Read a good book lately?
If you’re looking for a suggestion for some late summer reading, visit the Jacksonville Public Library and borrow a copy of “Brown Girl Dreaming,” this year’s selection for the Jax Reads campaign.
“This is a communitywide effort to read the same book at the same time and then talk about it,” said Barbara Gubbin, director of the Jacksonville Public Library.
Gubbin was joined at the launch ceremony Tuesday at the Main Library by Mayor Lenny Curry, who is featured on the poster for the effort.
“I really believe in this,” Curry said before proclaiming September Jax Reads Month in Jacksonville.
“Reading is so important for the doors it opens in the mind of a child,” he said. “Reading taught me ambition with purpose is OK.”
“Brown Girl Dreaming,” by Jacqueline Woodson, tells through verse the author’s story of growing up as an African-American in the South of the 1960s and 1970s, living with the remnants of Jim Crow and realizing her growing awareness of the civil rights movement.
Woodson’s latest work won the National Book Award, the Coretta Scott King Award and the John Newbury Honor. She was named the Young People’s Poet Laureate by the Poetry Foundation.
The selection marks the first time a work of poetry has been chosen for Jax Reads. The annual literacy and discussion program began in 2002 with “To Kill a Mockingbird.”
In partnership with Banned Jax, a nonprofit that promotes community conversation about censorship and free speech, Woodson will visit the Main Library’s Hicks Auditorium at 2:30 p.m. Oct. 4 for a book-signing and discussion of her book, her writing process and censorship. Admission is free and open to the public.
Banned Jax Chair Leslie Kirkwood said Woodson’s collection of verse is a good choice because it’s a way to link the history of censorship to contemporary issues.
Programs to support Jax reads are scheduled for readers of all ages through September at the Main Library and neighborhood libraries. The book is available in printed form as well as audiobook and e-book formats.
“The important part is having a dialog about the book,” Gubbin said. “Participate in a program at your neighborhood library or sit around your kitchen table and discuss the book.”
For the schedule and locations of discussion groups and other Jax Reads activities, visit jaxpubliclibrary.org.
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