Peoria Reads with Nnedi Okorafor

Peoria Reads is our one city/one book initiative that began 25 years ago. We typically choose a title for an adult audience as well as a complementary title for children. Our 2027 title(s) is Death of the Author and Space Cat. As Dr. Okorafor knows a former resident of Illinois our location makes us a safe place for authors who may worry about an unfriendly audience. Illinois was one of the first states to pass a law protecting against book bans and then passed another law providing protection to library workers. We at Peoria Public Library have taken this privilege seriously and made it our goal to invite as many authors to our library as we can. The iRead Summer Reading theme for 2027 is also Science Fiction so we are excited to celebrate the genre for the entire second half of the year. Death of the Author gives us the opportunity to introduce Science Fiction to those who may not otherwise read the genre and discuss topics that they probably wouldn’t expect to find.