Project seeks to unite community through reading

What would happen if all of Monroe County read the same book? The project "One Book, One Bloomington" asks this questions of its participants. In its second year, the project invites the entire Monroe County community, including IU, to read the same book over the course of February, March and April 2003.\nThe community-wide project is sponsored and primarily organized by the Bloomington Area Arts Council, whose mission is to "serve and support art forms in all media: performing arts, visual arts, literature and creative writing," said Sally Gaskill, BAAC director and member of the steering committee. \nA steering committee of nine individuals organized and presented the project in 2002. This committee included professional librarians from both IU and Monroe County as well as people who are interested in reading. Some of the same committee members came back to the 2003 project.\n"It's a wonderful opportunity to bring the University, Bloomington and Monroe County together on something that is not a policy issue," said Amanda Ciccarelli, director of Special Projects at the College of Arts and Sciences and member of the steering committee.\nReaders have eight titles from which to choose: "My Antonia" by Willa Cather, "Ella Minnow Pea" by Mark Dunn, "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald, "The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver, "1984" by George Orwell, "Bel Canto" by Ann Patchett, "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain, and "Slaughterhouse Five" by Kurt Vonnegut. Residents and students can vote online at www.artlives.org, or drop a ballot into special boxes at local bookstores including TIS, the IU Bookstore, Borders and the Monroe County Public Libraries and the IU Undergraduate Library. The ballot also contains an option to include the reader's personal favorite book among the official choices. The committee will collect the ballot boxes Dec. 15. Online voting ends Dec. 16.\nOnce all the votes are in and the steering committee tallies them, the community will learn the final selection Jan. 25. From then on, those readers who would like to participate in this community-wide program can pick up the chosen novel at several of Bloomington's bookstores.\n"Once they pick one book, it won't be as much of an economic hardship to buy one book. Now people are buying all eight books to help them decide," said Jaz Williams, merchandising supervisor at Borders. "I'm hoping that the committee lets us know promptly what book is chosen so that we can restock and order more of that particular book."\nOBOB is similar to other projects undertaken in cities like Chicago, Orlando, Ottawa, Flint and East Lansing, Mich. Chicago's program -- "One Book, One Chicago" -- has taken place every semester for the past two years. The selections have included "Night" by Elie Wiesel, "To Kill A Mockingbird" by Harper Lee, and "My Antonia" by Willa Cather.\n"The program's goal is promoting community-wide reading and dialogue," said Kathi Loser, librarian at Bloomington High School North and OBOB committee member. \nThe committee had extensive discussion to select the criteria for the books on the ballot. The book must be written by an American author. The book must be accessible to audiences aged 16 and up. It also must be available in a variety of formats -- paperback, hardcover, CD or books-on-tape. The book selected must be average in length to allow ample time for a variety of community members to read it. \nThe main criterion is for the book to touch on themes -- whether controversial or not -- that foster discussion between generations. \n"We did not want to choose a book that had similar themes to last year," said Mickey Needham, librarian at the Ellettsville branch of Monroe County Public Libraries.\nOnce the committee makes the selection known, discussion groups will start up all over Monroe County. People University's Ex Libris, a group that meets every fourth Wednesday of the month, will conduct book chats tailored specifically to the selected book. Official OBOB discussion groups led by the project committee members will also spring up in the community.\n"We hope to make discussion groups available to a wide cross section of the community," said H. Michael Simmons, adult/family program specialist at Bloomington Parks and Recreation and chairman of the OBOB committee. "Formal and informal discussion groups will be available."\nLast year's project also spawned many smaller but similar programs. Church reading groups, discussion groups and circles of friends took up the selected book to come together later on and discuss it in the spirit of OBOB. Committee members said they hope that this year's project will result in a similar situation.\nLast year, Monroe County community members read Ernest Gaines' "A Lesson Before Dying." \n"Last year's book wasn't something I had read before, and I was glad to do so for the program," Simmons said. "Reading "A Lesson Before Dying" was a great experience especially because there were African-American participants in my discussion group, and their perspectives added a new dimension to my own understanding of the book." \nReaders of all generations connected in discussing racism and the relationship between diverse ethnic groups. Loser said she knows of at least one family where the student read Gaines' book for his sophomore English class while the parent read it as part of last year's OBOB initiative. \n"In a diverse community like ours, people are reading different things all the time," said Ann Bristow, reference librarian at the Main Library and member of the steering committee. "We had to find a way to bring parts of the community together to discuss items of interest."\nOn Jan. 25, the steering committee will announce the final book selection during a creative writing conference at the John Waldron Arts Center. Six IU creative writing faculty members will present a seminar to students and Monroe County residents. OBOB discussion groups will commence after this seminar. Those who choose to read the selected work will bring their diverse experiences and background to the discussions, making this program a real community effort. \n"Reading a good book never hurt anybody," Bristow said.