| ‘1 Book, 1 Burg’ comes to a close |
|
| News | |||
| Written by Aaron Cedeño | |||
| Wednesday, 04 November 2009 07:00 | |||
|
There are a lot of ways to measure success. In sports, for example, maybe it’s done with a point total. In Hollywood, it can be measured in tickets sold, or perhaps Academy Awards earned. At the Louisburg Library, however, it was the sight of empty shelves that made programming  assistant Karen Stuart smile, and with good reason. It meant that each of their 300 copies of L. Frank Baum’s “The Wizard of Oz” was out in the community, where residents were taking part in the fall reading program, dubbed “1 Book, 1 Burg.”“I think the reason we have the community-wide reading program is to get a lot of people reading the same book at once,” Stuart said. “Your best friend could have never read a series that you liked, and then what do you have to talk about? You can’t talk about the books because you haven’t read them.” Starting on Oct. 3 with a double-feature of Oz-related films, and concluding with a book discussion last Thursday, Stuart felt that “1 Book, 1 Burg” was an unqualified success. The goal of the campaign is to get community members reading, and talking about, a book selected by the library staff. In the “Wizard of Oz,” Baum’s tale of a Kansas girl who is transported via tornado to a magical kingdom, the library hoped to revitalize interest in a literary classic with particular relevance to Kansans. The community response was enthusiastic, Stuart said, in large part because of the tale’s notoriety. “I think it’s such a well known book,” she said. “And because it’s light, it’s a kids book.” Another successful event over the course of the month was the “Sack Lunch Bunch” at Louisburg High School, on Oct. 22. Community members and students from a pair of LHS history classrooms read the book, and came together for a day of discussion over lunch. Ten adults and approximately 40 students participated, and Stuart indicated that both parties showed an impressive grasp of the subject material. “You never know if kids are going to talk,” she said. “But we were pleasantly surprised, a lot of them seemed to have a lot to say.” Jason Nelson, LHS world history teacher, said he and fellow American history instructor Jenna Jones opted to incorporate the book into their lesson plans, with great results. Nelson, for example, used the story’s themes to creatively relate to the class’ section on European absolutism and its leaders. “They were very good at seeing the relationship that I was hoping that they would see,” Nelson said, of his students. “And I think they really enjoyed it as well.”
|