Read Brave Saint Paul

Brave Readers:

Every summer, my team and I begin the challenging and joyful task of selecting our Read Brave book for the upcoming year – the one story we invite all of Saint Paul to read together.

There is no standard formula for how we do this work yet we always begin with the guiding question, “What will it mean next year to read bravely in Saint Paul?”

Each year, we hear from many of you about how important, timely, relevant, and personal our selected book, author, and topic are to you, your family, and our community. You thank us for how the book and author helped you see something new, or how it reflected your own experiences. And sometimes you ask us, “How did you pick the perfect book?”

When we selected Lobizona by Romina Garber in the summer of 2025, we knew it was brave and important to select a book about an undocumented immigrant living in the United States, but we could not have imagined what it would mean to launch it in Minnesota in January of 2026.

Much of Lobizona takes place in a magical realm unlike our own, and the book begins in a world very close to the one we are all living in and fighting for right now.

We offer Read Brave and Lobizona this year as both a mirror to our current reality and a window to the experiences of others. We offer it as a doorway to connection and empathy. And as one of many tools we can use to build and strengthen community.

SPPL invites you, our beloved community, to take time over the next month, to join us in reading Lobizona and being in community together – in-person or virtually – as we hear from the author and young people on the evening of March 5.

Also it’s a great book – I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Take good, good care.