Colson Whitehead won a Pulitzer Prize for The Underground Railroad in 2017 and he did it a second time in 2020 after the publication of Nickel Boys. The Iron Book Discussion Group will read and discuss this acclaimed story of two boys in a Florida reform school in August 2026…
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BOOK DESCRIPTION
When Elwood Curtis, a black boy growing up in 1960s Tallahassee, is unfairly sentenced to a juvenile reformatory called the Nickel Academy, he finds himself trapped in a grotesque chamber of horrors. Elwood’s only salvation is his friendship with fellow “delinquent” Turner, which deepens despite Turner’s conviction that Elwood is hopelessly naive, that the world is crooked, and that the only way to survive is to scheme and avoid trouble. As life at the Academy becomes ever more perilous, the tension between Elwood’s ideals and Turner’s skepticism leads to a decision whose repercussions will echo down the decades.
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Copies of The Nickel Boys can be picked up from the Book Discussion Shelf on our first floor, and it’s also available to download through Overdrive/Libby as an ebook and an audiobook.
An in-person discussion of The Nickel Boys will be held at the library on Tuesday, August 11, at 6:00 PM. No registration is required, so please join us if you’d like to be part of the discussion.
Published on July 15, 2026.
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