2005 Everybody Reads selection, The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
Everybody Reads season is upon us, and regular Pageturners know February as the month when all groups read the same book (all other monthly selections are chosen by each individual group). There are community-wide events of interest: special speakers, exhibits and films. Groups might host guest facilitators who are experts in the topic of the book. But best of all, new people arrive! It is an exciting time when connections are made, both intellectually and socially.
Over the Years
I’ve participated in nearly all of the Everybody Reads programs, and over the years I’ve watched them grow to the extent that we can now command our own press run. Last year I ran my finger over the cover of Steven Johnson’s The Ghost Map several times to convince myself that the Everybody Reads logo was not a sticker, but part of the cover design, something that still amazes me.
2004
My first Everybody Reads was 2004’s Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. I’m not a huge fan of dystopian novels, but Bradbury’s version of a society where books are illegal and people sit to watch endless hours of empty-headed television hit a bit close to home.
2005
Another surprise was the diminutive The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, a collection of vignettes, each only a few pages long. I didn’t truly appreciate the book until I discussed the poetry of the writing and the use of imagery with my group. That year, 2005, was the first time that Everybody Reads provided Spanish language editions of the book.
2008
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ismael Beah was particularly difficult and painful to read, though I suppose that was the point. But the most affecting thing about reading and discussing this book was that my group, and many others, received a visit from several West African refugees: a young gentleman who works for a refugee organization in Portland and some of the children that he works with. They told us about their own experiences of the upheaval that Mr. Beah wrote of so eloquently.
2009
The statewide Oregon Reads selection of 2009 was Stubborn Twig by Lauren Kessler, a true account of one Japanese American family’s experience from immigration, to building a business in Hood River, Oregon and the tragedy of internment during World War II. This was another difficult read, simply because I’d never realized the extent of racism in our recent past.
2010
My favorite though, was last year’s The Ghost Map: The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic – and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World by Steven Johnson. A cooperative effort with OMSI, The Ghost Map was accessible science, a detective story about one man who knew that the leading medical experts of the mid-nineteenth century were wrong about the cause of cholera. His pragmatic thinking and dogged efforts finally convinced those in power and stopped the epidemic from advancing.
2011
Copies of these books still float around the library system if you want to read them. But now I look forward to reading this year’s selection, The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates by Wes Moore, making new connections, having new discussions, and ultimately, a new favorite Everybody Reads.
