At the Center for the Book's annual state center "idea exchange" on May 1, 2000, the Washington Center for the Book, located at the Seattle Public Library, won the Boorstin Award for a significant contribution to the national program. The citation for the $5,000 award highlighted "If All of Seattle Read the Same Book," a pioneering reading promotion project that has inspired similar projects in other cities and states. In fact, at the same meeting, the Virginia Center for the Book announced its sponsorship of a year-long "All Virginia Reads" project.
Today, community projects to read and discuss "One Book" are rapidly growing in popularity. A featured section of the Center for the Book's Web site (www.loc.gov/cfbook) lists 63 such projects in more than 30 states.
"If All Seattle Read the Same Book" was started in 1998 by Nancy Pearl, coordinator of the Washington Center for the Book. Designed to broaden and deepen appreciation of literature through both reading and discussion, the project was supported for its first three years by a grant from the Wallace-Reader's Digest Funds, with additional support from KUOW Public Radio. Thanks to private gifts to the Seattle Public Library Foundation and a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, "If All of Seattle Read the Same Book" is now a continuing annual program of the Washington center. For more information, contact the Washington Center for the Book at the Seattle Public Library, 800 Pike St., Seattle, Wash. 98101, telephone (206) 386-4184 or e-mail: nancy.pearl@spl.org or (206) 386-4650, e-mail: chris.higashi@spl.org.
Nancy Pearl (center), coordinator of the Washington Center for the Book at the Seattle Public Library, talks about the "One Book" project phenomenon at the May 6 annual meeting of state center coordinators. Others in the photo (left to right) are Marcie Cate (New Mexico), Jay Lamar (Alabama), Stanley Romanstein and Paul Druckman (Minnesota). - John Y. Cole
"If All of Seattle Read the Same Book" brings the author of the selected work to Seattle for a residency that includes a live discussion on public radio, a free program for the general public, "meet the author" programs at selected area libraries, a reception with donors to the Seattle Public Library Foundation, videorecordings for cable television and videotapes, which are added to the Seattle Public Library's collection for checkout by patrons. The Washington Center for the Book lends hundreds of copies of the featured work to book discussion groups during the two months prior to the author's visit.
The Washington Center for the Book also develops study guides (called "reading group toolboxes") in advance and encourages book groups and individuals throughout the Seattle region to read and discuss the featured book. The toolboxes are available at all 25 Seattle Public Library locations as well as at many local bookstores. Toolboxes are also available on the Washington Center for the Book Web site, www.spl.lib.wa.us/wacentbook/centbook.html.
Pearl and her colleagues have developed specific criteria for selecting the book and its author. First of all, he or she has to be a major, well-established writer who has produced a body of work. Next, the author needs to be a person who is willing to talk to readers at several different events and, in all probability, at several different levels of discussion. Finally, the book itself must be a work that provokes discussion, most likely through well-developed characters who are dealing with issues in their lives with which readers can identify.
The featured "If All of Seattle Read the Same Book" authors and books have been: 1998, "The Sweet Hereafter" by Russell Banks (HarperCollins, 1991); 1999, "A Lesson Before Dying," by Ernest Gaines (Vintage Books, 1997); 2001, "Fooling with Words," by Bill Moyers (Morrow, 1999); and 2002, "Wild Life," by Molly Gloss (Mariner Books, 2001).
Across the nation, the most popular book for "One Book" projects is "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee (featured thus far by ten different libraries or library systems), followed by Ernest Gaines' "A Lesson Before Dying."
Each library or sponsoring group develops its own criteria for selecting a book and author. Many organizations look to local authors. In 2001 the Arkansas Center for the Book, based at the Arkansas State Library, picked "To Dance With the White Dog" by Arkansas author Terry Kay. In Hawaii for the opening of the Hawaii Center for the Book this February, Center for the Book Director John Y. Cole participated in the launch of "If All Maui Read the Same Book" at the Kahului Public Library on Maui. The featured writer, Maui author Deborah Iida, gave potential readers an enticing preview of her book, "Middle Son." This year, the Georgia Center for the Book, based at DeKalb County Library, is featuring "Ecology of a Cracker Childhood" by Janise Ray, a title chosen from the center's Georgia Top 25 Reading List. North Carolinia's Asheville-Buncombe Library System is focusing on Wilma Dykeman's "The French Broad," a volume in the Rivers of America series.
The District of Columbia Library chose "Having Our Say" by Sarah and A. Elizabeth Delany for its "One Book" project for the summer of 2002. Hartford, Conn.'s "One Book for Greater Hartford" project "Breath, Eyes, Memory," a novel by Edwidge Danticat. The Virginia Center for the Book's ambitious "All Virginia Reads" project in 2000 featured a nationally known author who was born and raised in Virginia, William Styron. His book, "Sophie's Choice," was read in book clubs and discussed in many Virginia schools and libraries throughout the year. Styron himself made several appearances, usually with his biographer, James L.W. West III.The year culminated with a black-tie event at the Virginia State Library honoring Styron and attended by celebrities such as his personal friends Peter Mattheissen and Mike Wallace and actors Kevin Kline and Meryl Streep, who starred in the 1982 movie version of the novel.
The choice of a book and author is not always easy. In many cities, it has been controversial. In New York, it didn't work at all. A committee of 15 librarians, bookstore owners and educators could not agree on a single title, finding itself deadlocked between "Native Speaker," a novel by the Korean-American writer Chang-Rae Lee, and "The Color of Water," a memoir by James McBride.
And what does Pearl think of the evolution of "One Book"? At the 2002 state center "idea exchange" meeting on May 6, she explained that her feelings were mixed. On one hand, she is pleased that the "one book idea" is popular, but she worries that its original purpose, at least as she envisioned it, is becoming obscured by public relations considerations and the occasional controversy. "This was never intended to be a civics lesson," she said. Pearl restated the project's purposes: to deepen an individual's understanding of literature by introducing people to good new books and their authors and "bringing strangers together to talk about a work of literature."
