28 February 2012
For Immediate Release
Contact: Martha Gammons
Phone: 608-758-6695
Email:
Mark Twain Focus for Area 2012 Big Read Project
This April, Rock County Public Libraries, along with other area libraries, are participating in the 4th Big Read project led by the Irvin L. Young Library in Whitewater, the Arrowhead Library System in Rock County and UW Whitewater’s Young Auditorium. For this year’s Big Read, book groups and individuals will be encouraged to read Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Each participating library will be hosting a book discussion, giving away free copies of the book and offering special events in celebration of this great American classic. Details of the libraries’ activities will be published soon.
The National Big Read website notes that “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is not merely a literary classic, it is part of the American imagination. More than any other work in our culture, it established America's vision of childhood. Mark Twain created two fictional boys, Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, who still seem more real than most of the people we know. In a still puritanical nation, Twain reminded adults that children were not angels, but fellow human beings, and perhaps all the more lovable for their imperfections and bad grooming. Neither American literature nor America has ever been the same.”
The Big Read is a program of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest. Local support is provided by Fort HealthCare, American Family Insurance, The Janesville Gazette and the Jefferson County Daily Union.
For resources and information about The Big Read and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, go to: http://www.neabigread.org/books/theadventuresoftomsawyer/
For information about Rock County Public Libraries' participation, contact Martha Gammons at the Arrowhead Library System, 608-758-6695 or .