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• Direct from Maine—Nationwide

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• Upcoming Events

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• News from the MHC

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• Recent Grants

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• What We’re Reading

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• Quote of the Month

“In reality, every reader is, while he is reading, the reader of his own self. The writer’s work is merely a kind of optical instrument which he offers to the reader to enable him to discern what, without this book, he would perhaps never have experienced in himself. And the recognition by the reader in his own self of what the book says is the proof of its veracity.”

— Time Regained
Marcel Proust

We have a close-knit staff at the Maine Humanities Council and most of us know each other’s families and are accustomed to hearing tales about them. When Erik Jorgensen, our incoming executive director (currently assistant director), visited his in-laws last month in Minnesota, he emailed back a discovery he’d made in Minneapolis. His father-in-law, Larry Risser, teaches English to immigrants at the Franklin Library in a Minneapolis inner-city neighborhood. Most of his students are Somali. When Erik and his family stopped by the library where Larry works to meet some of his students, they discovered a substantial collection of Somali children’s books-and among the volumes was the MHC’s own A Somali Alphabet.

Before the reader assumes the obvious—that the family connection prompted the appearance of this volume in Franklin Library—I should add that our Born to Read program, which published the second edition of this text, complete with accompanying CD, has been active in its distribution of A Somali Alphabet to families learning English, in Maine and nationwide. Humanities Council colleagues working in other states have told us that the book is a valuable resource, and when Erik found it in this particular library, we saw another indication that our project is working.

Funding for the new edition and compact disc featuring Somali and English was generously provided by the TD Banknorth Charitable Foundation.

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Grant-funded events are listed here.

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HUMANITIES FEST

I’m afraid that I feel a tiny bit guilty about having sent “teasers” as part of this newsletter for several months for our upcoming Humanities Fest without giving anyone a chance to sign up, but now all details are finalized and the sign-up form is on our website. This special event, in celebration of the MHC’s 30th anniversary, will be held October 21 at Bates College and the Franco-American Center in Lewiston. At Bates, we are offering a series of presentations and talks, and at the Franco-American Center we’ll have family-friendly storytelling performances, music, and Somali food. Birthday cake in honor of the MHC will be at both locations. Please glance at our full schedule for the Humanities Fest—and be sure to sign up soon. This free event is our gift to the state, but we need to know how many people are coming to each session in order to reserve the correct-sized rooms.

By the way, on October 21 Bates will not be in session, so parking will not be as much of an issue as when students are around.

BOOK FEST

On September 30, MHC staff members Lizz Sinclair and Erik Jorgensen journeyed to Washington, D.C., to be part of the annual Festival of the Book held on the Mall. Tens of thousands of people showed up to a stretch of tents extending more than half a mile. Authors gave readings and people in the business of books and literacy had displays. The national winners of Letters About Literature received their prizes, which meant that Maine’s own Lacie Craven of Bucks Harbor was there with her family.

Letters About Literature, presented by the Library of Congress, certainly knows how to give an award in style. Lacie and her family were put at up the Willard Hotel, one of the finest in the city, directly across from the White House, and received a number of tours and visits (to the internal parts of the Library of Congress and to the White House, for example) that are not open to the general public. We were very proud to have Lacie treated with such well-deserved honor.

We want to give our special thanks to members of the Maine State Society of Washington, D.C., and Brooke Hayes of Senator Collins’s office who helped with the MHC booth that day.

BORN TO READ BOOKLIST

I am pleased to again offer a link to Born to Read’s monthly booklist. These are high-quality examples of children’s literature approved by the experts in early literacy that select the Born to Read curriculum. Born to Read books are among the most imaginative and fun to read, both for children as well as adults. Please glance at our monthly list if you’re looking for a really good read. October’s theme is Art. While many children’s books on this theme are biographies of famous artists, this list focuses exclusively on the everyday children as artists in their own right. Glance, too, at our booklist index for more ideas.

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$500 to Acorn Productions, Portland, for ESCAPE 2006
Funds will provide honorariums to guest poets during a day long celebration of New England poetry hosted by The Café Review.

$500 to the Town of Swans Island, Swans Island, for Burnt Coat Harbor Light Station Historic Preservation Project—Oral Histories
In connection with historic preservation work at the Burnt Coat Harbor Light Station, the town is assembling oral histories from descendants of lighthouse keepers for use in educational displays at the light station and at the Swans Island Library.

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Characters in literature often use art to address differences between themselves and their peers, and Randall Jarrell gives us a charming one with grace and humor in his book The Bat Poet. It is the story of a small brown bat who is fascinated by the world beyond the one that he and his fellow bats usually inhabit. While other bats sleep, he watches the birds and the squirrels and grows enamored of the poetic songs of the mockingbird. The other bats think he’s crazy. Despite this, the small brown bat one day begins to write his own songs and use poetry to express how he feels about the world around him. He writes poems for the owl, the mockingbird, and his new friend the chipmunk, and hopes that these poems will also help the other bats understand him.

With crisp ink illustrations by Maurice Sendak, The Bat Poet is a perfect volume for children beginning to read chapter books and also good for anyone wishing to dip into a powerful childhood read. It is part of the New Books, New Readers “Differences” series, which is new to the program.

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“Fatouma from Somalia, a young mother, didn’t have her book Little Bear one day. She said her 3 year old son took it and told her, ‘It’s not yours, it’s mine’ and days after would pretend to be Little Bear.....‘Mommy, I’m flying to the moon!’”

—from a teacher in a New Books, New Readers program in Portland

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