Reading Across Rhode Island - Let the Journey Begin!
Reading Across Rhode Island, Rhode Island's One Book, One State community read program is kicking off its 10th year!
The 2012 title will be Caleb's Crossing by Pulitzer Prize winning author Geraldine Brooks. Join us in celebrating a decade of community reading on Sunday, January 22 with a panel discussion featuring Geraldine Brooks, Renee Hobbs, and William Simmons. The panel will be curated by the Providence Journal's Doug Riggs. Living Literature will present a scene from their Caleb's Crossing inspired performance series.
The event will take place on Sunday, January 22 from 2 - 4pm at Newman Congregational Church in Rumford, RI. Tickets are $15 for members and $25 for non-members. A hardcover copy of the book and light refreshments are included in the ticket price. Annual membership to Rhode Island Center for the Book is included in the non-member ticket price.
Seating is limited and so payment must be made prior to the event. Please be sure to include the name of each person in your party so that seats may be reserved in their name.
To pay online, please follow this link which will direct to the RI Council for the Humanities website. Complete the form and in the notes section indicate your purchase is for: RICfB Kick-Off Event.
To pay by mail, please send your check, made out to Rhode Island Council for the Humanities, to:
RI Center for the Book
c/o Rhode Island Council for the Humanities
131 Washington Street, Suite 210
Providence, RI 02903
In Caleb's Crossing, skilled storyteller Geraldine Brooks has created a work of historical fiction laced with palpable research that illuminates 17th century repression intensified by the harshness of pioneer life but undermined by kindness and compassion. This vividly detailed journey of Caleb Cheeshahteaumuck, the first Native American to graduate from Harvard College in 1665, is a story about friendship, spiritual attitudes of faith and belief, of bigotry, prejudice---and hope.
For more information on Reading Across Rhode Island events, send an email to sheala@rihumanities.org or call (401) 273-2250. Read more about the book and the author on Geraldine Brooks' website.
Letters About Literature
Now Accepting Submissions for State and National Writing Contest!
Deadline: January 6, 2012
Rhode Island students in grades 4 - 12 are invited to enter the national Letters About Literature contest, with the opportunity to win a $10,000 Reading Promotion grant for their local school or community library. The deadline for submissions is January 6, 2011. Letters About Literature is a national reading promotion program of the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress, presented in partnership with Target and affiliate state centers for the book. To enter the contest, young readers write a personal letter to a favorite author describing the impact of the author's book on his or her life, or explaining how the book helped them see an aspect of the world—large or small—through new eyes. The books can be from any genre, fiction or nonfiction, contemporary or classic. By encouraging personal reader response and reflective writing, Letters About Literature encourages meaningful reading and helps to create and celebrate successful writers. For more information and to enter the contest, visit the Letters About Literature website. Teaching materials, including lessons plans, writing samples, and assessment checklists, are also available at this site.
2011 National Book Festival
Washington, D.C.
An estimated 200,000 book-lovers gathered on the National Mall on September 24, 2011 for the National Book Festival in Washington, D.C. Rhode Island was represented at the Pavilion of the States by members of Rhode Island Center for the Book and RI Office of Library & Information Services (OLIS). Information on state-wide reading and literacy initiatives was distributed to a steady crowd of festival-goers that turned out (in spite of the rain) to show their support and enthusiasm for reading.
2011 Art of the Book Program
Poetry on the Page
The Rhode Island Center for the Book preOn September 30, Rhode Island Center for the Book presented an evening of poetry with Forrest Gander, the 2011 Library of Congress Witter Bynner Poetry Fellow. Forrest performed a selection of his poetry to over a hundred attendees at the RISD Library. In addition to the reading, "Poetry on the Page" exhibitions were organized in September and October at RISD's Fleet Library, the Providence Athenaeum, and the Newport Historical Society. The Newport Historical Society also hosted letterpress artist, Kyle Durrie of Power & Light Press. Kyle is traveling across the country with her Movable Type Project - a truck turned letterpress studio where she offers letterpress printing demonstrations and workshops.
The 2011 Art of the Book program is presented by the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress, the Rhode Island Center for the Book, Rhode Island Council for the Humanities, the Providence Athenaeum, Newport Historical Society, Fleet Library at RISD, and American Printing History Association/NE Chapter.
RI Center for the Book is an affiliate of The Center for the Book at the Library of Congress