True Crime Book Club
Wed, Dec 16
|TCH Reynolds Twp. Library
Time & Location
Dec 16, 2026, 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM
TCH Reynolds Twp. Library, 117 W Williams St, Howard City, MI 49329, USA
About the Event
Join us for a True Crime Book Discussion on Wednesday, Dec. 16 from 1 to 2 p.m. in the Reading Room in the Timothy C. Hauenstein Reynolds Township Library. The December book selection is Before and After: The Incredible Real-Life Stories of Orphans Who Survived the Tennessee Children's Home Society by Judy Christie and Lisa Wingate. Copies are available for checkout.
Book Summary
From the 1920s to 1950, Georgia Tann ran a black-market baby business at the Tennessee Children’s Home Society in Memphis. She offered up more than 5,000 orphans tailored to the wish lists of eager parents—hiding the fact that many weren’t orphans at all, but stolen sons and daughters of poor families, desperate single mothers, and women told in maternity wards that their babies had died.
The publication of Lisa Wingate’s novel Before We Were Yours brought new awareness of Tann’s lucrative career in child trafficking. Adoptees who knew little…