2026 – Season 16

Our Missing Hearts
by Celeste Ng

Set in a near-future America marked by fear, censorship, and division, Our Missing Hearts explores what happens when a society built on democratic ideals begins to fracture. The novel follows a young boy searching for his missing mother—a poet whose words have been deemed dangerous by the government—and examines how art, storytelling, and human connection can resist oppression and ignite hope.

This year’s Malden Reads program will use Our Missing Hearts as a lens to explore themes that resonate deeply with our current times:

• Civic ideals and the foundations of democracy—and how they are tested when fear and control take hold.
• Children’s experiences during times of social and political upheaval—their resilience, loss, and capacity for empathy.
• Revolution, resistance, and courage—and the role of ordinary people in standing up to injustice.

Programming throughout the season will draw meaningful parallels between Ng’s fictional world and real-world issues, including the treatment of immigrant families and the human stories behind recent federal detentions. Discussions, exhibits, and community conversations will also highlight how libraries—both in the novel and in our own communities—serve as sanctuaries for truth, connection, and promoting civic engagement. In Our Missing Hearts, libraries become a new kind of underground railroad, preserving knowledge and humanity when both are under threat.

These themes, along with one’s own personal revolution, will be explored through programming beginning in 2026. Malden Reads will use the book Our Missing Hearts as a way to help the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution come alive. Malden has a special role in the American Revolution as the first town to declare independence from Britain in their Town Instructions in 1775. Not only did Malden formally declare their wishes in this manner, but Malden’s militia was heavily involved in the resistance to Britain.

Plans for 2026 

Malden Reads invites residents, schools, organizations, and businesses to participate in a full season of events beginning in January 2026. Activities will include book discussions, film screenings, art exhibits, cultural programs, and special events designed to engage readers of all ages and backgrounds. We will be hosting and collaborating with other organizations throughout 2026 celebrating our city’s role in the American Revolution, and will be hosting civic learning opportunities and multiple ways to connect with our city’s and Boston’s history. Programs related to civic learning are funded in part by the Malden Community Connections Grant to bring the people of our community together.  

Books will become available for checkout from the Malden Public Library. Books are also available for purchase from The Gallery@57, a unique retail show in Malden run cooperatively by local artists. Books may also be purchased from our favorite local independent booksellers including The Book Oasis in Stoneham, Molly’s Bookstore in Melrose, and Porter Square Books in Boston and Cambridge.

Book Discussion Questions

1. Why did Bird embark on this journey to find his mother? What answers did he hope to find?
2. After Bird’s mother leaves, his father ensures that he goes by Noah. But once he is reunited
   with his mother and she calls him Bird again, he starts to finally relax in his own skin. Let’s
   talk about how a name ties to our whole identity.
3. Why did Margaret’s poems strike a chord with the protest movement?
4. The government considers Margaret a threat and she has to leave the family immediately
   without a truly proper goodbye to Bird. Do you feel Margaret was left with no choice?
5. Ethan is originally hired at the university as a linguistics professor, and his obsession with
   words seeps into his daily habits, such as reading from the dictionary: “His father’s oldest
   habit: taking words apart like old clocks to show the gears still ticking inside”. How does
   sharing this love of language help Bird in his quest, and ultimately reconnect their family,
   albeit indirectly, by the end of the novel?
6. Which form of storytelling resonated with you most in the novel, or in life in general: written
   or oral? How are they each used in ways to preserve the truth of lived experience when
   history or other dominant powers tried to erase them—such as the missing children, and
   Margaret herself?
7. Did the ending feel hopeful or somber? What was your impression of the ending overall?
8. What do you feel are some of the key takeaway and lessons from this story?
9. The novel takes place in a world that “isn’t exactly our world, but it isn’t not ours, either,”
   writes Ng in the Author’s Note (p. 327). What elements of the novel’s setting align with your
   understanding and experience of the events of the twenty-first century thus far? How close
   do you think we are to a society like that described in the novel?
10. Both Bird and Sadie struggle with missing parents, yet their approach to seeking a deeper
    understanding of their past is vastly different. What about their personalities guide their
    respective strategies, and why do you think their friendship is so strong?
11. Bird’s trip to and through New York City to reveals all the ways, big and small, the city had
    been reshaped by the current, post-Crisis, PACT-enforcing government. Have you ever been
12. to a familiar place that changed radically over time, or after you yourself had changed
13. radically? What was your experience in encountering its newness, or through new eyes?