BY KAREN BOSSICK

Wood River Valley residents are invited to examine a story about a Chinese girl fighting to claim her place against the backdrop of the Chinese Exclusion Act when The Community Library stages its 2025 Winter Read.

Every year the library invites patrons to read a story together, and this year’s is the internationally bestselling novel, “Four Treasures of the Sky” by Chinese-American author Jenny Tinghui Zhang. It’s about a Chinese girl fighting to claim her place in the 1880s American West.

Daiyu is kidnapped and smuggled across the ocean from China to America where she must keep reinventing herself to survive. She goes from a calligraphy school in Zhifu to a brothel in San Francisco to a shop tucked away in the Idaho mountains, all the time trying to outrun the tragedy that chases her.

And she must turn to parts of the past she wants to leave behind in order to rise above the anti-Chinese sentiment that is sweeping the country in a wave of unimaginable violence.

The Winter Read will kick off with a reception celebrating a new exhibit on the Chinese history of the Wood River Valley at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 30. The exhibit, in the library foyer, features such items as an iron, jars, bottles Mahjong set and an abacus that offer a peek at the every day lives of the miners, laundry workers, farmers and cooks who once called this region home. The objects have been borrowed from the library's Jeanne Rodger Lane Center for Regional History, Blaine County Historical Museum and Idaho State Museum

Other events:

+ Tuesday, Feb. 4—Ron James, a retired Twin Falls Social Studies teacher and instructor of East Asian History at Idaho State University, will discuss Regional Chinese Immigrant Mining History at 5:30 p.m. He will be in person at the Stanley Community Library and on Zoom at 5:30 p.m. James worked with the National Park Service to establish the Minidoka National Historic Site and he established a Snake River Canyon Historic Mining District, which features a Mon-Tung archaeological site between Milner Dam and Shoshone Falls. To watch the zoom, click on https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83494501678#success.

+ Friday, Feb. 7—Poet and essayist Teow Lim Goh will discuss “Bitter Creek,” which visits the Rock Springs Massacre of 1885 when Chinese coal miners brought into Wyoming as strikebreakers were ambushed and driven out of town by white coal miners. Through the eyes of the struggling railroad workers and their families, Goh asks, “What turns ordinary people into monsters”

You can watch the program in person at The Community Library by reserving a seat at https://thecommunitylibrary.libcal.com/event/13705555. It also will be livestreamed and available to watch on vimeo.

+ Tuesday, Feb. 18—Renae Campbell, a historical archaeologist and the director of the University of Idaho’s Asian American Comparative Collection, will discuss Chinese experiences during Idaho’s Gold Rush Era at 5:30 p.m. She will focus on the Boise Basin where a rich archaeological and historical record allows Idahoans to reconstruct what daily life was like for the thousands of Chinese individuals, some of whom made good livings despite facing racial discrimination.

Watch it in person at the Community Library by reserving a space at https://thecommunitylibrary.libcal.com/event/13755393. The program also will be livestreamed and available to watch later.

+ Thursday, Feb. 27—Jenny Tinghui Zhang, author of “Four Treasures of the Sky,” will give the closing presentation at 5:30 p.m. at The Community Library. Watch it in person by reserving a seat at https://thecommunitylibrary.libcal.com/event/13038393. The program will also be livestreamed and available to watch later at https://vimeo.com/event/4813486.

More programs, including a film screening and calligraphy event, will be announced later.