Sheboygan Hmong culture will be the focus this year at Bookworm Gardens.
Bookworm Gardens has announced that the Hmong American Peace Academy (HAPA) has been selected for the 2025 Readers’ Roundup Garden Partnership, the largest collaborative partner to date for the program.
Bookworm Gardens and HAPA will use the power of storytelling and community resilience with this year’s selected book, A Map into the World, written by Kao Kalia Yang, a Minnesota-based Hmong-American Author.
The partnership will be kicked off on May 17th during a Readers’ Roundup Community Day, which will also serve as a ribbon-cutting ceremony to debut the new look garden.
Yang will be on hand for the event to read her book and do a book signing, while attendees will be able to learn more through interactive stations and view traditional Hmong dancing.
They will also learn about themes of home, memory, and belonging in Yang’s storytelling through the lens of the book’s protagonist, a young Hmong girl.
On the historic partnership, Elizabeth Wieland, Executive Director of Bookworm Gardens, said, “This partnership is more than a garden — it’s a recognition of the rich, local Hmong culture, that our founder, Sandy Livermore, had included as a dedicated garden space in Bookworm’s original design plans.”
