NEA Big Read Lakeshore

Want to support The Big Read Holland by reading a stack of new books?

Download this link to access vouchers that donate a percentage of your purchase at Barnes and Noble to The Big Read Holland Area. Offer valid only at the Barnes and Noble located on Felch Plaza in Holland.

Thank you for your support and for joining us to help create an entire community reading one book.

Big Read Holland Voucher

Reading transports us. It allows us to peek into another world. It stretches our imagination and asks us to consider another point of view.

For one person, reading can open a mind or grow a heart. For a whole community? Reading can change lives.

When The Big Read came to the Holland Area in 2014 I admired the commitment of the planning team and felt humbled by the dedication of the many volunteers. When I heard we’d get to do it all again in 2015, I knew that our community had begun to nurture something special.

As I started reading The Things They Carried this summer I knew I couldn’t wait until November to start posing questions and having conversations. I asked my husband what he would do if he were drafted. I listened to friends share about their lives during the Vietnam War. And I learned what they carried.

Some people carried strong memories of a very challenging time for their own families and friends. Some carried a general sense that the nation would no longer be the same. Others carried the burden of the future, of never having lived through the Vietnam War and yet knowing a little something about what it felt like to question the idea of patriotism or bravery.

As we gather in groups and discuss the book, I think we know we’re not really talking about the Vietnam War. When we question what’s “real” and what’s “fiction,” I think we know there’s no right answer.

And to be honest, these things are not what’s important. What’s important is the gathering. The questioning. The conversation.

Because, as Tim O’Brien teaches us, “. . . a true war story is never about war.” And The Big Read Holland Area—our story—isn’t about a book. It’s about a community.

-Sarah Baar

And we’re off!

Thank you to all who have already attended events for The Big Read Holland Area this season. It was been wonderful to hear your stories and testimonies from the Vietnam War and the book The Things They Carried.

We’d like to continue the conversation in a big way.

Join us at Barnes & Noble at the Felch Street Plaza from October 31st to November 7th for a book fair of The Things They Carried by Tim O’ Brien. Ten percent of all purchases will go to The Big Read Holland Area and be used to buy more books and publicize upcoming events.

Then, join us at 7 pm November 7th,  for the book discussion again located at the Barnes & Noble at the Felch Street Plaza located off of US 31. If you’ve read the book, just started reading the book, or have never read it before, you are welcome to join us.

If you would like access to the book sooner or would like to get involved, please check out our website for more information.

We look forward to seeing you there!

I love spending time in the intersection between my community as it is now and what the community dreams to become. That might look like helping someone discover and describe a calling in his/her life, welcoming children and families into our home to work on a project that builds community while helping people get to know each other, or serving on committees with agendas that help to move our community forward.

I love being part of the Big Read team because it spreads the joy of reading and discussing what we learn from reading across all ages and backgrounds in our community.

I love what The Things They Carried has to say about storytelling as a way to both share our dreams and make meaning of our experiences. “The thing about a story is that you dream it as you tell it, hoping that others might then dream along with you, and in this way memory and imagination and language combine”

 

We had a great turnout for The Big Read’s kickoff event, On Two Fronts:Latinos & Vietnam, at the Knickerbocker Theater last night. Thanks to all who attended! We look forward to seeing you at future events.

For those of you who were unable to make it, here’s a brief synopsis of the film:

The memoirs of siblings Everett and Delia Alvarez are shared through their stories of being on two different sides of the Vietnam War: one, as a prisoner of war; the other, protesting at home. As other stories are introduced, the audience is engaged in the devastating effects of the war from multiple perspectives.

The movie raises questions that are still relevant today regarding the front lines of war and the cost of citizenship.

It was also really great to meet some local Vietnam veterans and hear their stories as well. Thank you for your service!

We look forward to the upcoming events in November and the opening of discussions for the book The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien. If you haven’t picked up a copy, we encourage you to purchase it and join in on our conversation!

If you missed the film and wish to see it, you can find it here.

Thanks again! We’re excited for another great year of The Big Read.

Welcome back to the Big Read for 2015! We are excited to be reading The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien this year. We have some great events planned for this year

Oct 8 – On Two Fronts: Latinos and Vietnam

Knickerbocker Theatre, 7:30 pm

 

Nov 2 – Dr. Fred Johnson, “The Legacy of Their Burdens”

Maas Auditorium, Hope College, 7 pm

 

Nov 3 – Tuesday Tucks Me In

Herrick District Library Children’s Area, 7 pm

 

Nov 4 – Documentary: Naneek

Winants Auditorium, Hope College, 7 pm

 

Nov 10 – A Musical Journal to Vietnam with Van-Anh Vo

St. Francis de Sales, 7:30 pm

 

Nov 11 – Veteran’s Day Memorial at The Commons of Evergreen

The Commons of Evergreen Auditorium, 7 pm

 

Nov 13 – The Stories We Choose to Tell : How Do They Shape Us?

Holland Armory, 7 pm

 

Nov 16 – Moral Injury After War

Herrick District Library, Hazel B. Hayes Auditorium, 7 pm

 

Nov 17 – Give Back to Veterans Play Group

Herrick District Library, Hazel B. Hayes Auditorium, 7 pm

 

Nov 19 – Author Tim O’Brien: The Things They Carried

The Commons of Evergreen, 7 pm

 

Join us over the next two months to experience The Things They Carried through speakers, documentaries, art, music, and more.

Be sure to check back on the events tab on the blog or our Facebook page as we add more events to our schedule

This fall, the Big Read Holland Area Committee embarked on a journey to bring one book to many different pockets of Holland, Michigan. With the help of plenty of English teachers, local organizations, and Hope College students and faculty, we successfully brought To Kill a Mockingbird to hundreds of readers. No matter their age or familiarity with the book, Holland residents were encouraged to attend Big Read events and participate in book discussions. Not only were hundreds of copies of the book given away, but hundreds of people from the area attended the Kick-off and Finale events, many of which submitted their own mockingbird art to the community collage revealed at the Art Reception.

The Big Read Holland Area Committee would like to thank everyone who participated in and supported the reading of To Kill a Mockingbird this year. It really was a gift to witness so many people engaging with one uniting text.

We are excited to apply for the NEA Grant again next year! Check back for the reveal of the title of next year’s book!

by Addie Weaver, Hamilton MS 8th Grader and Special Big Read Participant

The Big Read is comprehension’ s best friend. I am a student at Hamilton Middle School, and curriculum in 9th grade requires everyone reads To Kill a Mockingbird. Anyone who has ever read this book knows that every chapter has many themes or morals. You can make connection to not only what you read on the page, but also things you can infer. I have been to several Big Read events and book discussions. Every time I go I find myself realizing something that I hadn’t thought of, or bringing up points that I didn’t know I was capable of. The Big Read forces me to go beyond the text and think about the big picture that applies right now. Only some books can do that. Only some books can bring middle schoolers, high schoolers, parents, and grandparents together. As an eighth grader, this program allows me to show creativity and deeper thinking that may not have pos! sible in a normal class. The students in my class have been pushed in all areas of thinking. We have used The Big Read to give us background information that could not be found with a google search. The Big Read has forced competition into our thoughts. For example we all want to have a deeper metaphor to show Joel Tanis when he comes to our classroom. All of these things allow us to comprehend this advanced novel better than if we just read the book in class. Because of The Big Read we are learning how to think.

 

By Hope College English Major, Katharyn Jones

Mary Marshall Tucker, a friend of Harper Lee and resident of Monroeville, Alabama, gave her address entitled “Maycomb: My Perspective from Across the Fence” to the Holland community on November 6, 2014. As I look forward to Dr. Wayne Flint’s, another friend of Harper Lee and a decorated scholar, visit to Hope College tonight, I think it is important to reflect on the interesting nuggets of wisdom Mary Marshall Tucker shared with us.

1. Maycomb, the setting of To Kill a Mockingbird, is a pretty accurate depiction of the way Monroeville used to be. The heat, the quaint shops, the courthouse… they are real places memorialized forever in the American classic.
2. Many of the characters in her book were based off of real people in Harper Lee’s life. Atticus Finch shows many similarities to Lee’s father, Amasa Lee, who was also a lawyer. Lee’s portrayal of Calpurnia seems similar to the woman whom the Lees employed. Harper Lee had a playmate named Truman who seems similar to Dill. Harper Lee seems to embody the advice: write what you know.
3. Monroeville, Alabama had its own “Arthur (Boo) Radley.” Sonny was a young man who had not left his house for a very long time. Rumors abounded: did his father lock him in the house? Would he kill someone if he left his yard? Children terrified each other with tales of Sonny, but, like Boo Radley, he was just someone who never really left his house.
4. Segregation hurt people. To Kill a Mockingbird portrays the hurt on a dramatic scale, but even a sweet women like Mary Marshall Tucker could not check books out at the public library in Monroeville until later in the 1960s.
5. To Kill a Mockingbird was real and it could still happen today. In 1986, a Monroeville resident, Walter McMillian, was accused of killing a white woman. He was put of death row without trial for his own “safety.” Even though there were many neighbors could testify he was holding a fish fry at his house, because of the perjured testimony and the withholding of evidence he was denied six years of his life before he was finally freed. If you would like to know more, check out the New York Times article addressing his release: http://www.nytimes.com/1993/03/03/us/alabama-releases-man-held-on-death-row-for-six-years.html. The injustice does not stop because Harper Lee wrote a book about it. It will take members of the community who are vigilant and willing to take a stand against injustice no matter the cost.

I always wondered what it would be like if one of my favorite books came to life. Visiting with Mary Marshall Tucker made me realize that, at least in the case of To Kill a Mockingbird, the book was already alive. Life wrote the book. Learning all the little details about To Kill a Mockingbird was both exciting and sobering because it is true, and sometimes the truth hurts. Yet it remains a truth worth telling.

Want to learn more? Come check out Dr. Wayne Flint’s address “Harper Lee, ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,’ and Their Enduring Message” at the Hayes Auditorium in the Herrick Library at 7:00pm tonight!

Freshmen in Honors English at Holland Public High School responded to major themes and ideas in To Kill a Mockingbird by creating unique word clouds. These 9th graders were inspired by the characters in Harper Lee’s book and used adjectives that they thought embodied themes in the work as a whole.

Interacting with the story and responding with art is what the Big Read is all about! Check out the slideshow to see these students’ creative work!

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