News Release

05/07/08
A Sold-Out Event Brings the 2008 Reading Across Rhode Island Project to a Grand Finale!

The author of Water for Elephants, Sara Gruen, will be in Rhode Island this weekend to close out events for the 2008 Reading Across Rhode Island project of the Rhode Island Center for the Book at Providence Public Library. This ‘one book, one state’ literacy project promotes reading as a positive community experience, inviting readers all over Rhode Island to join in reading the same book from January through May each year. Chaired by Robin Kall of Reading with Robin, this is the sixth year for Reading Across Rhode Island.

Schedule of Events

Friday, May 9 – 9:30 – 10:30 am – Narragansett High School

Narragansett High School will host Sara Gruen at a live videoconference, sponsored by the RI Network for Educational Technology (RINET).

The author will speak to an audience of students, teachers and community members from the South County area, with students from Westerly and Chariho High Schools joining at Narragansett High in the school library. The videoconference will be simultaneously broadcast to groups of students in northern Rhode Island at Smithfield High and Woonsocket High Schools. Students at all of these locations will interact with the author and ask her their questions about Water for Elephants and the writing process during the one-hour conference.

Together, Sara Gruen will reach about 300 students at these three locations on Friday, May 9.

Saturday, May 10 – 9:30 am -- Rhodes on-the-Pawtuxet, Cranston (800 expected to attend)

Sara Gruen is the Keynote Speaker at the sixth Annual Reading Across RI May Breakfast at Rhodes on-the-Pawtuxet on Saturday, May 10. This sold-out event of over 800 Rhode Island readers is the finale for this “one book, one state” project.

Popcorn, cotton candy and a circus arts performance by Marvelous Marvin and student volunteers from Woonsocket High will frame the breakfast and set the mood for the celebrity author’s keynote address about the book everyone at the breakfast has read and discussed in schools, libraries and in the 56 book clubs filling the cavernous hall at Rhodes on the Pawtuxet in Cranston.

For more information about these events, to view photos of different events or to nominate a book for 2009, go to www.readingacrossri.org.

Reading Across Rhode Island is a project of the Rhode Island Center for the Book at Providence Public Library. RARI 2007 is sponsored by Fidelity Investments, Reading with Robin, Newport Federal, RI Network for Educational Technology and Algonquin Books.

Providence Public Library is committed to providing quality programming on a variety of educational topics. The views and opinions expressed therein are those of the individual presenters and do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of the Library. We welcome community members to work with us to provide free, thought-provoking events of interest.