reading out loud
Multnomah County Library hosted Parallel University for a readathon of "Stubborn Twig" the Everybody Reads book for 2009. This book written by Lauren Kessler follows the story of three (I actually would say four) generations of the Yasui family who came to Oregon from Japan and settled in Hood River. It shares the story of assimilation, racism and the impact of WWII on Japanese americans, including the internment and prosecution of members of the Yasui family. This reading was facilitated by Kim Willson-St. Clair from our very own Miller library. The Library hosted this event on in the 3rd floor Collins gallery which is in the open lobby at the top of the stair case, and provided copies of the book for participants to read from and take away, apples from a Japanese owned orchard in Hood River, and a lot of material about the everybody reads project were also on offer. They were most gracious hosts!
It took a little over 15 hours for us to read the entire book.
Watch this short video showing snippets of some of the participants to get a feel for the intimate nature of the event. (about 3 minutes)
Parallel U. Contributes to Everybody Reads 2009
My experience at this event was multi faceted. First I noticed that the participants lead how it transpired. In some instances we just read sections until the reader passed it off, in others we traded paragraphs. And on many occasions throughout the reader would stop to engage in a conversation about what we had just read. The parallels between the Yasui family’s experience - or more importantly the culture of fear after the bombing of Pear Harbor has a strong resemblance to the situation we are now in. Many readers paused to make this comparison.
reading out loud