Lakes Region Reads Kicks off on Saturday

A group of Lakes Region libraries has put together what promises to be a fabulous project focusing on a great epistolary novel, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Lakes Region Reads kicks off this week-end with a party at the Wright Museum and will include a visit from Annie Barrows on October 24, 2010. Here are details the planning committee shared with me:

This fall, in the six weeks leading up to Veterans Day, fourteen communities will be participating together for the first time in a "One Book" community reading program based in New Hampshire’s Lakes Region. The towns participating are: Ashland, Bristol, Gilford, Gilmanton, Meredith, Moultonborough, New Hampton, Northfield, Plymouth, Rumney, Sanbornton, Sandwich, Somersworth, and Tilton.

The mission of Lakes Region Reads is to encourage citizens to read for pleasure and enlightenment, to involve people from different parts of the region in discussing the same book, and to create shared cultural experiences based on a common calendar of programs inspired by the chosen title.

For this inaugural program, local librarians have selected The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows, an epistolary novel set in the Channel Islands during World War II. The book reveals the hardships of the people of Guernsey as they endured Nazi occupation during World War II, but also highlights the small graces that friendship, writing, and literature can bring in even the darkest of hours.

The main goals of the project are to get as many people in the Lakes Region as possible excited about reading the same book and to bring about a shared appreciation of what life was like for “the Greatest Generation.” With these goals in mind, libraries have worked with schools and other local cultural and veterans organizations to develop a common calendar of forty events, all relating to the novel and the broader theme of World War II.

All of the programs will be cross-promoted and open to all, but there will be three main programs which will serve as the anchor pieces of Lakes Region Reads.

• The Wright Museum of WWII History in Wolfeboro will host a grand kickoff event on Saturday, October 2, from 1 to 5 pm. The day will feature a presentation by Mike Pride, author of We Went to War: New Hampshire Remembers, starting at 2 pm. Tickets for free admission can be picked up at
  a participating library or printed from the Lakes Region Reads website.
  
• The highlight of the program will be a visit by the novel’s co-author, Annie Barrows at the Inter-Lakes High School in Meredith on Sunday, October 24,
  starting at 1 pm. Annie will share the “story behind the story” – Mary Ann Shaffer’s years of research into Guernsey’s little-known history during the war years, her aunt’s illness, and her subsequent conversion from children’s author to novel writer. This event is not ticketed, so please arrive early to guarantee yourself a seat.
  
• Finally, the Lakes Region Big Band will present a concert at the New
  Hampshire Veterans Home in Tilton on Saturday, November 6 at 2 pm.

Each library will also host a book discussion held in conjunction with other agencies in town including bookstores, historical societies, veterans’ groups and schools, and display the classic works mentioned in the book. Libraries are eager to include the voices of those in our communities who lived through those perilous times, particularly veterans, so that their stories can be heard first-hand before they are lost forever.

Hundreds of books have been distributed to local libraries for “catch and release”. Please pick up a free copy, read the novel, and pass it on to a friend or neighbor. The entire calendar of events, and more information about the Lakes Region Reads project as a whole, is available at http://lakesregionreads.wordpress.com/.

Lakes Region Reads is sponsored by thirteen area libraries, their Friends groups, New Hampshire Humanities Council, Meredith Village Savings Bank, Laconia Savings Bank, Lakes Region Spirit Magazine, and the Inns & Spa at Mill Falls.

Book of the Week #39

Turn and Jump: How Time and Place Fell Apart by Howard Mansfield (Camden, Maine: Down East, 2010)

"Before Thomas Edison, light and fire were thought to be one and the same. Turns out, they were separate things altogether. This book takes a similar relationship, that of time and place, and shows how they, too, were once
inseparable. Time keeping was once a local affair, when small towns set their own pace according to the rising and setting of the sun. Then, in 1883, the expanding railroads necessitated the creation of Standard Time zones, and communities became linked by a universal time. Here Howard Mansfield explores how our sudden interconnectedness, both physically, as through the railroad, and through inventions like the telegraph, changed our concept of time and place forever."

Howard Mansfield, a NH resident, will be doing readings around the state this fall including one on Wednesday, 9/29/10 at River Run and on October 7, 2010 at Gibson's.

Banned Books Week Begins Today

What do books from the Twilight series, To Kill a Mockingbird and Catcher in the Rye have in common? All have faced removal from library bookshelves in the United States within the past year.

From coast to coast, libraries and bookstores will battle censorship and celebrate the freedom to read during Banned Books Week, Sept. 25 – Oct. 2, 2010. Thousands of participants will read from banned or challenged books and will discuss the impact censorship has on civil liberties. This year will mark the 29th annual celebration of Banned Books Week.

Each year, the American Library Association’s (ALA) Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) receives hundreds of reports on book challenges, which are formal written requests to remove a book from a library or classroom because of an objection to the book’s content. There were 460 recorded attempts to remove materials from libraries in 2009 and more than 11,000 attempts recorded since OIF began compiling information on book challenges in 1990.

“Not every book is right for each reader, but we should have the right to think for ourselves and allow others to do the same,” said ALA President Roberta Stevens. “The founders of this nation protected freedom of expression based on their conviction that a diversity of views and ideas is necessary for a vital, functioning democracy. Danger does not arise from viewpoints other than our own; the danger lies in allowing others to decide for us and our communities which reading materials are appropriate. How can we live in a free society and develop our own opinions if our right to choose reading materials for ourselves and our families is taken away? We must remain diligent and protect our freedom to read.”

Banned Books Week is sponsored by the American Booksellers Association; American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression; the American Library Association; American Society of Journalists and Authors; Association of American Publishers; and the National Association of College Stores. It is endorsed by the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress (of which the New Hampshire Center for the Book is an affiliate).

I encourage you to celebrate banned books week by reading whatever you want and letting those around you do the same.

Ladybug Nominee Profile

Laurie Halse Anderson, a favorite author of students writing Letters About Literature, got the idea for Zoe,"a child born with a quarter acre of crazy red hair that had a personality of its own," from a melding of her two daughters. There is lots of other interesting background info on the story in the Teacher's Section of the author's website. Ard Hoyt provided the illustrations that bring the idea to life. This book was published by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers.

"Rapunzel has nothing on young Zoe, whose flowing red tresses are not only her crowning glory but can also "turn on the TV, pour a glass of juice, pet the cat,
and play on the computer-all at the same time." But while Zoe's kindergarten teacher embraced the fact that the hair had a life all its own ("at nap time, the hair was a comfort"), first grade brings the stern Ms. Trisk, who is decidedly unamused. Anderson (Independent Dames) and Hoyt (Utterly Otterly Day) are comically sympathetic to the ways in which an unfortunate class placement can turn a school-age child's world upside down. But not to worry-by story's end, everyone's having a good hair day. Ages 6-10." (from Publisher's Weekly)

This is one of the ten titles nominated for the 2010 Ladybug Picture Book Award.

Book of the Week #38

Born to be Giants: How Baby Dinosaurs Grew to Rule the World by Lita Judge (NY: Roaring Brook, 2010)

Lita Judge, author and illustrator, lives in Peterborough, New Hampshire. Her books have been chosen as Junior Library Guild selections, ALA Notable Books, Smithsonian Notable Books for Children, and have been nominated for various state book awards. Born to Be Giants fills the author's lifelong dream to investigate paleontologists' understanding of baby dinosaurs and their parents.

This book will be featured by the Center for the Book at the New Hampshire table in the Pavillion of the States at the National Book Festival in Washington, D.C. this Saturday.

Ladybug Nominee Profile

This charming, rhyming tale of how one little repair can get completely out of control was written by Linda Ashman and illustrated by Michael Chesworth. It was published by Sterling Children's Books.

Ms. Ashman explains that the inspiration for this book included her son's 'Bob the Builder' phase and "Then there was the move from our 1921 English Tudor in Los Angeles to a slightly older Craftsman Bungalow in Denver. This coincided with Jack's decision to leave his law firm and restore old homes--beginning with ours. The tools multiplied in the basement. The magazines--This Old House, American Bungalow, Old House Journal--piled up on the kitchen counter. The sound of hammers, sanders and electric saws filled my ears. The scent of sawdust, paint and wood-stripper filled my nose."

"Each line adds a layer of rich storytelling. Several passages describe the objects of the shed, hardware store and Dorothy's Door Emporium (doors ranging from the ridiculous to the sublime). Chesworth's vibrant and detailed illustrations, including a double-page cross-section of the house, invite lingering and revisiting. This ramshackle mess of an abode has real character and happily contains its frolicking family." KIRKUS

This is one of the ten titles nominated for the 2010 Ladybug Picture Book Award.

Book of the Week #37

Tinkers by Paul Harding (New York: Bellevue Literary Press, 2009)

Tinkers, a first novel from a small and unheralded press, beat the odds to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. It was also nominated by the NH Dublin Committee for the 2011 IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.

This week the author, Paul Harding, will be at Gibson's on Thursday, Sept. 16, 2010 at 7 PM. He'll be reading, signing, and taking questions from the audience.

"An old man lies dying. Confined to bed in his living room, he sees the walls around him begin to collapse, the windows come loose from their sashes, and the ceiling plaster fall off in great chunks, showering him with a lifetime of debris: newspaper clippings, old photographs, wool jackets, rusty tools, and the mangled brass works of ntique clocks. Soon, the clouds from the sky above plummet down on top of him, followed by the stars, till the black night covers him like a shroud. He is hallucinating, in death throes from cancer and kidney failure. A methodical repairer of clocks, he is now finally released from the usual constraints of time and memory to rejoin his father, an epileptic, itinerant peddler, whom he had lost 7 decades before. In his return to the wonder and pain of his impoverished childhood in the backwoods of Maine, he recovers a natural world that is at once indifferent to man and inseparable from him, menacing and awe inspiring. Tinkers is about the legacy of consciousness and the porousness of identity from one generation the next. At once heartbreaking and life affirming, it is an elegiac meditation on love, loss, and the fierce beauty of nature." (publisher's description)

Ladybug Nominee Profile

Chris Van Dusen based his story of a shipwrecked circus on an actual event, the wreck of the Royal Tar in 1836. Mr. Van Dusen's story, however, has a much better ending than real life provided.

"After their steamship en route to Boston is wrecked in a storm, a troupe of circus animals escapes bad treatment and disaster, finding its way to an island off the coast of Maine. The 1800s residents are surprised to find zebras eating their gardens and alligators lounging on woodpiles. Sympathies change when a tiger saves a toddler from a blazing shed. When a messenger announces that the cruel circus owner is returning to claim his menagerie, the citizens assist the animals in disguises and camouflage that confound him, leaving the friends to a peaceful coexistence. Van Dusen's rhymed text keeps a rollicking beat. His illustrations burst with color and energy and utilize perspective and texture to add drama and humor. Period details create a counterpoint with elements like a gorilla in a lifeboat. The spread of the animals in "hiding" is pure genius. The book honors the real circus animals that inspired this story." (School Library Journal review)

This is one of the ten titles nominated for the 2010 Ladybug Picture Book Award.

Book of the Week #36

Roads Less Traveled: Visionary New England Lives by John Walters (Concord, NH: Plaidswede Publishing, 2009)

In the course of his work as a writer and radio personality, John Walters has interviewed some of the most extraordinary people in New Hampshire and Vermont. For Roads Less Traveled he has written profiles unconstrained by the the time or word counts imposed by radio shows and magazine articles. As Walters explains in his introduction, "The people I write about are visionaries--not necessarily in the sense of a believer or prophet (although some of them are), but in the simpler sense of having a vision and pursuing it. I am inspired by their example."

John Walters is a writer, editor and radio journalist. He was the creator and host of The Front Porch, an award-winning interview show on New Hampshire Public Radio. He is a former resident of Elkins, N.H., and now lives in East Montpelier, Vt. He is the managing editor of The Bridge, a weekly newspaper, and is the 2009 winner of the Donald M. Murray Outstanding Journalism Award presented by the New Hampshire Writers’ Project.

John Walters has readings scheduled at several local bookstores:

• Tuesday, September 14, 2010 at Water Street Bookstore at 7pm


• Wednesday, September 15, 2010 at 7pm at White Birch Books


• Wednesday, September 22, 20100 at 4:30pm at the Village Book Store

Book Event Sampler

Thursday, September 9, 2010

• The Hyla Brook Reading Series continues at the Robert Frost Farm with a reading by award-winning poet Wesley McNair. Mr. McNair will read from his latest book, Lovers of the Lost, New & Selected Poems, on Thursday, September 9, 2010, 6:30pm-8:30pm. Also reading is Robert W. Crawford, award-winning poet and co-founder of the Hyla Brook Poets which organizes the readings. Held at the Frost Farm at 122 Rockingham Rd (Rt 28), the Reading Series is free and open to the public.
• Jonathan Franzen in Concord.
• Novelists Jess Walter and Sean Ferrell will read at RiverRun beginning at 7pm.

Friday, September 10, 2010

• Jonathan Franzen in Portsmouth.

Saturday, September 11, 2010

• Edie Clark will be at Toadstool Bookshop, Peterborough at 11am signing States of Grace: Encounters with Real Yankees.
• David Elliot will be at Gibson's at 3pm reading from his new collection of poems, In the Wild.
• Toadstool Bookshop, Milford will host Jacqueline Heistman signing her children's picture book about a special squirrel at 3pm.

Book of the Week #35

July and August: A Novel by Nancy Clark (NY: Pantheon Books, 2008)

It seems to me that an upcoming long weekend requires a really good book to read. I think this one should fit the bill nicely. Nancy Clark lives in Wilton, NH and began the saga of the Hill family with The Hills at Home. This novel makes a trilogy and is recently available in paperback.

"This is a funny, bittersweet, wonderfully peopled family saga of beginnings and endings, couplings and uncouplings, of new friendships and old alliances. Great-aunt Lily’s gracious pile of a house in Towne, Massachusetts, is the gathering place for her far-flung Yankee clan of grandnieces and grandnephews--all in town for the months of July and August--and with their arrival comes a high summer of comedy and drama. Brooks and Rollins, the uncommonly successful software entrepreneur brothers, turn the heads of the locals with their supermodel dates. Lily herself has made an unexpected success of a new business venture. Sally, the youngest of the clan, is having the time of her life with Cam, a charismatic Towne kid; between them they prove that in some corners of the world, children can still go out to play gloriously unsupervised and come home safely. Cousin Julie announces her wedding to a man no one has met, whose delayed arrival gives rise to a mystery. And in the single developing sorrow, the family faces the possibility of a final leave-taking by the once fiery Aunt Ginger, who continues to dish up crucial life wisdom (whether it’s sought or not) while reclining on a lawn chair in the sun.As July and August unfurls, the cousins scheme and new romances and confidences bloom. Even Aunt Lily, who presides over it all with her hard-won equanimity, has secrets to divulge before the season is done. Throughout, Nancy Clark gives us a beautiful exploration of the ways that a family evolves over time--and the ways in which it remains the same--in this rich summer story of love lost and found." (Publisher's material)

Ladybug Nominee Profile

Author Kevin Henkes describes birds and how they look in the world. Laura Dronzek's paintings, which illustrate the book, show us exactly what he means. In an interview about this book Kevin Henkes says, "I wrote it, I guess, as a gift for her," referring to his wife, Laura Dronzek.

This book is the second book this Henkes and Dronzek, who live in Madison, Wisconson, have published together. In 1999 they produced Oh! which is a snowy adventure for children aged 2-7. Both titles were published by Greenwillow Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

"Husband-and-wife team Henkes and Dronzek (Oh!) record random thoughts about birds, enlivened by vignettes of thickly outlined bird shapes feathered with primary-school paintbox colors. Observations as spare as haiku-"Sometimes, in winter, a bird in a tree looks like one red leaf left over"-are pictured wistfully; here, a cardinal perches, leaf-like, on a high branch of a leafless tree. The appeal throughout is Henkes's ability to channel the way young children think ("If birds made marks with their tail feathers when they flew, think what the sky would look like") and see ("If there are lots of birds in one tree and they all fly away at the same time, it looks like the tree yelled, 'SURPRISE!' "). Although the artwork most often follows the text's lead, richer moments come when Dronzek steps forward and does the imagining. "If clouds were birds, the sky would look like this," Henkes writes; with a dry, loosely wielded brush, Dronzek paints bird-shaped silhouettes of clouds tinted the same color as the setting sun they soar over. A kind of book of meditations for the very
young, its reflective tone and peaceful illustrations make this an excellent bedtime choice. Ages 2-5. " (Publisher's Weekly Review)

This is one of the ten titles nominated for the 2010 Ladybug Picture Book Award.