Read Between the Ravines presents Reading with Patrick

Lake Forest Library and Lake Bluff Public Library are proud to present their joint nonfiction reading program called Read Between the Ravines. This Two Communities, One Nonfiction Book program brings together Lake Forest and Lake Bluff with the purpose of enhancing nonfiction literacy and inspiring discussion around real-world issues.

This year’s selected title is Reading with Patrick by Michelle Kuo.

Michelle Kuo, at age twenty-two, arrives in the Mississippi Delta town of Helena, Arkansas in 2004. Kuo quickly realizes that her new home, the birthplace of the Civil Rights Movement, is still poor, still segregated and still in need of dramatic change. Helena is where she meets Patrick, inquisitive and quiet, with a poor attendance record. With Kuo’s attention, Patrick’s reading and writing flourish and he wins a school-wide award for “Most Improved.” When Kuo leaves Helena to pursue a law degree, she suspects herself of having taken the easier route.

Three years later, Kuo’s attention receives the news that Patrick is in prison for murder. Kuo puts her life on hold and moves back to the Delta. In the visiting room of the Phillips County Jail, she and Patrick spend seven months poring over classic novels, poems, and narratives by Frederick Douglass, C.S. Lewis, Marilynne Robinson, James Baldwin, W.S. Merwin and more. Patrick learns how to be a serious reader and a fluent writer, and in doing so, discovers new worlds both inside and outside of himself.

In her time reading with Patrick, Kuo is herself transformed as she contends with the questions of what it is we owe each other and how starkly economic and racial inequality determine our life outcomes. What social transformation is necessary to change a life? And what kind of connection can two people make when there exists such dramatic inequality between them?

“I found Reading with Patrick to be a compelling story of the too often devastating impacts of race and poverty in our society. It was also a reveal of the positive potential that a caring and dedicated educator can have on the life of a student and the overwhelming obstacles inherent in breaking the cycle that perpetuates these circumstances.” said JoAnn Desmond, Lake Forest Library Board Secretary.

Join us for a Discussion with Michelle Kuo and David Smith

Join us in reading and discussing the book Reading with Patrick by Michelle Kuo this March. Tune in for an interview with Kuo on Facebook Live, Wednesday, April 7, at 5:30 pm.

While the event will be publicly available on the Lake Forest Library, Lake Bluff Library, and Gorton Community Center to watch without a Facebook account, in order to ask a question during the event, you will need to login with a Facebook account and comment on the video. To ask a question without a Facebook account, please email any questions you would like answered by Kuo in advance of the event to reference@lakeforestlibrary.org.

Michelle Kuo is a writer, attorney, and professor. She is a graduate of Harvard Law School and the author of Reading with Patrick. It was a runner-up for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and the Goddard Riverside Stephan Russo Book Prize for Social Justice. Michelle has worked to protect the rights of undocumented immigrants, assist asylum seekers, and defend incarcerated people. She has taught in prisons in the United States, France, and Taiwan. Michelle is interested in literacy, racial and socioeconomic equality, and abolitionist approaches towards prison and detention. She has published in The New York Review of Books, the New York Times, Public Books, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Point, and other outlets; Currently, she is an Associate Professor at the American University of Paris, where she works closely with college students on issues of social justice.

David Smith is a Distinguished Senior Lecturer of Psychology at Northwestern University. He conducts research on judgement and decision making and teaches courses in psychology, research design and statistics at NU. Smith has held faculty appointments at NU, Middlebury College, and the University of Michigan. A member of the NPEP (Northwestern Prison Education Program) faculty, he has also taught university level courses in a maximum-security prison. Smith is a member of RAIN, one of this year’s Read Between the Ravines partner organizations.

“Reading with Patrick includes themes of inequities of the American education system and criminal justice systems, the legacy of slavery, history of the united states Mississippi delta region and its greater influence over American history, literature, poetry, and how books can connect people, the role of educators in our lives, the dynamics of race and power in the united states, all neatly packaged in a wonderful biographical and relatable first-person story format,” said Michelle Doshi, Adult Services Librarian. “I hope you join us for a great discussion!”

Learn more about the book, Read Between the Ravines events and find continuing learning resources at readbetween.org.