Maine Humanities Council

Home of the Harriet P. Henry Center for the Book
“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

1. Big Thanks to Borders

South Portland Borders manager Gail Sanborn helps hold up a thank-you sign from children who received donated books.
photo: Brita Zitin

Borders stepped up again to provide books to Born to Read with a book drive during the month of August. Customers at the four Borders Group stores in Maine donated more than 4,000 new books (South Portland and Bangor together collected 2,877 books, while 21 boxes of books came from the Brunswick Borders and the Auburn Waldenbooks). Borders is donating 5% of the sale price of these books, which will amount to a corporate gift of close to $2,000. The titles will be used in Born to Read trainings in 2009 and shared with Born to Read partners. We are very grateful to the community organizations that are helping to store the books—Community Concepts in Auburn and Southern Maine Agency on Aging in Scarborough—and to Planet Dog for warehouse space donated during the organizational process. If readers are disappointed that they missed their chance to contribute a book, please consider making an online donation to Born to Read.

This is the second generous book drive Borders has conducted for the program: the first began in August 2007, during three Borders stores (South Portland, Brunswick, and Bangor) collected more than 3,000 books for the Peaceable Stories initiative. Borders donated more than $1,000 last year, and the Southern Maine Agency on Aging helped out then, too, donating space to store the books when the drive yielded more than the MHC office could handle.

We are very grateful to the enthusiasm of Borders employees, who have provided tremendous support, encouraging each customer to learn about Born to Read. It is thanks to them that these book drives have done so well.

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2. MHC News

From the October Born to Read book list.

still need links

There’s still time to sign up for the MHC’s fall symposium “Fear, Civil Liberties, and the Rule of Law”. It will take place October 17 in Portland and October 18 in Bangor and continue on November 13 in both locations. It should prompt some exciting discussion.

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The October theme for Born to Read’s book list is “Weddings.” Children learn that they are still loved when uncles, sisters, and teachers marry, and this list includes descriptions of many different ethnic and cultural marriage traditions.

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Podcast Update

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New podcasts are available for downloading. A small selection: Judea Pearl and Akbar Ahmed speak as part of the 2008 Douglas M. Schair Memorial Lecture on Genocide and Human Rights; Eve LaPlante reads from her biography Salem Witch Judge: The Life and Repentance of Samuel Sewall as part of the Portland Public Library Brown Bag Lunch series; South Portland school librarian reads from Carolyn Marsden’s Moon Runner; and Cynthia Voigt, Ruth Freeman Swain, and Rebekah Raye read at the Blue Hill Library.

3. Facilitator Profile: David Richards

David Richards leads a New Books, New Readers discussion in Skowhegan
Diane Hudson

still need links

MHC facilitators often have large fan clubs among the people they lead in discussions. David’s popularity, scholarship, and facilitation skills make him one of the best MHC facilitators of all time. David has led MHC discussions since 1996, facilitating both Let’s Talk About It and New Books, New Readers. He began with the former and only got into the latter when the Margaret Chase Smith Library (where David serves as assistant director) hosted a New Books, New Readers session and the facilitator, Jeff Aronson “one night casually turned to me and said I could be leading these discussions myself. That was over nine years ago, and I have been ever since.”

David has a full plate when it comes to the MHC. He has led two History Camps on “Margaret Chase Smith and the McCarthy Era.” “One of my goals has been to assure high school students interested in history of something I wish I had been told when I was forming my goals—that it is possible to have a career in the field, that a history major does not necessarily mean limitation either to teaching school or practicing law.” David introduces History Camp students to historians who work outside the academy, in archives, libraries, and museums.

Nearly all of the 16 themed New Books, New Readers series have benefited from David’s skilled facilitation, and his favorite series shows why “benefit” is the word to use. While he knows that the “Home” series, offering an easily-identifiable theme, is a favorite of participants, David prefers the “Real Life” series for the powerful discussions it can prompt. “It deals with some very intense issues, like poverty and sexual molestation, and can get participants very stirred up. I believe a little passion is good leavening for a discussion, the more spirited the better.”

“Stories from a Gilded Age” is another of David’s favorite series, a fairly new Let’s Talk About It that David himself created, based on the in-depth knowledge he has on this topic (his most recent book is Poland Spring: A Gilded Age). David’s background as a historian and a writer help him bring context to a work’s period in time. In all MHC programs, audiences value highly this kind of context. You can hear David talk about his research on our podcast.

As well as enriching his participants’ experience, David finds ways for discussions to enrich his. They help him, as a writer, “understand how readers read, react, and respond to the written word. I know those insights have shaped how I have written my books. It is always thrilling when a reader recognizes the care I put into having the words flow and phrases sound lyrical to the inner ear.”

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4. Grants and Events

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Events funded by MHC grants include a symposium on 1850s architecture in Portland; a public screening of “Flock of Dodos: the Evolution-Intelligent Design Circus” in Lewiston; and an exhibit of textiles in Portland.

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5. What We’re Reading

still need links

This booklist includes personal favorites of MHC staff members, as well as books used by MHC programs. This month, featured titles are Old Bear, When the Moon is Full, and The Rain Before It Falls.

 

 

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6. Quote of the Month

“This seminar has been enriching because of the opportunity to read books! And discuss them. This doesn’t and, in my mind, can’t happen during the school year. Yet, as a lover of history, I like to do this and TAH has provided the milieu. And we have discussed how to use these books (and others) in our classroom.”

—A Maine educator who participated in a MHC Teaching American History program.

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