If you walk into Homewood’s Beyond the Book book store, you might run into volunteers Dave and Sally Larsen, Flossmoor residents with a passion for literature.
On Dec. 15, Dave Larsen held a book signing at the new store for his book, “Green Street in Black and White,” a novel loosely based on his experiences growing up in Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood in the early 1960s.
The Larsens said they were inspired by Beyond the Book owner Tenia Davis’ vision for the community and by her as an individual. The couple had talked about opening a bookstore but never got around to it. Dave said they saw Beyond the Book as a great alternative for being involved in the local literature community.
So they volunteer, answering customers questions and helping them with book purchases. Dave and Sally both find the bookstore important to the community and what it can do for local literature consumers. Their favorite types of literature are fiction and history, specifically American history and authors Jill Lepore and Nathaniel Philbrick.
Sally was an information technology professor at Prairie State College for 30 years. She said reading skills and understanding the world through literature are important.
Dave said he studied English in college. Most of his jobs were at Christian schools. He recently retired from his position as director of The Bright Promise Fund for Urban Christian Education.
When writing his dissertation for a Ph.D. in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at Loyola University Chicago, Dave found he really enjoyed writing stories.
His book focuses on the young boys living on Green Street during a time of racial integration and the “white flight” era. The characters come face to face with racism and prejudice and develop bonds of friendship.
The idea for the book goes back to a research paper Dave wrote about the move of churches and schools out of the Englewood and Roseland neighborhoods.
“Then I became a parent and asked myself, ‘Would I have done anything different than my parents did moving from Englewood?’” he said. “If so, what would be different? And if not, why would I have gone along with whatever happened the way it happened?”
Sally and friends read and reviewed the book. After a year of work, he pitched it to a publisher and, as Dave says, the rest is history.
The book was a finalist in the Chicago Writers Association 2025 Book of the Year Award.
Sally said they watched the “coming soon” sign in the book store window. When Dave saw Beyond the Book opening in October 2025, he decided to contact Davis who agreed to host a book signing event for Dave.
The turnout was small, but the environment was positive. Most of the discussion consisted of people’s lived experiences relating to the book’s topic.
“I’ve had book launches with 75 to 100 people,” he said. “This one was a real cozy crowd.”
“It’s that connectedness with the reader, their own reflections on race and racism,” Dave said. “There’s never a dull moment in a book club discussion about it, which is really gratifying.”
As for the future, Dave said if he continues to publish his work, he plans to focus on shorter stories rather than novels, but the stories will still revolve around the same topics of family, church, faith and life’s struggles.
