Behind the Big Read: Addie Wilcox

I am currently in my final semester at Hope College where I am majoring in Secondary English Education, Creative Writing, and Classical Studies. I live in Allegan, MI, which is where I am currently student teaching, but I originally hail from Ann Arbor, MI. After this semester, I am hoping to find a teaching position …

Behind the Big Read: Rachel Leep

Hello! I am a senior at Hope studying Secondary English Education. On campus I am also involved with dining services as a worker for Cup and Chaucer as well as Res Life as an RA! When I’m not in classes or at work you can usually find me trying to work through my apartments ever-growing …

Behind the Big Read: Alex Goodwin

Hi everyone! I am a senior Secondary Education at Hope College, with plans to become a social studies teacher in the West Michigan area after graduation. Besides taking classes and working for Big Read Lakeshore, I also work for the Hope College branch of TRIO Upward Bound and am active in Hope’s Swing (Dance) Club. …

Revisiting Past Perspectives of the Big Read

While we are waiting to launch into our programming for our 2024 Big Read books, we want to take some time to revisit some of the pieces that have been published about our Big Reads of the past couple of years! Whether in places like the Holland Sentinel or published to scholarly databases, the Big …

Classics Recommendations from the Big Read Lakeshore Team

Here at the Big Read Lakeshore team, we are united by our love for books. During one of our last meetings, the topic of our favorite classic works came up, and it was awesome to see the wide variety of works that have left an impact on our team members in many ways. We decided …

From Pages to Screen: Book Adaptations in 2024

With movies and shows like Dune and Bridgerton coming out this year, there has been a lot of talk around book to movie/ TV show adaptations. While the changes that are made to change these stories from a book into a more visual media can be controversial, there have also been great adaptations that can …

The Books That Made Me: A Personal Literary Timeline From a Lifelong Reader

By Alexandra Goodwin Everyone has a reading story. Whether your reading journey spans weeks, years, or decades, it’s impossible to be unaffected by the things you read. I began reading at the age of six, and while the journey has not been without struggles (did anyone else neglect school or sleep to finish a novel?) …

Is There Still Value in Reading Classics?

Growing up, I assumed that when people talked about “classic” books, they meant any old book. I would hear the same ten or so talked about, mainly by Dickens, Austen, Homer, and a Bronte sister thrown in there. I loved visiting the Barnes and Noble classics table where they had beautiful bound editions of these …

“That’s Me” The Power of Visual Diversity in Graphic Novels and Comic Books

By Hannah Lever Getting students and people of all ages engaged in books is not simply about a mastery of the mechanics of letters, words, and sentences. Reading is a valuable skill and a fulfilling hobby because human beings are created to create, to understand the world around us, and tell stories. We don’t read …

Choosing and Sticking to a Reading Goal

Setting a reading goal and actually sticking to it can be a hard thing to do. Even finding what kind of reading goal or challenge you want to try can be difficult. When I first think of reading goals, I tend to think of cramming as many books into a year as possible. However, there …