Two books have been chosen for the 2009 Rockingham County Reads community-wide read. These two books were chosen for their unifying and universal themes. All county residents are encouraged to read one or both of the books and then to participate in discussions and a culminating event to be held in March, 2009.
Book discussions will be held at libraries
throughout Rockingham County. Please contact your local
library for more information.
A culminating event will be held in the spring of 2009 at Rockingham Community College. Date and time to be announced. |
Becoming
Naomi Leon by Pam
Munoz Ryan
Pam Muñoz Ryan's
inspiration for this book began while reading about Oaxacan wood carving. She
says, "I came across a one-line reference to the Night of the Radishes. The
event sounded so magical I knew I had to see it. In 1997, on the 100th
Anniversary of La Noche de
los Rabanos, I visited the romantic and mysterious Oaxaca City, a feast of
colors, tastes, pageantry, and festivals. When I began writing Naomi's story and
she evolved into a soap carver, my imagination rushed me back to Oaxaca. Or was
it Oaxaca's spell that first mesmerized me, and inspired the lioness, Naomi
León?
Naomi Soledad León Outlaw has had a lot to contend with in her young life, her
name for one. Then there are her clothes (sewn in polyester by Gram), her
difficulty speaking up, and her status among her classmates as "nobody special."
But according to Gram's self-prophecies, most problems can be overcome with
positive thinking. Luckily, Naomi also has her soap carving, a talent at which
she excels. And life at Avocado Acres Trailer Rancho in Lemon Tree, California,
with Gram and her little brother, Owen, is happy and peaceful. That is, until
their mother reappears after seven years of being gone, stirring up all sorts of
questions and challenging Naomi to discover and proclaim who she really is.
READ MORE
Same Kind of Different as Me
by Ron Hall and Denver Moore
Meet Denver, a man raised under plantation-style slavery in Louisiana in the 1960s; a man who escaped, hopping a train to wander, homeless, for eighteen years on the streets of Dallas, Texas. No longer a slave, Denver's life was still hopeless - until God moved. First came a godly woman who prayed, listened, and obeyed. And then came her husband, Ron, an international art dealer at home in a world of Armani-suited millionaires. And then they all came together.
But slavery takes many forms. Deborah discovers that she has cancer. In the face of possible death, she charges her husband to rescue Denver. Who will be saved, and who will be lost? What is the future for these unlikely three? What is God doing?
Same Kind of Different As Me is the emotional tale of their story: a telling of pain and laughter, doubt and tears, dug out between the bondages of this earth and the free possibility of heaven. No reader or listener will ever forget it. READ MORE