One Book One Freeport 2023

Free Book Giveaway starts January 9th!

This year’s featured title – Life Among the Qallunaat.

One Book One Freeport is an annual community read program hosted by the Freeport Public Library. We buy hundreds of books to give out to the community for free! This event is open to the whole community. Youth books are available for children as well. Following the giveaway, the library hosts programs open to the public including film screenings, group discussions, Storytimes, and crafts.

Book Summary:

Life Among the Qallunaat is the story of Mini Aodla Freeman’s experiences growing up in the Inuit communities of James Bay and her journey in the 1950s from her home to the strange land and stranger customs of the Qallunaat, those living south of the Arctic. Her extraordinary story, sometimes humorous and sometimes heartbreaking, illustrates an Inuit woman’s movement between worlds and ways of understanding. It also provides a clear-eyed record of the changes that swept through Inuit communities in the 1940s and 1950s. Mini Aodla Freeman was born in 1936 on Cape Hope Island in James Bay. At the age of sixteen, she began nurse’s training at Ste. Therese School in Fort George, Ontario, and in 1957 she moved to Ottawa to work as a translator for the then Department of Northern Affairs and National Resources. Her memoir, Life Among the Qallunaat, was published in 1978 and has been translated into French, German, and Greenlandic. This reissue of Mini Aodla Freeman’s path-breaking work includes new material, an interview with the author, and an afterword by Keavy Martin and Julie Rak.

List of One Book One Freeport Events:

  • Saturday, February 4th, 11:00am – 12:00pm – Youth Storytime & Craft                                                                                              
  • Monday, February 6th, 6:00pm – 7:30pm – Film Showing (“Life Without Ice” [National Geographic documentary] preceded by a short film “The Owl Who Married a Goose.”)

  • Tuesday, February 7th, 2:00pm – 3:00pm – Book Discussion (discussion guide coming soon)

  • Wednesday, February 8th, 1:30pm – 3:00pm – Film Showing (“Life Without Ice” [National Geographic documentary] preceded by a short film “The Owl Who Married a Goose.”)

  • Monday, February 13th, 6:30pm – 7pm –Adult/ Teen Craft (Soap Stone Carvings)

  • Tuesday, February 14, 6pm – Book Discussion at the library
  • Wednesday, Friday 15th, 2:30pm – Musical Guest: Pamyua (Sponsored by the Freeport Art Museum & Arts Midwest)

Follow our Facebook Page for information about upcoming events!

If you’re interested in book group facilitations or have questions about this event, contact Dianne at 815.233.3000 ext. 221 or email dludwig@freeportpubliclibrary.org