In the summer of 2007, Elizabeth Cooke, a long-time New Books, New Readers facilitator, wrote the following letter as a gesture of support to a potential funder of the program. We thought this tribute worthy of sharing with a wider audience.
As I write this letter in support of New Books, New Readers [NBNR], a program for which I have worked as scholar/facilitator for seven years, I glance at the shelf on the bookcase by my desk where I store the books I have used in the many series I have taught: Bridge to Terabithia, Charlotte’s Web, Dogsong, Stone Fox, Lost on a Mountain in Maine (chapter books); The Three Questions, The Lost Lake, The Scarebird, Lincoln: A Photobiography, The Hundred Penny Box (picture books)...these are just a handful of titles by brilliant writers and talented illustrators, books which have changed the lives of many of the participants in the program, including myself. From EB White to Tolstoy, participants have been exposed to the literary greats.
I have been a published writer and teacher of literature since 1978; fifteen years at the secondary level, fifteen years at the university level. I cannot teach literature without being a writer, and vice versa. I tell participants in NBNR that “literature can change your life.” How? “Good literature asks the reader to stand in the shoes of someone who is living the human condition and to find herself somewhere in the characters.” This is true for the writer, first; for the reader, second, according to Robert Frost who once said, “No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader.” The NBNR participants’ lives are rich with stories of living on the edge; they know poverty, abandonment, homelessness, learning difficulties, and loss of self-esteem and their place in our culture. What better audience to absorb and respond to literature which, through artful and creative use of words and ideas, asks the highest part of its readers to reach for self-discovery, and in turn, discovery of the Other.
How to involve new readers in this process? We read lines aloud and comment on the rhythm of language, the surprise of words and phrases, the discovery of feeling in dialogue and narration. New readers are surprisingly like sponges to these ideas; they find themselves on almost every page. When Charlotte, the spider, dies in Charlotte’s Web, I ask, “How does White bring forth the sadness we are all experiencing right now? How is the phrasing affecting? What words make the ideas real to you?” Participants in my NBNR group are not part of mainstream America; they struggle to find work, to keep their heads up against the burden of illiteracy, yet they are more than able to look at the words on the page and make sense of their depth, to see the difference between Wal-Mart entertainment books and true literature.
When we read twelve books—some chapter books, some picture books—under the theme of ’Coming to America’, and participants make connections between the new American who was/is an outsider and themselves, I know the books have done their work. When we study ’Difference’, and they read aloud, slowly, the words on the page, and express their own differences and how aware they are of all the citizens in our culture who carry differences, I smile at their openness, honesty, and ability to interpret and apply ’story’ to their lives.
Often the participants teach me. In A Hundred Dresses, one participant pointed out the difference between two of the characters’ responses to the ’foreign girl’; it was an important point which revealed a subtle level of comprehension of the motives of the characters. In reading Sam, Bangs & Moonshine, one participant took us all to a deeper awareness of Sam’s loss of her mother and how that affected her story-telling. These moments cannot be more exciting; the participant teaches and all the participants learn that comprehension and interpretation comes with experience and knowing, two qualities they hold richly; and that comprehension is another form of experience that deepens the life of the reader.
Of all the teaching I have been graced to do, it is the teaching of literature to these participants in the NBNR program that achieves the most meaningful growth, and it occurs because the works we read are literary in nature. To continue this program is to continue the opening of the lives of innumerable individuals to reading; but it must be literature they read. Only literature can give this gift.
(Elizabeth Cooke’s publications include two novels, Complicity and Zeena; a work of nonfiction, Tong-Ting Finds a Family; and short stories in the River Review and an anthology, The Quotable Moose. She is Assistant Professor of English at University of Maine at Farmington.)
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The Kennebec-Chaudière Corridor: A Cultural Heritage Tour
Join the MHC, October 5 through 8, as we travel off the beaten path by chartered bus on the Kennebec-Chaudière Cultural Heritage Tour. Through deep woods and along river roads, the route takes us from the Beauce Region of Québec to Bath, Maine along the Kennebec and Chaudière Rivers. These rivers were used for centuries by Native Americans to travel between the St. Lawrence River and the Gulf of Maine. In the 17th century, the Kennebec was first a border between the French and English, and then a contested thoroughfare. During the American Revolution, Benedict Arnold led American soldiers up the corridor in an unsuccessful attempt to take Québec. In the 19th century, Maine farmers seeking markets for their products established the “Old Canada Road” along the rivers, and later thousands of French Canadians and Irish traveled south to find work in Maine’s woods, mills and shoe factories. Explore the history, landscape, and folklore of the communities of the corridor, from the forested wilderness of Jackman to the tidewaters of Merrymeeting Bay. Taste the traditional foods of the corridor: French Canadian, Logging Camp, Franco-American and Lebanese. Experience local music, breathtaking landscapes, and the traditional games. The tour is $375 per person. Sign up soon—the bus is filling quickly.
A Good Book on a Fall Day
Is it worth losing your soul to win an election? With help from Robert Penn Warren’s All The King’s Men, we may just answer that question on October 20 with the MHC’s “A Good Book on a Fall Day” at USM’s Abromson Center in Portland. As the presidential season heats up, join the MHC for an afternoon/evening event examining one of America’s great novels. This half-day program offers presentations by scholars on such topics as political demagoguery, Warren’s literary techniques, and the two film versions of the novel: the classic 1949 Broderick Crawford and the recent Sean Penn remake. It will also include small—group discussions. Rounding out the day will be a mouthwatering Southern dinner and a cash bourbon—tasting bar. This stimulating reading and discussion event guarantees to satisfy all your political cravings. The event is $50 per person and includes meals and a copy of the book.
Peaceable Stories in Presque Isle
Born to Read’s first-ever children’s literature seminar in Aroostook County began on September 18 at the Mark and Emily Turner Memorial Library in Presque Isle. This six-week reading and discussion program for early childhood educators focuses on the program’s Peaceable Stories initiative. With books that include The Three Little Wolves and the Big, Bad Pig by Eugene Trivizas, illus. by Helen Oxenbury (1993), When Sophie Gets Angry—Very, Very Angry... by Molly Bang (1999), Leonardo, the Terrible Monster by Mo Willems (2005), and Louie by Ezra Jack Keats (1978), participants learn to discuss aggression, conflict, and peace as an active concept with others who work with young children and with children themselves. The program filled up quickly to its maximum of 20 participants with a waiting list already in place. Attendees include Head Start teachers, home-based child care providers, public pre-kindergarten teachers, and early childhood education students, and they are driving in from Caribou, Connor Township, Limestone, Blaine, Houlton, Ashland, Mapleton, and Fort Fairfield.
The September book list from Born to Read deals with missing toys and the joys (in many cases) of recovering them.
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It’s winter, ten degrees above zero, and the only building on this small town’s main street that’s lit at 6:00 PM is the local library. If you were to peer in through the front window, you’d see twenty people from the community, some elderly, some young, all holding the same book in their hands and looking attentively at the member of the group who is speaking. It is no ordinary book club but the MHC’s Let’s Talk About It, a scholar-facilitated reading and discussion program. Grants support this program, but individuals do, too. Each year, the MHC sends a special appeal for help to its donors, and the response is heartening. The MHC can offer Let’s Talk About It free throughout the state thanks to all these sources of income, but it is especially nice to have the income from people who know the program best—participants in this and other MHC initiatives—help Let’s Talk About It weather an increasingly difficult funding environment. Let’s Talk About It is offered to all Maine libraries. Scholar/facilitators lead discussions about the books from series comprised of five topically grouped books loaned to program participants. The program serves a dual purpose in Maine: strengthening the state’s small libraries and also their communities by bringing people together in open conversation. Last year, it reached 31 libraries and 700 participants.
Because Let’s Talk About It is a public, not a private, book discussion, it can bring together readers of all backgrounds, affluent and low-income, formally and self-educated, retired and active work force members, all hungry to talk with others about books and the ideas they find in them. For many people in Maine, Let’s Talk About It is the only source of this kind of conversation. Thanks to the generous people who support this program, the MHC is able to share conversations like this across the state each year.
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In May 2005, the MHC awarded a $3,000 grant to United Somali Women of Maine (USWM) for the production of a multimedia educational DVD and its presentation to communities in the Lewiston/Auburn area. Being Somali in L-A, Maine: Fostering Community Dialogue and Learning Through Image and Reflection was created by Professor Lacey Gale and photographer Kate Lapides, who generated the raw material for the project by interviewing Somali immigrants, particularly women and girls, in consultation with USWM staff. The result—over 600 photos and sixty pages of interview transcripts—have been archived at the Maine Folklife Center and also distilled into a 15-minute DVD. Local musician Harun Hussein contributed a soundtrack, while Robin Fleck, the English Language Learner Team Leader for the Auburn school system, helped to develop a discussion guide. The discussion guide, which addresses many parts of Somali culture, will assist educators, community leaders, and service providers in using the DVD as a catalyst for discussion with a variety of inter- and intra-community audiences.
The DVD shows a powerful portrait of life through this unique lens. We hear how experiencing war creates a constant background of fear. We see how women who were in a culture of working at home in the pursuit of raising children adapt to American life, becoming working mothers outside of the home whose children are now in daycare. We hear how their children adjust to being community members in a culture that distrusts Islam, their native religion. “To be nine years old and be representative of your whole community—that’s a big responsibility,” Robin Fleck says in the video when describing how children came to school after the terrorist attack of 9/11/01 dressed in red, white and blue to show that they were not among “the bad guys.”
A diverse collection of groups watched this DVD and held discussions as part of 18 presentations. They included more than 1,300 parents, teachers, state officials, students at Bates College, physicians and other health care providers, social workers, child care providers, board members of the nonprofit community, and kindergarten through 8th grade students and their teachers at Lewiston/Auburn area schools.
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The MHC has a diverse list of upcoming events, including tales at the Victoria Mansion in Portland, events during Deaf Culture Week in Waterville, and a presentation in North Berwick teaching ways of motivating children (especially boys) to connect with books. For a full list, click here [link to grants]. One particularly interesting grant-funded event is:
Playwright Victoria Mares-Hershey’s work-in-progress “How Did You Get Here?” is a collection of monologues inhabiting the voices of Africans in Maine during the period of slavery and beyond. The characters represented are regular people, not celebrities, because the goal of the piece is to give audiences a sense of the everyday lives of Africans in Maine. Two readings from the play, followed by facilitated discussion, were presented in Portland by the playwright in July. A third is scheduled for Sunday, September 30, at Affinity Arts on Kansas Road in Bridgton, Maine. Call (207) 749-6350 or (207) 871-7188 for directions. The finished play will be performed in December of this year. To learn more, visit the museum at its new location on Brown Street in Portland, or visit online at www.museumafricanculture.org.
The MHC has recently awarded the following grants (many of which are also in the events list):
$1,000 to the Victoria Mansion, Portland, for Holiday Happenings at Victoria Mansion
Educational events will be offered to celebrate Halloween (with “tales of terror” from the 1800s) and Christmas (showcasing Father Christmas as the foreshadowing of Santa Claus).
$1,000 to the Mount Merici School, Waterville, for Deaf Culture Week
The Mount Merici School in Waterville and Williams Elementary School in Oakland will celebrate Deaf Culture Week with a series of events culminating in a Friday evening performance by the Manchester Program of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing’s Drama Team of “How to Eat Like a Child.”
$500 to Old Fort Western, Augusta, for Teaching About Maine’s Indians Planning Grant
The project involves planning for a statewide conference that will provide information to public school teachers and other educators regarding their role in teaching about Maine’s Indians. The conference will be hosted by Old Fort Western.
$500 to the Norridgewock Historical Society, Norridgewock, for Norridgewock Corn Festival
The Norridgewock Historical Society hosted a Corn Festival in August, 2007. Speakers included Dr. Paul Frederic, author of Canning Gold, addressing the history of the crop, and Cooperative Extension agent Kathryn Hopkins speaking about modern corn production.
$380 to the University of New England, Portland, for Poetry of Monhegan
“On Island,” an exhibit at the University of New England’s Gallery of Art, showcased the poetry of seven women writers who spend part of their year on Monhegan Island. The exhibit ran from July 26-September 23, 2007.
In many readers’ childhood bookcases lies a much loved and equally reviled text: The Story of Little Black Sambo. Helen Bannerman’s classic story of a little boy’s adventure in the jungle, spiced up by tigers who turn into melted butter at the end, has been to many modern readers a symbol of obvious racism, due to the racist nature of the illustrations in most versions of the text, and also the use of the term “sambo.” In 1996, illustrator Fred Marcellino took the basic story and characters to create a charming and respectful version of the tale.
The Tale of Little Babaji has an obvious difference from the start: the characters, as implied in the original text, are all Indian, and clearly so. Babaji, Mamaji, and Papaji live in India surrounded by authentic parts of Indian life (Mamaji wears a sari and Papaji a turban, while the tigers, a species native to India, are where they belong, too). The story, other than that, is much the same as the original. Marcellino does a stellar job in rescuing a tale so that its true merit as a story can be enjoyed, and his illustrations inspire laughter and conversation in themselves.
Born to Read uses The Tale of Little Babaji in its “Many Eyes, Many Voices” training, a program designed to open conversations about difference among child care providers and other early childhood educators and the infants, toddlers, and preschoolers they work with.
Back to the Top“I can’t tell you how much our class learned from The Giving Tree. Especially the highest group—they learned to recognize what a word, sentence, question was. They learned direct speech and why the verb tense changed. They began to understand the notion of a verb, and they did a lot of thinking, as did the middle group. What a marvelous teaching tool—and gift from MHC.”
—an ESOL teacher in Portland working with New Books, New Readers
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Thank you to our current members. Your support helps to make Maine Humanities Council programs like the ones detailed in this newsletter possible. If you are not a member but would like to make a gift you may do so online or contact me, Diane Magras, for more information.
Notes from an Open Book welcomes feedback from its readers. Please contact Diane Magras by email at diane@mainehumanities.org or by phone at (207)773-5051 ext. 208 (toll-free 1-866-637-3233, ext. 208) to respond.