What a great campaign. Reading is so very important…creativity is cultivated through reading. The little girl at the end of the video says, “When we don’t read, imagination disappears”. This is so true. We must encourage future generations to read, read, read.
Literacy Foundation \”The Gift of Reading\” campaign (A video!)
Ohhhhh! Two of my favorite things… reading and doing something positive… have now been combined.
We Give Books was created by the Penguin Group and the Pearson Foundation.1
Easy-peasy. You go to their website http://www.wegivebooks.org/ and you choose from one of the campaigns, sign up, read the FREE books online to yourself, to others, to anyone who will listen. Read them once, read them twice, read them a dozen times over. Each time you read a book, a book is donated to the campaign you chose. So simple, so thoughtful, so fun.
SO! What are your waiting for? Go read a couple books tonight… they are not difficult reads. A few of my favorites were School Days Around the World by Catherine E. Chambers, Ladybug Girl by Jacky Davis and David Soman, and Llama Llama Red Pajama by Anna Dewdney. The first is a compilation of stories depicting a typical day at school for 7 different children in 7 different countries. It was interesting to read how similar school is for children around the world and how it is different. The second was about a little girl who is all dressed up like a ladybug and is left to her own devices for entertainment… which she achieves with style. The last is a familiar story to many in a series of Llama Llama books. It is cute particularly when read out loud with animation. I read this one to everyone right before they went to bed…
I read each and every book offered so far at least once. And I even read aloud to teenagers and my dearest friend! =) Hahahaha… but they enjoyed it. I intend to read them again and again and read all the new ones (until they make me stop!) I think this is a great cause and want to be part of it! =) Join the fun… you know you want to!
I came across a random reading challenge only to realize it was over. Awwww!!! =( So, I thought why not look for others. Luckily, the person who posed that challenge had quite a few other challenges and I think I will join a couple. I figure all reading in these challenges I commit to can fall under my own journey to 1000 books. Why not? =)
Here are the two challenges I will be joining:
2010 Chunkster Challenge (you can read more about it or join here)
I am going with “The Chubby Chunkster” option because I am starting a full 7 1/2 months after it began! I will read 3 chunksters (books over 450 pages long) before December 31st 2010. I will post a review on each of the three books with a link back to this page and the original challenge page. (8/17/10)
Orbis Terrarum Reading Challenge (you can read more or join here)
8 books each written by an author from a different country. YAY! I will blog about these as I finish them as well. And link them back here.
Listening is an act of love, originally uploaded by allicette.
As part of my summer reading aloud shtick I chose a book of short, inspiring stories. I figured they were easier to follow and would keep everyone’s attention because when you are reading a book with 3 other people–over the age of 14–it is difficult to find a time and to keep everyone engaged. I chose, Listening Is an Act of Love: A celebration of American life from the Storycorps project edited by Dave Isay. This is the second ‘Storycorps‘ compilation I’ve read and I just loved it! We all did.
Storycorps is ‘the largest oral history project in the nation’s (United States) history’.1 From their website,
StoryCorps is an independent nonprofit whose mission is to provide Americans of all backgrounds and beliefs with the opportunity to record, share, and preserve the stories of our lives. Since 2003, StoryCorps has collected and archived more than 30,000 interviews from more than 60,000 participants. Each conversation is recorded on a free CD to share, and is preserved at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. StoryCorps is one of the largest oral history projects of its kind, and millions listen to our weekly broadcasts on NPR’s Morning Edition and on our Listen pages.
The heart of StoryCorps is the conversation between two people who are important to each other: a son asking his mother about her childhood, an immigrant telling his friend about coming to America, or a couple reminiscing on their 50th wedding anniversary. By helping people to connect, and to talk about the questions that matter, the StoryCorps experience is powerful and sometimes even life-changing.
Our goal is to make that experience accessible to all, and find new ways to inspire people to record and preserve the stories of someone important to them. Just as powerful is the experience of listening. Whenever people listen to these stories, they hear the courage, humor, trials and triumphs of an incredible range of voices.
“By listening closely to one another, we can help illuminate the true character of this nation reminding us all just how precious each day can be and how truly great it is to be alive.
Dave Isay,
Founder, StoryCorps
This book is a compilation of stories from these interviews. I think we cried through the majority of them, not sad tears, mostly heartwarming… inspired tears. This is a book filled with the stories of real Americans. We are not Jersey Shore, Jerry Springer or any other reality TV. We are everyday people whose lives revolve around family, love, hard work and kindness. We are motivated by the genuine desire to take care of our families and to make a friend smile. These stories highlight what is really important to people in this country.
The essence of America lies not in the headlined heroes… but in the everyday folks who live and die unknown, yet leave their dreams as legacies. — Alan Lomax, 1940
This book is filled with stories of home and family, work and dedication, journeys, history and struggle, fire and water. From the personal tale of loves found, loves lost, loves and families sustained to the overwhelming support of the NPR Storycorps listeners comforting an-amazingly-loved widow…it is the extraordinary life stories of everyday people. The Storycorps project really is profound, this excerpt explains perfectly how important it is for people to be heard, to be acknowledged,
[A man who lived in 'a flop house on the Bowery in New York City, where homeless men slept in prison-cell-size rooms covered in chicken wire for as little as five dollars a night'] looked at his story, took it in his hands, and literally danced through the halls of the old hotel shouting, “I exist! I exist!” [Dave Isay] was stunned. [He] realized as never before how many people among us feel completely invisible, believe their lives don’t matter, and fear they’ll someday be forgotten.
The book is perfect to read aloud with others. Read it with your family, with friends, with your loved ones. It should be required reading in American history classes. These are the stories no one puts in texts. These are the stories no one makes a hollywood movie about but should!
I would definitely recommend Listening Is an Act of Love to anyone. And I would also urge you to be a part of Storycorps, record your story, record your wife’s or husband’s story. Record your neighbor’s story. Help make history more real for future generations. And it may just change your life…
(20/1000)
An update on my journey to 1000 books. So, in no particular order here are the 19 books I remember… I know there were more but they will come to me.
I read a lot. Good books. Bad books. All sorts in between. Every now and again I come across a book so well-written, so engaging, so worth reading I find myself saddened at the mere thought of it ending even as I eagerly plow through the story. Today, I stumbled upon one of these books, The Story of Forgetting. I am simply awestruck by this debut novel written by Stefan Merrill Block. Not since Nicole Krauss’ The History of Love or Carlos Ruiz Zafón’s The Shadow of the Wind have I been this enamored with the way an author has told a compelling human story, a story so real we can all relate to it. Stefan Merrill Block has a way with words that entranced me, forcing the noisy, chaotic world to fall away and the fictitious world of silence to begin from the very first sentence,
“I never found a way to fill all the silence.”
This is introduction to a story about familial love, generational suffering and Alzheimer’s. A story I already want to read again. Two stories of love and loss—slow eroding loss, small undetectable death after subtle death after profound death within the same person—generation after generation. This is a story of deep, messy love. Family. Roots. Future and past. I am reticent to give away too much. I couldn’t possibly say it better than the author. I wouldn’t even try.
“Once, I fell in love with everything…” (p.1)
Once, I fell in love with everything an author wrote filling 310 pages with a story of a boy’s search for peace, for comfort with the agony of losing his mother to early onset Alzheimer’s, facing the frightening possibility that he will take after her, follow her in loss—of family, friends, memories, and self. The story of his struggle intersects with the story of a decrepit old man stuck slowly waiting his life away, refusing to forget, grasping on to his painfully beautiful memories–allowing them to be his hope against a weathered lonely reality in fast-changing surroundings.
This is a story of remembering and forgetting and how fundamental both are to the human experience. This is story rooted in love and pain. Loss and redemption. A serious illness and how it affects families, friends, strangers.
I dog-ear pages in the bottom corner in books when something on that page is written eloquently, if it is a point or an idea worth sharing, worth revisiting. I dog-eared so many pages in The Story of Forgetting it might appear to be the way the book was printed with every other page corner missing. I cannot realistically share each and every quote I would love to discuss with you but I would love to after you’ve read the book! Here, see for yourself…
Write me below if you wish to discuss this wonderful novel. If you haven’t read it, go… get it now. Order it online. Read it as soon as possible, you will not regret it. In the meanwhile, I am EAGERLY awaiting this new author’s next book. Write. Write. Write. =)
Yesterday’s post was fun. I think I will add some more from Bizarre Books: A Compendium of Classic Oddities by Russell Ash and Brian Lake for today…
Ten more unfortunate or funny author name / book name couples:
I received as clever book yesterday and read it from start to finish in less than an hour, Bizarre Books: A Compendium of Classic Oddities by Russell Ash and Brian Lake. In it are unfortunate and humorous book titles and author name matches, double entendre titles, funny or inappropriate titles, etc.
Here are ten book title / author name matches or mismatches I thought shareworthy:
You can pick up this book at a local bookstore near you.
Suzallo Library, UW, originally uploaded by AnRb.
This is the study room of Suzallo Library in University of Washington, Seattle. The Suzallo Library is known as the soul of the University of Washington. It is awe-inspiring. Here are some wonderful tidbits of information on this beautiful library…
“At each end of the reading room, a paneled alcove features a hand-painted world globe hanging from the ceiling, each of which bears the names of diff erent explorers. In the south apse, these explorers include Leif Ericson, Marco Polo, Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci, Magellan, Henry Hudson, Vasco da Gama and Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo. Their north apse counterparts are Ponce de Léon, Hernando Cortez, Capt. John Smith, Sir Wa l ter Ra l e i g h , Fra Junípero Serra, Vasco Núñez de Balboa, Francisco Pizarro, John Cabot, Jacques”1
“Oak bookcases in the Suzzallo Reading Room are topped with a and-carved frieze representing native plants of Washington state, including salal, Douglas fir, scrub oak, grape, dogwood, mountain ash, rhododendron, pear, trillium, salmon berry, wild rose, apple, marigold, cante-loupe, tulip and cherry.”2
“Eighteen terra-cotta figures symbolizing contributions to learning and culture grace niches on Suzzallo Library’s exterior. The figures were created by Allan Clark, a young sculptor from Tacoma. The subjects, selected by a panel of UW faculty, include Moses, Louis Pasteur, Dante, Shakespeare, Plato, Benjamin Franklin, Justinian, Sir Isaac Newton, Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Goethe, Herodotus, Adam Smith, Homer, Gutenberg, Beethoven, Darwin and Grotius. Three heroic figures of cast stone depicting “Mastery” (at right), “Inspiration” and “Thought,” also sculpted by Allan Clark, stand over the portals of the main entrance.”3
“Tall, traceried windows in the Smith Room incorporate leaded glass which is intended to break the direct rays of light. Medallions representing 28 diff erent Renaissance watermarks are worked into the design of the glass. These watermarks were taken from a book purchased by the Library in 1923, Les Filigranes: Dictionnaire Historique des Marques du Papier, a fourvolume set by C.M. Briquet. Briquet’s work included illustrations of more than 16,000 watermarks dating from 1282 to 1600.” 4
The photographer of this lovely photo had this to say about the Harper Memorial Library,
“William Rainey Harper was a child prodigy who graduated from college at fourteen and became the first President of the University of Chicago at the age of 35. The Harper Memorial Library, on the south side of the main quadrangle, was named to honor his many contributions to the University. The library’s reading room is a cavernous space filled with books and tables from wall to wall. Huge stained glass windows fill the room with light from its floor all the way to its lofty stone ceiling.”
