This summer the Iowa City Senior Center and Iowa City Public Library are partnering to present Stories Between Generations, a program that connects local seniors and school-aged children through a shared reading and letter exchange experience. Think part book club, part pen pal program, all community!
Participants will choose a book from the following list of 10 titles exploring identity, justice, belonging and resilience. (Titles with youth and adult editions are differentiated with an asterisk): Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson; Freewater by Amina Luqman-Dawson; A High Five for Glenn Burke by Phil Bildner; How to Change Everything by Naomi Klein*; Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai; The Parker Inheritance by Varian Johnson; Rolling Warrior and Being Heumann by Judith Heumann*; Seen and Unseen by Elizabeth Partridge; Stamped by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi*; The Sum of Us by Heather McGhee.*
A senior and a young person who have each selected the same book will be paired together as pen pals. Each will be provided with a free copy of the selected book to keep. The two will then exchange at least two letters over the course of the summer about what they’re reading, what’s connecting and what they want the other person to know about their reading experience.
An optional, mid-summer letter writing event for kids on Friday, July 17 at the library offers the young people in the program a space to compose one of their letters with support. The program wraps up with an in-person celebration at the senior center on Wednesday, Aug. 12 from 1-2 p.m. where readers finally get to meet the person on the other side of their letters. Enjoy a free lunch and discuss your shared reading experience across generations!
Registration is open May 1-15 through the Iowa City Public Library online calendar. Space is limited to the first 20 seniors and 20 young people who register. Participants will be notified of their partner and book title on June 1 and have one week to stop by the library to pick up their book. Letters will be exchanged via the library — home addresses will not be shared. Families of young readers are invited to participate in this shared reading and letter writing experience; however, only one name should be submitted for registration.
Casey Maynard, a librarian at ICPL, maintains collections for children through third grade and presents StoryJAM. This article was originally published in Little Village’s May 2026 issue.
