When the Park City High School Library reopened after years of overcrowding and construction, junior Rachel Riff launched a student-led book club. Now, she’s taking it a step further.
“I got the idea from it through our book club fundraiser that we had at the high school back in March,” Riff said on KPCW’s “Local News Hour,” Wednesday. “We invited community members to come and talk books. And a lot of people that came were older folk, and it was so much fun to discuss books with them and see all the different perspectives. So, we really want to focus on that in our intergenerational book club.”
All students and members of the Park City Senior Center are invited to participate. The book chosen for the inaugural meeting is “Remarkably Bright Creatures” by Shelby Van Pelt.
“We chose this book for a couple different reasons," she said. "The main relationship in the book is between a 70-year-old and a 30-year-old, and it's an incredible intergenerational relationship, and we wanted to kind of mimic that perspective, and we thought that would be great to do. Other things in the book include grief, family, the hardness of life, and it's just, it's such a good book. Also, the movie's coming out, and we're hoping on having a watch party at the high school for our book club.”
Park City Senior Center Executive Director Trason Dixon says many center members have already read the book, and several copies are available to borrow at the center.
“It's incredible what the folks from the high school have been able to put together, and their enthusiasm is incredibly heartwarming,” Dixon said. “So many of our members at the Senior Center are just ecstatic about this new program that we're putting on being able to invite younger folks. So often we get kind of isolated among people within our own age range, and then you no longer get the perspectives of other generations."
The intergenerational book club will meet at the Park City Senior Center on Tuesday, May 26 at 3 p.m.
With the school year coming to an end, Riff says the club will pause after its inaugural meeting and resume in the next school year.
