Tales from Thurgood Marshall Academy

With one more month before school begins, we’re hard at work. We’re not only getting materials and new author programs ready for the next school year, but we’re also getting in the spirit for school to start again.

As we think about all the awesome moments from our school programs that ran last year, we get really excited and we almost can’t wait for the school year to begin.   While that may sound a bit strange when the sun is shining outside, and you’re on your way to the beach or the park, once you read these stories from our program associate, Chris’, visits to Thurgood Marshall Academy, you’ll understand.

The students read along as Zetta Elliott, shares a chapter from her book, Ship of Souls.

The Tale of Zetta’s Reading

Everyone in a class of sixth graders was given Zetta Elliott’s new book Ship of Souls, in preparation for Zetta’s visit.  However, because the teacher had to be absent to correct standardized tests in the days when she would have been preparing for Behind the book, the students hadn’t read very far into Ship of Souls before Zetta’s visit.

Zetta held a read-aloud so engaging that the students continued reading on their own over the weekend.

Not to be disheartened by a change of plans, Zetta read the next chapter aloud during her workshop and the students were hooked. The visit was on a Friday and the students asked their teacher for weekend reading homework so they could continue the story!

Rita Williams-Garcia reads aloud from her book, Jumped

The Tale of the Mobiles

Rita Williams Garcia visited a 7th grade. As part of their characterization study of her novel Jumped, students made mobiles with panels listing character traits and descriptions. It was quite a sight to walk into the classroom with colorful mobiles hanging from the ceiling.

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It is really beyond amazing to see firsthand the way meeting an author will motivate students to read and give them a tangible way to interact with literature.  Our programming and author visits give the students a way to connect to the stories, beyond just reading the book once and setting it aside in favor of a television program or a video game.  These stories show the strong connection that the students find with the books they read and the authors they meet in our program.  We love our authors, our program associates, and our students more than anything and we can’t wait to begin again in the fall!

If you have volunteered in a classroom and would like to submit a story, please send it to intern@behindthebook.org and your story may appear here, on the blog. Happy Reading!

Photo of the Week with Jim Shepard

After Friday’s post about his law firm reading, Jim Shepard is back on our homepage to tell us why he, his family and his dog all love William Steig’s Rotten Island.

The only kinds of children’s books in my house when I was growing up were non-fiction books (as in, All About Volcanoes or The World of Dinosaurs or The American Heritage History of the Civil War) since my parents, who hadn’t gone to college, believed that if you were going to read a book you might as well learn something.   So I encountered all of those children’s books that everyone else knows only glancingly, at other kids’ houses, until I met my wife Karen and she showed me how wonderful the books she loved as a child really were.   And then of course we had children and I got to see for myself how much kids loved those stories. 

Rotten Island is a particular favorite because all three of our children – now 20, 15, and 9 – loved it; in fact, it’s been such a family favorite that, as you can see from its upper left hand corner, even our newest addition – Cosmo, another beagle – enjoyed it, at least until it was taken away from him. 

As a disconcertingly cheerful rendition of the world’s most awful place – the kind of place where there’s “an earthquake an hour, black tornadoes, lightning sprees with racking thunder, squalls, cyclones and dust storms,” and your best chance for some R&R is bathing in the volcanoes’ lava, or stretching out on hot embers in the broiling sun – it’s perfectly in keeping with our family ethos.  The drawings, in their spastic aggression, are wonderful.   The humor is deadpan.   The result is joyfully unruly, if not subversive.   Sort of like childhood itself.

Be sure to check out last week’s Photo of the Week with Alex Simmons. Happy Reading!

Law Firm Reading Series, Stop Three: Weil with Jim Shepard

The third event of this summer’s the law firm reading series was a landmark for Behind the Book and truly a pleasure to attend.  In a way, bringing authors into law offices to give readings, is not so different than what we do during the school year, because everyone, no matter their age or reading level, could benefit from meeting a fantastic author.

And so, after the installments on Wednesday and Thursday, we have reached the third and final post about the third and final reading, where Jim Shepard read from So You Think That’s Bad at the law offices of Weil, Gotshal & Manges.

Naima, Jim Shepard and Hawa get ready for the reading

You Think That’s Bad is a collection of short stories, and Jim Shepard read excerpts from a couple of the stories, each one deliciously precarious with strange, but likeable characters.  The first story Mr. Shepard read was about Polish mountain climbers, who will wait patiently for the worst times of year to ascend their mountains.  But while strange, the story is far from absurdity, because Jim Shepard meticulously researches his stories, spending sometimes six months learning everything he can about a topic before writing his final draft.  In his talk, Jim Shepard told us about the research he completes for his stories, and the long writing process that goes into a short story of his.

With his affable nature and great sense of humor, Jim Shepard immediately gained a small fan club of summer associates who clustered around him at the refreshments table when he went to get a pastry after his reading.    A second conversation about great books and short stories (and many other things too) arose organically in the friendlier and more informal circle at the end of the refreshment tables and became the third act of the event after the reading and the Q&A.

We would just like to thank Jim Shepard and the offices of Weil, Gotshal & Manges one more time, for making this reading possible.  The summer law firm reading series has been a great success and we are always grateful to be able to work with such lovely  people.  All the law offices have such breathtaking views from the windows, and so it’s fitting to end with one last view of Central Park from the 25th Floor.

If you’re reading this and your corporation or law office would like to hold a reading for a special group within your company, we would gladly run the same sort of event for you.

Law Firm Reading Series, Stop two: Sullivan and Cromwell with Amy Waldman

Over this summer, Behind the Book ran a series of three readings at three law firms to introduce the summer associates to some great authors and their books, but also to tell new people about what we do and raise a bit of funding. These law firm readings are very important to us and we’re very happy that we were able to do, not one, but three events this summer.  I posted an entry about the first reading at Kirkland Ellis with Jennifer Egan, yesterday and now it’s time to tell you about our second reading of the summer at Sullivan and Cromwell with Amy Waldman.

In a building that was so close to the tip of Manhattan that I could see the Statue of Liberty from the window of the conference room, Sullivan and Cromwell welcomed Amy Waldman, author of The Submission to read from her book.

Amy Waldman had been a journalist before a novelist, and as such, she chose an issue of social and political importance: The September 11^th Memorial project.  While the memorial has long since been chosen, Ms Waldman said that she had been pondering the premise and plot of The Submission for a very long time, and the time and thought that she had put into her book was apparent from the excellent talk that she gave.  The excerpt that Amy Waldman read was alive with powerful tensions, and after reading she talked about her reasons for writing and the ethical dilemmas she liked to explore as she shaped the course of her novel.  The summer associates could not ask enough questions, and after the reading, I overheard some lively conversations from the table where Ms. Waldman was signing her books.

After discussing a book about the social and political implications of the September 11^th memorial, it was fitting that the summer associates who had been at the reading went to visit the memorial itself. It almost like they were going on a field trip and you know how much we love field trips at Behind the Book.

A special thank you goes out to the Sullivan and Cromwell law firm and to Amy Waldman.  You guys are lovely people, and it was really fantastic to go to your reading.

Now, here’s that view of the Statue of Liberty I mentioned earlier. Enjoy!

If you’re reading this and your corporation or law office would like to hold a reading for a special group within your company, we would gladly run the same sort of event for you.

Law Firm Reading Series, Stop one: Kirkland Ellis with Jennifer Egan

Even when school is out for the summer, and the students have gone home, the summer law associates of New York’s law firms are still hard at work, and possibly looking for something to read.  So this summer, Behind the Book, organized and ran a series of three law firm readings, featuring three great writers for the summer associates of three major firms.  After running only one law firm reading for the past couple summers, this was a big step for us, because the readings are  an excellent way to raise awareness and funding for Behind the Book.  Not to mention, with great authors like Jennifer Egan, Amy Waldman and Jim Shepard, the readings were fascinating and fun every time.

As the intern charged with taking pictures of each event, I had the happy responsibility of going to all three and the privilege of hearing each author speak.  Each reading was an amazing experience that I am pleased to recount to you, in three installments over the next three days.

The first stop on this journey was at the offices of Kirkland Ellis where Jo and I met Jennifer Egan, the Pulitzer Prize winning author of A Visit From the Goon Squad.  In front of a full audience of sixty members of Kirkland’s Women’s Leadership Initiative, Ms. Egan read the first chapter from A Visit From the Goon Squad and took questions before signing copies of her book.

Jennifer Egan talks about her book A Visit From the Goon Squad

But really, it’s hard to describe whether A Visit From the Goon Squad is a book of chapters or short stories, as the chapters are each centered on a different character, with writing styles so diverse that there is even a chapter of Powerpoint slides.  That was cool.  And sure enough, Jennifer Egan took time to describe her experiments in style and medium in her writing process.  Ms. Egan was as charming as she was interesting.  She explained that she handwrites her work at first, just to put it down on paper before typing and revising it.  During the Q&A, as everyone sat enthralled, Ms. Egan talked about the nature and role of time and in her book.

Once more, we would just like to thank Kirkland Ellis LLP for holding the event and Jennifer Egan doing this excellent reading. As I mentioned before, we love to do events like this, where we can tell people about Behind the Book with the help of such talented people.

I’m going to end this post with the gorgeous view from the Kirkland office windows and a reminder: If you’re reading this and your corporation or law office would like to hold a reading for a special group within your company, we would gladly run the same sort of event for you.

Looking uptown from the Kirkland offices