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RLC Big Read program kicks off in February
Staff Report
INA — For the third year, The Big Read is coming to the area, as Rend Lake College launches the program Feb. 24 during the college’s Homecoming ceremonies.
This is the final installment of the program at the college, which has chosen to celebrate the 1920s crime fiction novel, “The Maltese Falcon.”
The Big Read is administered by the National Endowment for the Arts and focuses on addressing the national decline in literary reading. Partners in the program, such as RLC, choose one title from a list of novels to promote for readership in their respective communities.
“We don’t anticipate applying for The Big Read next year, so we want this year to be the best one we have had so far,” said Sandy West, coordinator of technical services and collection management at the college.
RLC chose “The Joy Luck Club” by Amy Tan in 2007 and Mark Twain’s “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” in 2008.
“The Big Read 2010 award is the largest the NEA has granted to the college yet, and we hope the events we have planned to promote ‘The Maltese Falcon’ will inspire people in the area to read this great novel,” West added.
The Big Read grant to RLC will allow the college to bring the novel to more than a thousand readers in RLC District 521, information states. Many of those will be distributed at Big Read events organized by West, Reference Librarian Beth Mandrell and RLC’s area partners in Benton Public Library, The Buzz in Benton, C. E. Brehm Memorial Library District, Cedarhurst Center for the Arts, Green Tree Assisted Living Center, and local high schools in McLeansboro, Christopher, Benton, Bluford, Mt. Vernon and Thompsonville.
Events planned throughout the area to promote the reading of this American novel include a play titled “Maltese Murder” by the Benton Public Library TAP group in March, “Slay It Again Sam” Mystery Dinner Theater with Upstage Productions in April and a haunted Mystery Walk through Lebanon, also in April, as well as numerous book discussions, a showing of “The Maltese Falcon” the movie, and much more. For a complete listing of events coming up, go online to www.neabigread.org and enter 62864 in the zip code table.
For more information, contact West at 437-5321, Ext. 1249 or by e-mail at wests@rlc.edu.
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