Remember in 2001 when Oprah selected To Kill A Mockingbird and encouraged everyone in the city of Chicago to read it? Well, apparently this fun idea has been thriving in a number of cities around the country!
Photo by mattithyahu
Seattle (the home of Amazon) is the model city for communal reading with their Seattle Reads program that Nancy Pearl started in 1998 with The Sweet Hereafter by Russell Banks. Other past selections include: The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri, Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka, seven selections by Isabelle Allende, A Gesture Life by Chang-rae Lee, Wild Life by Molly Gloss, Fooling With Words: A Celebration of Poets (which I was teaching at the time and didn’t know about Seattle’s program — darn!), and A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest Gaines.
After choosing their pick, the Washington Center for the Book puts on a series of free programs, panel discussions, film screenings, dramatic readings, etc. and provides a wonderful reading guide with an interview of the author, discussion questions, and recommended readings.
Photo by Canton Public Library (MI)
Michigan has adopted the one book concept, and tries to include all age groups by selecting titles for different ages. Past adult selections have included Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich, A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest Gaines, The Nick Adams Stories by Ernest Hemingway, The Kite Runner by Hosseini Khaled, The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? by Beverly Tatum, and My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult.
Photo by Zenobia Joy
Denver has been reading the same book for years, and I found this interesting article about how difficult it is to make so many readers happy… Past selections have included Peace Like A River by Leif Enger, The Milagro Beanfield War by John Nichols, Articles of War by Nick Arvin, Carmelo by Sandra Ciscineros. And readers in Denver have many ideas about what they should read next, for example Kent Haruf has a strong following, as does Jodi Picoult. Denver encourages citizens to host One Book, One Denver Parties.
Photo by TimDan2
I was curious to see what my current home state was doing, since Central Connecticut State University recently rated Minneapolis as the most literate city in the country (St. Paul was third). Most of the programs in Minnesota seemed to focus on local authors. The current hot pick seemed to by Mortenson’s Three Cups of Tea and Sweet Land by Will Weaver, but past selections included Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, works by Lorna Landvik and Louise Erdrich.
After reading about Denver’s difficulties, I started to wonder what the criteria should be… Remember, this is only one book for the whole year. Should we steer toward local authors? Or choose contemporary works that challenge us — and if so, what sorts of challenges? Should significant themes be a prerequisite? How literary must a selection be — and who determines this? Only fiction? Should we attempt the classics (since they really are better as adults)? And who should choose?
What do you think?
Here is a link to The Center For the Book’s list of other states, as well as Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom’s One Book programs. I will write a future post on a samplin of the current picks throughout the country and world.
I would love to hear if other cities or states are doing this as well…
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