Creating a Nation of Readers...
The Big Read is an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) designed to restore reading to the center of American culture. The NEA presents The Big Read in partnership with the Institute of Museum and Library Services and in cooperation with Arts Midwest.
The Daniel A. Reed Library at SUNY Fredonia, in cooperation with the Chautauqua Region Community Foundation, the Chautauqua-Cattaraugus Library System and the National Endowment for the Arts, is sponsoring the second Big Read Program across both Chautauqua and Cattaraugus counties.
The classic story of To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee has been selected for this year. In addition to the seventeen school districts across both counties, we hope to capture the attention of community members as well. We have several exciting events scheduled, ranging from book discussions, to a presentation of the Academy Award-winning film adaptation of the work, To Kill a Mockingbird staring Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch, even an evening with Harper Lee's biographer, Charles J. Shields, author of Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee. For a complete list of events, please visit the Calendar of Events page.
For those individuals unable to attend all of the events, we have created a blog through which members of the community not only can comment, but also acts as an online forum for discussing the book. We invite everyone to contribute to as well as share ideas at the To Kill A Mockingbird - The Big Read Program of Chautauqua and Cattaraugus Counties blog.