By Deborah Van Duinen
In the first few years of our Big Read Lakeshore program, we chose one book to read every year. This book was geared toward high school students and older, and our events and book discussions were geared toward this audience.
In response to community members, librarians, and elementary school teachers who requested that kids and their families also be able to participate in our community-wide reading program, we did our first book “pairing” in 2016 with our Big Read book, When the Emperor was Divine by Julie Otsuka and Amy Lee-Tai’s children’s picture book, A Place Where Sunflowers Grow.
This pairing went so well that we decided to make Little Read Lakeshore an official sibling program to our Big Read program. In fact, in the years that followed, and again in response to community member requests, we also added a Middle Read Lakeshore program for our middle-aged readers (upper elementary and middle school) and a Mini Read Lakeshore program for our youngest readers (birth to age 5).
Our approach to book selection has always remained the same. We start with our Big Read book selection and then choose Middle, Little, and Mini Read books based on the Big Read book’s topics and themes.
In recent years, we’ve been trying to lean into discussion or guiding questions that run across all of our book selections. We’ve also been trying to foreground the concept of a “text set” as we present our book selections to our Lakeshore readers.
What is a “text set?”
A “text set” is a commonly used term in the K-12 teaching world. It refers to a collection of texts (or other materials) on a particular topic or theme representing varying perspectives or ideas while collectively building a shared understanding.
As an educator, I love dreaming up “text set” ideas and using them with my students! There are so many possibilities with different ways to approach topics and using a variety of texts. Coming up with our Big, Middle, Little, and Mini Read books is a complicated and complex process with lots of input from librarians, teachers, professors, and community members but it’s also a creative process and it’s one of my favorite things to do each year!
We chose our 2024 books (or text set) based on the themes of identity, dreams, and belonging.
- What do these stories say about dreams? Identity? Belonging?
- How do cultural and societal norms in each story affect the characters’ search for who they are?
- What are your dreams? What are your dreams for our community?
Each book explores characters’ journeys of self-discovery, identity formation, cultural traditions and heritage, social class and inequality, the pursuit of dreams, and the importance of belonging in its own way.
We also wanted to choose books with a variety of author voices. F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gene Luen Yang, Pedro Martin, Yuyi Morales, and Katie Wilson represent different ages, races/ethnicities, citizenship, genders, and so on.
Our challenge to our Lakeshore readers is to read all of our 2024 books (or at the very least more than one!). How do the books complement each other? How do they challenge each other? What do they say collectively?
Happy reading!