One City One Book (also One Book One City, [City] Reads, On the Same Page and other variations) is a generic name for a community reading program that attempts to get everyone in a city to read and discuss the same book. The name of the program is often reversed to One Book One City, or is customized to name the city where it occurs. Popular book picks have been Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, Ernest Gaines's A Lesson Before Dying, and Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. [1]
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One City One Book programs take the idea of a localized book discussion club and expand it to cover a whole city.[2] The first such program was "If All of Seattle Read the Same Book" in 1998, started by Nancy Pearl at Seattle Public Library's Washington Center for the Book.[3] The book chosen for the program was 'The Sweet Hereafter' by Russell Banks, written in 1991.[4] Other cities copied the idea, and the Library of Congress listed 404 programs occurring in 2007. [1]
Each city's program has its own goals; these typically include building a sense of community and promoting literacy.[5]:5 Nancy Pearl warns against expecting too much from a program: "Keep in mind that this is a library program, it's not an exercise in civics, it's not intended to have literature cure the racial divide. This is about a work of literature."[2]
Programs typically involve more than having everyone read the same book. Some other activities that have been included are: book discussion sessions, scholarly lectures on the book or related topics, a visit by the author, exhibits, related arts programming (especially showing a movie of the book if there is one), and integration into school curricula. [5]:20-23 In Boston the "One City One Story" program used shorter stories and distributed tens of thousands of free copies of the story over the course of a month.
American Library Association puts out a detailed step-by-step guide[5] on how to organize a local program, including the critical step of picking the one book. The Center for the Book at the Library of Congress tracks all known programs and the books they have used.[1]
Most listed are in the United States, perhaps because the meme started there and similar programs elsewhere have a different name.
Programs sponsored by public libraries are tracked each year by the Library of Congress.[6] Most programs maintain their own websites devoted to the annual effort.
The Library of Congress maintains a website with resources for cities that want to run One Book programs, including a partial list of authors and list of past programs. Some states and the ALA maintain their own resources to help cities get started. [7]
| Since | City | State | Sponsoring library or org | Program name |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2005 | Yuma | Arizona | Yuma libraries | One Book Yuma |
| 2003 | Santa Monica | California | Santa Monica Public Library | Santa Monica Reads |
| 2002 | Connecticut | Eastern Connecticut Libraries | One Book One Region | |
| 2003 | Gwinnett County | Georgia | Gwinnett County Libraries | Gwinnett Reads |
| 2004 | Winnetka-Northfield | Illinois | Winnetka-Northfield libraries | One Book, Two Villages - separate selection for children and adults |
| 2004 | South Bend | Indiania | Indiana University South Bend | One Book One Campus |
| 2003 | Iowa | Iowa Center for the Book | All Iowa Reads | |
| 2006 | Kentucky | Northern Kentucky | One Book One Community | |
| 2008 | Maryland | Maryland Humanities Council | One Maryland One Book | |
| 2004 | Brookline | Massachusetts | Public Library of Brookline | Brookline Reads |
| 2002 | Falmouth | Massachusetts | Falmouth Public Library | What's Falmouth Reading |
| 2010 | Boston | Massachusetts | Boston Book Festival | One City One Story - distributes 30,000 free copies to area residents |
| 2004 | Cambridge | Massachusetts | Cambridge Public Library | Cambridge READS |
| 2002 | East Lansing | Michigan | City of East Lansing | One Book East Lansing |
| 2004 | Rochester | Minnesota | Rochester Reads | |
| 2002 | Boone | Missouri | Daniel Boone Regional Library | One Read |
| Bozeman | Montana | One Book One Bozeman | ||
| Omaha | Nebraska | Millard Public Schools Foundation | One Disney One Book | |
| 2005 | New Paltz | New York | One Book One New Paltz | |
| 2003 | Western New York | New York | A Tale for Three Counties | |
| 2006 | Schenectady | New York | Schenectady County Public Library | "One County One Book" |
| 2001 | Syracuse, Onondaga County | New York | Onondaga County Public Library | Central New York Reads One Book |
| 2002 | Cincinnati | Ohio | On the Same Page Cincinnati | |
| 2003 | Findlay | Ohio | Findlay-Hancock Community Foundation | CommunityREAD |
| 2007 | Lake Oswego | Oregon | Lake Oswego Library | Lake Oswego Reads |
| 2003 | Multonmah County | Oregon | Multnomah County Library | Everybody Reads |
| 2003 | Centre County | Pennsylvania | Centre County Reads | |
| 2003 | Philadelphia | Pennsylvania | Free Library of Philadelphia | One Book One Philadelphia |
| 2002 | Lancaster County | Pennsylvania | One Book One Community [9] | |
| 2004 | Mansfield | Texas | One City One Book | |
| 2002 | Austin | Texas | City of Austin | Mayor's Book Club |
| 2004 | Logan | Utah | Utah State University | Common Literature Experience |
| 2003 | Vermont | Vermont Humanities Council | Vermont Reads | |
| 2004 | Lodoun County | Virginia | 1 Book, 1 Community | |
| 2011 | Red Bank | New Jersey | One Book One Community: Honk! The Musical Tale of the Ugly Duckling |
Some cities that have run independent One Book programs have later joined Big Read instead. An annual "One World, Many Stories" summer reading campaign for children, which has a single selection for the country, has become popular as well. [10]
For some, the mere idea of reading as a communal activity is repellent. The literary critic Harold Bloom said, "I don't like these mass reading bees.... It is rather like the idea that we are all going to pop out and eat Chicken McNuggets or something else horrid at once." [11]
Others are concerned about the temptation to use such a program to promote social values. Phillip Lopate fears a promotion of groupthink, saying "It is a little like a science fiction plot -- 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers' or something." [11]
In New York City in 2002 the effort foundered when the selectors split into two rival groups, each with its own favorite: Chang-Rae Lee's Native Speaker and James McBride's The Color of Water. Both books were considered to be offensive to some of New York's ethnic groups. [2] [12] Nancy Pearl said, "It's turned into something not to do with literature but to do with curing the ills in society, and while there is a role for that, to ask a book to fit everybody's agenda in talking about particular issues just does a disservice to literature." [13]
Governments are sometimes concerned that their endorsement of reading a book will be viewed as endorsing the ideas or language of the book. In Texas in 2006, the Galveston County Reads committee recommended Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time as the choice for their county-wide read. There was much criticism of the choice from the Mayor and Council of Friendswood, who objected to obscenity in the novel, and said that it contained ideas that should not be promoted to kids and that taxpayer money should not be used to promote and purchase a book the community wouldn't approve of. [14]