rink Kevin, Amat, Benji, and the rest of the town’s junior ice hockey team are about to compete in the national semi-finals—and they actually have a shot at winning. All the hopes and dreams of this place now rest on the shoulders of a handful of teenage boys.

Under that heavy burden, the match becomes the catalyst for a violent act that will leave a young girl traumatized and a town in turmoil. Accusations are made and, like ripples on a pond, they travel through all of Beartown.

This is a story about a town and a game, but even more about loyalty, commitment, and the responsibilities of friendship; the people we disappoint even though we love them; and the decisions we make every day that come to define us. In this story of a small forest town, Fredrik Backman has found the entire world.