What is Reading Across Rhode Island?
FAQs
Reading Across Rhode Island, a project of the Rhode Island Center for the Book at Providence Public Library, is the state’s community read. The goal of Reading Across RI is to highlight literacy, involving all Rhode Islanders in a community dialogue focusing on books and reading. This is the eighth year for Rhode Island’s “One Book, One State” project.
2003 – Wish You Well, by David Baldacci
2004 – Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd
2005 – Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini
2006 – Shadow Divers, by Robert Kurson
2007 - The Memory of Running, by East Providence native, Ron McLarty
2008 - Water for Elephants, by Sara Gruen
2009 - Five Skies, by Ron Carlson
The 2010 title is The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
Written with warmth and humor, this epistolary novel begins beneath the hovering WWII cloud of departed German troops who had occupied the island of Guernsey, one of the UK Channel Islands. It is 1946 and writer Juliet Ashton, tired of covering the less serious aspects of WWII, receives a letter from Dawsey Adams, a Guernsey islander who has come across Juliet’s name and address on the flycover of a second-hand copy of Charles Lamb’s Selected Essays of Elia. Dawsey, a jack-of-all trades farmer and carpenter, is intrigued with Charles Lamb and wants to pursue his fascination with other books by the author. Thus begins an exchange of letters that introduces some of the loveable quirky characters that inhabit the Island, simple folk who describe in letters to Juliet their experiences during WWII—and how The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society came to be.
You are invited to involve the students, patrons, members of book groups and senior centers in your community in this exciting reading and literacy program.
Programs and Events
- The Kick-off Conference on January 30, 2010 at Bryant University, 9 am – 2 pm, featuring workshops on the novel's themes and a dramatic presentation by Living Literature
- A live Student Videoconference with co-author, Annie Barrows, on April 30, 2010
- The annual May Breakfast on Saturday, May 1, 2010 at Rhodes-on-the-Pawtucket in Cranston with Annie Barrows as the guest speaker.
For more information, call Louise Moulton at 455-8134
Nominate a book for Reading Across RI 2011