The buzz about 'Fuzz': A citywide collaboration kicks off a community book club selection
- Laurie Craig
- 14 hours ago
- 6 min read
The Juneau Reads project engages the community in a book about people and their wild neighbors
By Laurie Craig
Juneau Independent
If the initial week’s interest is any indication, the first Juneau Reads shared reading project is going to be a big success.
Stacks of free — and rapidly disappearing — yellow paperback books greet patrons arriving at local libraries as an invitation to read the same book together. The city’s first Juneau Reads project encourages people to engage in a “community-wide book club” where everyone can read, discuss and share ideas based on one book. The idea is modeled after the National Endowment for the Arts’ program called Big Read.
The first book selection suits Juneauites well. Author Mary Roach, known for her humorous look at science in previous books, penned “Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law” in 2021. The book examines human-wildlife conflicts, explains attitudes of people in different locales and cultures, and offers creative options for resolving problems. Writer Roach devotes chapters to elephants that stomp on crops and people, leopards that stalk farmers, cougars in neighborhoods and deer that collide with vehicles, among similar dilemmas with other species.
The most relatable chapter for Juneauites is titled “Breaking and Entering and Eating: How Do You Handle A Hungry Bear?” Roach focuses on bears and trash and how to coexist with wild animals that get too close to people. Her key example is Aspen, Colorado, with its enticing restaurant dumpsters, non-resident vacation home renters and cheeky black bears.
The selection of the book was a group effort. A committee of city and University of Alaska Southeast library staff reviewed possible entries on the National Endowment for the Arts’ Big Read short list of 24 titles.
“We narrowed (the list) down to 'Fuzz' by Mary Roach,” said Juneau Public Librarian Jen Gardner. “Because we thought it was going to be a really good fit with our readers in Juneau. Just the interaction of humans and wildlife seemed like a topic that would resonate.”
Gardner is the library’s grants and marketing coordinator. Books have been purchased by the library and the nonprofit Friends of the Juneau Public Library, which operates the Amazing Bookstore in Mendenhall Valley. Additional funding was provided by an AARP grant, said Linda Kruger, AARP Alaska’s Juneau Community Action Team Lead. Some copies have been set aside for residents of Riverview Senior Living and the Juneau Pioneers’ Home. AARP partners with the library occasionally on “Walks to the Library.”
Gardner organized the Juneau Reads project, worked with community partners to buy the books, scheduled programs, created the book displays at each library, and advertised the project via social media, newsletter, in-library posters and radio. She also created the Juneau Reads logo sticker featuring a photo of the downtown library’s colorful migrating salmon stained glass window.
Author Mary Roach sums up an essential source of conflict in the chapter titled “The Monkey Fix: Birth Control for Marauding Macaques,” where some monkeys grab cell phones and ransom them for food handouts.
“Feeding wild animals, as we know, is the quickest path to conflict. The promise of food motivates normally human-shy animals to take risks,” Roach writes. “The risk-taking is rewarded, and the behavior escalates. Shyness becomes fearlessness, and fearlessness becomes aggression.”
Her humor allows readers to look at conflict issues in a refreshing manner that might be off-putting (and thus unread) if too grim or gory.
A similar topic of local interest discussed in Fuzz is the chapter titled “To Scare A Thief: The Esoteric Art of the Frightening Device.” The challenge is scaring away birds at airports. In the past, Juneau International Airport has tried some creative solutions to deter waterfowl and other birds. Two local examples fit with Roach’s humorous approach to resolving conflicts.
One trial-and-error project involved a stuffed coyote perched beside the runway. Within a short time, the Canada Geese realized they would not be chased off by a furry predator whose feet were planted in a taxidermy stand.
Another deterrent that failed was a propane-powered ‘cannon’ that blasted loud explosive sounds from the airport across the Mendenhall Wetlands to scare waterfowl. That initiative ended after someone forgot to turn off the noise maker, much to the annoyance of North Douglas residents.
While imaginative ideas bring a smile, bird collisions are no laughing matter. Juneau’s airport now employs a full-time USDA Wildlife Services biologist whose job is to monitor and deter, or haze, birds, particularly waterfowl, away from the airport.
While people can cause human-wildlife problems, they can also solve them, Roach writes. Encouraging community discussions and solutions is an aim of the Juneau Reads program.
Because book clubs are popular, Roach provides readers with 14 discussion questions in a Reading Group Guide at the end of the book. A bibliography offers further sources of information. Footnotes provide additional details for curious readers. For example, in the chapters about troublesome gulls and other species at the Vatican, Roach briefly mentions a tiff among manufacturers of the Pope’s red shoes in a footnote on page 243.
Roach has written several books similar to “Fuzz.” Her current book, published in September of 2025, is titled “Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy” and investigates replacement parts for the human body. A chapter of Roach’s 2003 book “Stiff: the Curious Lives of Human Cadavers” is on Lamb’s reading list for Introduction to College Writing students. At first, the title was off-putting to Olga Lijo Serans, owner of Hearthside Books, when it was a book group selection. She was not sure she wanted to read the book, but found it “fascinating — it opened my eyes.”
The Juneau Reads project hopes to generate similar curiosity in readers by engaging the community in a single book about people and their wild neighbors.
As part of the project, the library collaboration plans a series of public events:
Free lecture Thursday, Feb. 19 from 6-7 p.m. at the Mendenhall Valley Public Library. Glacier Bay National Park bear biologist Tania Lewis will share information about her many years of research about black and brown bears, adding some details about best practices to avoid human-bear conflict.
“Fuzz” Open Mic at UAS Monday, Feb. 23 from 5:30-7:30 p.m. at the Student Lounge in the Mourant Building, Room 202. “Students, faculty, staff and community members are encouraged to share original or cover songs, poems, comedy skits, and stories about encounters with wildlife,” wrote Jonas Lamb, UAS’s professor of library and information science, in an email on Feb. 5. “The bright yellow (book) cover featuring a bear with a carry-out bag is catchy,” Lamb said.
Trailblazers, an active hike and book club collaboration between CBJ Parks and Recreation Department and the library, meets on Saturday, March 21 from 10 a.m. to noon at the Fish Creek shelter on North Douglas. All are welcome to hike and discuss “Fuzz.”
Free showing of a movie at Gold Town Theater on Saturday, March 28 at 4 p.m. Details to be determined.
Art workshop with Kathy Hocker on April 18 from 10 a.m. to noon at the Valley Library. Registration required for teens and adults. Hocker’s illustrations of Alaska wildlife decorate cafeteria tables on the ferry LeConte as well as trail signs on the Mendenhall Wetlands State Game Refuge and numerous publications.
Storytime for young children at a date and place to be determined.
Librarians suggest patrons consider returning free books when they are done reading. Library copies may be borrowed. As new events become scheduled, information will be posted on the library’s website or Facebook.
• Contact Laurie Craig at lauriec@juneauindependent.com.
