For Book Clubs
If you’re reading one of the books with your book club, or you’re an individual reader looking for further information, check out the links below for resources, activities, recipes, and historical background. Find book club kits and videos of Lisa discussing her books here.
The Book of Lost Friends
The Book of Lost Friends Book Club Kit Online:
SIBA Reader Meet Writer video event with Diane Plauché, Lost Friends database museum volunteer.
https://youtu.be/NAKEAqsZ9Ho
Bookreporter interviews Lisa Wingate about The Book of Lost Friends.
A conversation with the real-life creators of the Lost Friends Database at the Historic New Orleans Collection Museum: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdDKlakgujY
Podcast: Lisa Wingate discusses The Book of Lost Friends with Barnes and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/the-bn-podcast-lisa-wingate-on-the-book-of-lost-friends/
See over 2500 real-life Lost Friends ads in the Lost Friends Database: https://www.hnoc.org/database/lost-friends/index.html
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Before We Were Yours. 2.6 million copies sold!
Here is a link to the Book Club Kit, which offers a behind-the-book look and some additional historical background, pictures, discussion questions, etc.
A video of Lisa introducing the book.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2R–Yyhl7M0
Bookbub featured this Book Club Kit with a little different twist.
Video Interview by Chanticleer Reviews On Word Talks with Storytellers.
The Power of Story to Change Hearts and Minds. Interview with Lisa Wingate and William Kent Krueger.
Lisa Wingate talks about Before We Were Yours at the West Texas Book Festival.
https://www.pinterest.com/lisawingatebook/before-we-were-yours/
REPLY to a Question some have asked about Judy, which sister she was, etc. (SPOILER ALERT!)
Judy is one of the twins that Queenie gave birth to that fateful night at the hospital. If you go back to page 297-8 and reread the “book” that Grandma Judy began to write and that Avery found, you’ll see a recap of the hints throughout the book about Judy’s place in the sisterhood …
… Judy Myers later met and married Senator Stafford and was Avery’s Grandma Judy.
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Before and After
The Nonfiction companion to Before We Were Yours now available in Paperback online and at bookseller everywhere.
By Judy Christie and Lisa Wingate
The compelling, poignant true stories of victims of a notorious adoption scandal—some of whom learned the truth from Lisa Wingate’s bestselling novel Before We Were Yours and were reunited with birth family members as a result of its wide reach.
Before and After includes moving and sometimes shocking accounts of the ways in which adoptees were separated from their first families. Often raised as only children, many have joyfully reunited with siblings in the final decades of their lives. Christie and Wingate tell of first meetings that are all the sweeter and more intense for time missed and of families from very different social backgrounds reaching out to embrace better-late-than-never brothers, sisters, and cousins. In a poignant culmination of art meeting life, many of the long-silent victims of the tragically corrupt system return to Memphis with the authors to reclaim their stories at a Tennessee Children’s Home Society reunion . . . with extraordinary results.
The Official Trailer for this book
Before and After downloadable Book Club Kit
Commercial Appeal newspaper article & video about Lisa’s visit with Georgia Tann Adoptees in Memphis in 2018, after the launch of Before We Were Yours. And now their stories continue with this book….
A Yahoo News article by a reporter who attended a gathering of Adoptees and Families in Memphis.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/20-years-tennessee-baby-thief-134448084.html
Today Show interview
Read the Judy Christie column/article about her experiences with this book and the release of the Paperback version.
North Carolina Chronicle related books
https://www.readinggroupguides.com/reviews/the-prayer-box/guide
There are 6 other books related to The Prayer Box, The books all tell more about the family story, the Outer Banks, and the characters in The Prayer Box. All are Stand-alone reads.
Here are the titles in the order of publication:
The Seaglass Sisters (Novella in the anthology Sisters)
The Prayer Box (novel)
The Tidewater Sisters (Novella in the anthology Sisters)
The Story Keeper (Novel)
The Sandcastle Sister (Novella, in the anthology Sisters)
The Sea Keeper’s Daughters (Novel)
A Sandy’s Seashell Shop Christmas: An Outer Banks e-short
NOTE: The three novellas can be purchased separately as ebooks, or in print/ebook in the anthology “Sisters”. Scroll down for resources for these books.
The Prayer Box
Book Club Kit
https://www.readinggroupguides.com/reviews/the-prayer-box/guide
To view vintage photos, prayer boxes, and other pictures related to The Prayer Box, drop in to this Pinterest board even if you are not a registered member.
https://www.pinterest.com/lisawingatebook/the-prayer-box-a-novel/
Downloadable suggestions for making, giving, and using prayer boxes. To view or download the document, click here:
https://lisawingate.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Wingate25WaysPrayerBoxes.pdf
The Story Keeper
Link for a Pinterest board with vintage photos and other pictures related the book:
https://www.pinterest.com/lisawingatebook/the-story-keeper-a-novel-by-lisa-wingate/
The Story Keeper is a 2015 Christy Award Finalist and a fall 2014 SIBA Okra Pick.
The Story Keeper official book trailer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uaE8RmVjME
The International Storytelling Center in Jonesborough, TN, hosted a Freedom Story session on Melungeon history and presence today. The video starts with slides then transitions to personal stories and a panel discussion. The presenters also offer a toolkit for more research
If the link doesn’t work correctly, search Youtube.com for this title: Melungeon: The Criminalization of Race.
The Sea Keeper’s Daughters
For a Discussion Guide for The Sea Keeper’s Daughters go to this link, scroll down on the right side, and select Discussion Guide.
https://www.tyndale.com/p/the-sea-keepers-daughters/9781414386904
Vintage photos and other pictures related to The Sea Keeper’s Daughters and the Federal Writers’ Project are on this board.
https://www.pinterest.com/donyamimi/the-sea-keepers-daughter/