Read Between the Ravines

 

Read Between the Ravines

Two Communities, One Nonfiction Book

Lake Forest Library and Lake Bluff Public Library are proud to present our joint nonfiction reading program called Read Between the Ravines. This Two Communities, One Nonfiction Book program brings together Lake Forest and Lake Bluff with the purpose of enhancing nonfiction literacy and inspiring discussion around real-world issues.

Read Between the Ravines 2025

 

"Turner...delivers an immersive and often heartbreaking portrait of life in the historic Bronzeville section of Chicago...By turns beautiful, tragic, and inspiring, this is a powerful testament to the bonds of sisterhood and the importance of understanding the conditions that shape a person’s life choices.” –Publisher’s Weekly

"Turner’s candid memoir of entwined yet divergent lives is a probing inquiry into fate, frailty, tenacity, and ultimately, redemption." –Booklist

"Turner shares Debra's and Kim's stories with aplomb, celebrating the bright moments of their lives while honestly depicting their suffering. She has a stellar ability to present the personalities of her loved ones, especially the women in her life. This memoir is a compelling testament to the power of women's relationships." –Library Journal

 

 

About the Book

They were three Black girls. Dawn, tall and studious; her sister, Kim, younger by three years and headstrong as they come; and her best friend, Debra, already prom-queen pretty by third grade. They bonded—fervently and intensely in that unique way of little girls—as they roamed the concrete landscape of Bronzeville, a historic neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side, the destination of hundreds of thousands of Black folks who fled the ravages of the Jim Crow South.

These third-generation daughters of the Great Migration come of age in the 1970s, in the warm glow of the recent civil rights movement. It has offered them a promise, albeit nascent and fragile, that they will have more opportunities, rights, and freedoms than any generation of Black Americans in history. Their working-class, striving parents are eager for them to realize this hard-fought potential.

But the girls have much more immediate concerns: hiding under the dining room table and eavesdropping on grown folks’ business; collecting secret treasures; and daydreaming about their futures—Dawn and Debra, doctors, Kim a teacher. For a brief, wondrous moment the girls are all giggles and dreams and promises of “friends forever.” And then fate intervenes, first slowly and then dramatically, sending them careening in wildly different directions. There’s heartbreak, loss, displacement, and even murder. Dawn struggles to make sense of the shocking turns that consume her sister and her best friend, all the while asking herself a simple but profound question: Why?

Three Girls from Bronzeville is a deeply personal memoir that chronicles Dawn’s attempt to find answers. It’s at once a celebration of sisterhood and friendship, a testimony to the unique struggles of Black women, and a tour-de-force about the complex interplay of race, class, and opportunity—and how those forces shape our lives and our capacity for resilience and redemption.

Three Girls from Bronzeville was named a Notable Book of 2021 by The New York Times Book Review and a Best Book of 2021 by The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, Library Journal, and others. The book was featured on several national news programs including NPR’s All Things Considered. The book also won the inaugural Pattis Family Foundation Chicago Book Award in 2022, an award given annually to the author of a book in any genre that best transforms public understanding of the Windy City’s history and its people.

Go to the Lake Forest Library catalog to borrow "Three Girls from Bronzeville" by Dawn Turner

Go to the Lake Bluff Public Library catalog to borrow "Three Girls from Bronzeville" by Dawn Turner

 

 

About the Author

Dawn Turner is an award-winning journalist and novelist. A former columnist and reporter for the Chicago Tribune, Turner spent a decade and a half writing about race, politics, and people whose stories are often dismissed and ignored. Turner, who served as a 2017 and 2018 juror for the Pulitzer Prize in commentary, has written commentary for The Washington Post, PBS NewsHour, CBS Sunday Morning News show, NPR’s Morning Edition show, the Chicago Tonight show, and elsewhere. She has been a regular commentator for several national and international news programs and has reported from around the world in  countries such as Australia, China, France, and Ghana. Turner spent the 2014–2015 school year as a Nieman Journalism fellow at Harvard University. In 2018, she served as a fellow and journalist-in-residence at the University of Chicago Institute of Politics. In 2018, she established the Dawn M. Turner and Kim D. Turner Endowed Scholarship in Media at her alma mater, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In addition to her memoir, Three Girls from Bronzeville: A Uniquely American Memoir of Race, Fate, and Sisterhood, she is the author of two novels, Only Twice I’ve Wished for Heaven and An Eighth of August.

 

Photo credit: Leicester Mitchell

 

About the Interviewer

Toya Wolfe earned an MFA in Creative Writing at Columbia College Chicago. Her debut novel, Last Summer on State Street, is the recipient of The Pattis Family Foundation Chicago Book Award, was a finalist for the PEN/Open Book Award, winner of the Friends of American Writers Adult Literature Award for Fiction, winner of the Chicago Writers Association Book of the Year Award in Traditional Fiction, and selected by four-time NBA Champion Stephen Curry for his August 2022 “Underrated” Book Club.

 

Events & Discussion

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Join Us for Upcoming Events

This event is in the "Adults" group.
This event is in the "Teens" group.

Black Artists of Chicago

2:00pm - 3:00pm
Adults, Teens
Registration

YouTube: "Three Girls From Bronzevile" Traces Divergent Paths

Websites

Read stories of the African American Experience in Lake Forest
from the Lake Forest Lake Bluff History Center.

The History of Bronzeville
University of Chicago

Take a Virtual Walking Tour of
Chicago's Bronzeville Area

Podcast

Listen to the
NPR Interview "Memoir explores how racism and violence impacted 'Three Girls From Bronzeville.'"

Thank You to Our Partners

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