SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) — The kickoff to the One Book Siouxland community reading project takes place next week at the Main Library in downtown Sioux Falls.
This year’s featured book is Vanished in Vermillion, the real-life story of a cold case that baffled South Dakota law enforcement for decades. The book’s author is former KELOLAND News crime reporter Lou Raguse.
The power of a single book can bring readers together from all walks of life.
We tend to think of reading as a solitary activity. But when a book captivates a reader’s attention, many others take notice.
“Reading is a wonderful pastime as we all know. It’s a window into other worlds, an escape and a way for us to gain knowledge and what a wonderful thing to do together and have something in common,” One Book Siouxland selection committee member Denise DePaolo said.
The goal of One Book Siouxland is to draw a community of readers together to share their insights and opinions about a single book that will generate a lot of public discussion.
“A lot of times, we try to pick books that have maybe a little more tough of a subject, so that we can have programming based around it, but then gives people a better reason to come together to talk about it,” One Book Siouxland Coordinator Kim Kolblank said.
This year’s One Book is Vanished in Vermillion, the story of the 1971 disappearance of two Vermillion teenagers. While working for KELOLAND News, Lou Raguse dug into the new leads that emerged years later that would turn this cold case from a suspected homicide to a tragic car crash that claimed two young lives.
“The main thing that made this thing different than like another true crime book, or another wrongful prosecution book, is that a man was charged for a crime that never even happened. So that kind of put me on a quest for answers,” Raguse said on January 8th.
Vanished in Vermillion is unique from previous works picked for One Book Siouxland.
“In the past, a lot of the books we have chosen have been fiction. This one is non-fiction and it’s also sort of a true crime book because there was a criminal investigation element to it,” DePaolo said.
Book clubs hosted by Siouxland Libraries always fill up quickly. So you can think of One Book Siouxland as a kind of book club on steroids.
“It is. Yep. We buy 150 copies. Every time we pick a book we buy extra copies so that multiple people can read it at the same time,” Kolblank said.
Copies of Vanished in Vermillion are available at all 13 branches of Siouxland Libraries. You can also stream the book online.
“We actually have this one available on our digital platform Hoopla where multiple people can check the e-audio and e-book out at the same time. We want to create that access so enough people can read it. Book clubs can discuss it and they can come to our programs and have that context of why we’re talking about these subjects,” Kolblank said.
Organizers of One Book Siouxland say readers connect with Vanished in Vermillion because it’s a local story, shrouded in a decades-long mystery: one that has a new twist with every turn of the page.
“That’s one of the delightful things about this whole program is that you never know what it’s going to be and it also can appeal to all sorts of different people in our community,” DePaolo said.
The One Book Siouxland kickoff takes place Saturday, April 5th at the downtown library that will include a panel discussion on crime reporting. KELOLAND’s Dan Santella will be part of that discussion.
You can see a full listing of events throughout the month, including a talk by author Lou Raguse.
