The WAM Book Club is excited to announce our brand new book selections. Our guided book tours offer valuable insight and discussion of museum artworks that correspond with the contents and authors of selected titles.

Our spring book choices share meaning and connection with Baggage Claims, a new exhibition that grapples with themes of immigration, global mobility, and the physical and psychological meaning of “baggage.” Join us in reading The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See, The Displaced: Refugee Writers on Refugee Lives edited by Viet Thanh Nguyen, and The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir by Kao Kalia Yang.

The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See tells a story set in a remote mountain village of China, where Li-yan and her family has lived and farmed tea for generations, until a stranger arrives and disrupts routine and ritual. The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane confronts tradition and the special bond between mothers and daughters in this powerful story of love and longing.

The Displaced: Refugee Writers on Refugee Lives edited by Viet Thanh Nguyen tells personal stories of the refugee-crisis firsthand. A diverse collection of lives and experiences, 17 refugee writers share their uncertainty, trauma, resilience, and grappling of identity in their own written essays.

The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir by local author and writer Kao Kalia Yang is a "love letter" to her grandmother, whose spirit guided her family through their imprisonment in Laos and immigration to Minnesota. Yang currently resides in St. Paul, MN.

Upon reading one of the selected titles, WAM invites you and your group to schedule a custom book tour. Our tour guides will provide a unique look into Baggage Claims and reveal connections and correlations between the book and exhibition artwork.

Enjoy your read! To schedule a guided tour ($30 fee), complete a guided tour form.