General Information and Past Events

• What is North Reading Reads?
• North Reading Reads 2008
• North Reading Reads 2007
• North Reading Reads 2006
  
• North Reading Reads 2005
• North Reading Reads 2003

WELCOME TO NORTH READING READS 2009!

We invite you to join the North Reading community for our sixth town-wide reading program. We hope you'll find reading Markus Zusak's The Book Thief as meaningful as you've found the other selections. This unique book has won many awards, including the Michael L. Printz Honor Book Award.

"It’s just a small story really, about among other things: a girl, some words, an accordionist, some fanatical Germans, a Jewish fist-fighter, and quite a lot of thievery." .
from author's website: Markus Zusak

The St. Louis Dispatch writes: "This is a brilliant look at the wartime lives of ordinary
decent people."

The Florida Times-Union calls it "The book to pick up for people who love to read."

Other communities that have chosen The Book Thief as its community read include:

Loudon County, Virginia

Salt Lake County, Utah

Lincoln, Nebraska


Community Reading Programs are popular throughout the United States.
To find out what other communities have read or are reading, please visit
The Center for the Book.
.

"It's a simple thing, this coming together around books…Communities sharing a book can crack the isolation of technology that allows people to do almost everything without seeing another human being. The invitation to read gives a person permission to clear space on the jammed schedule for reconnecting with the joy of story hour.

What if the whole country read one book? How about the world? Think about it."

The Boston Globe, 3/1/05

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Markus Zusak

Markus Zusak was born in Sydney, Australia, where he currently lives, with his wife and daughter. The youngest of four children, he is the son of an Austrian father and a German mother.

On his reasons for writing The Book Thief, he has said, "I thought about writing of the things my parents had seen while growing up in Nazi Germany and Austria, and when I brought the ideas together, it seemed to work, especially when I thought about the importance of words in that time and what they were able to make people believe and do." In an interview, he says, "If nothing else, there's another side that lives beneath the propaganda reels that are still so effective decades later."

Also by Markus Zusak

 I am the Messenger

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North Reading Reads 2009 Events and Exhibits

Events will take place in the Flint Memorial Library Activity Room
unless otherwise noted. Keep watch for information about additional events, including: a panel on the Homefront During World War II; workshops on altered books; two films; a student art exhibit, and a photographic poster display,The Courage to Remember: The Holocaust, 1933-1945, from The Simon Wisenthal Center in Los Angeles.

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DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. What is the effect of having Death serve as the narrator?
2. What is the significance of colors in the book?
3. Who is your favorite character? Why?
4. In the book there are many instances of courage. If you can, choose which act
(and by whom) best illustrates courage.
5. In the novel, words have the power to both destroy and save lives. Discuss.
6. Markus Zusak uses many literary devices in his writing style, e.g., irony, metaphor, personification, foreshadowing. What is the effect? Discuss.

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IF YOU LIKED The Book Thief, we suggest...

These books...
Skeletons at the Feast by Chris Bohjalian
Stones from the River, Ursula Hegi
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, John Boyne
Safe Passage, Ida Cook
Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut
Milkweed by Jerry Spinelli
The True Story of Hansel and Gretel: A Novel of War and Survival by Louise Murphy
The Plot Against America by Philip Roth
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer

These films...
Au Revoir Les Enfants
Schindler's List
The Lives of Others
Goodbye, Lenin
Life is Beautiful
The Ritchie Boys
Lacombe, Lucien
The Pianist

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  Websites of Interest

World War II - The Homefront
The History Place: Holocaust Timeline
The Holocaust Center
Facing History and Ourselves
Yadvashem, The Righteous Among Nations
Center for the Study of Jewish-Christian-Muslim Relations
Altered Books Wikipedia
Westport, Connecticut Altered Books Project
Jesse Owens

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    Charitable Outreach

   The library is collecting donations for the North Reading Food Pantry.
Please bring canned goods and other non-perishable goods to the main floor.
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NORTH READING READS 2009 ORGANIZERS & SPONSERS

• Friends of the Flint Memorial Library
• North Reading High School Library
• North Reading High School Parents' Association
• North Reading Department of Elder Services
• Book Ends, of Winchester
  
• Verizon
• The Savings Bank
• Reading Co-operative Bank
   

Thank you to Steve DiFranza for designing the North Reading Reads logo, Margarita Drozdoff, web designer, and Brett Kunze, for the READ posters. Thank you his students, Julia Stasio, Anna Vitale, Deanna Rikeman, Mandy Juliano, and Sarah Chipman for their illlustrations inspired by The Book Thief, which may be viewed at the Library Gallery. Thank you to Maria Kim for playing the piano at the artists' reception. And thank you to Declan Geoffrion-Scannell, Lorin Zackular, Josh Gordon, and Mark McGillivray for their readings.

Thank you also to Vicki Yablonsky, to Nancy Bailey Miller, Nancy Stewart, and Mary Prenney. Thank you also to Jenny O'Leary Director North Reading Youth Services. Thank you to Mark Meehl and Rob Carbone of NORCAM for filming several events and airing them on cable. Thank you to Deb Longabaugh-Burg, of Merrimack College Center for the Study of Jewish-Christian-Muslin Relations, for arranging for the loan of the posters.

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