What Book Will Everyone in Dedham Be Reading this Spring?

DEDHAM, MA - The Dedham Library Innovation Team (DLIT), the award-winning library advocacy group dedicated to supporting and advocating for best-in-class libraries in Dedham, has announced the official book selection for its ninth annual Dedham Reads Together program. The book choice for this coming winter’s program is National Book Award finalist Sy Montgomery’s newly published memoir, How to Be a Good Creature: A Memoir in Thirteen Animals, which just started its second month on the New York Times Monthly Science Bestseller list. People magazine has also listed How to Be A Good Creature as one of the Best New Books of the Year.

The slim memoir, which features illustrations by Rebecca Green, gives Montgomery the chance to reflect on some of the many animals she has known over the course of her life, and the impact knowing them has had on her. "I focused on the animals who helped me to meet and find my destiny," Montgomery says. "I focused on animals who showed me to believe in my dreams. I focused on animals who helped me face loss and helped me learn to forgive."

Sy Montgomery’s connection with animals has led her to travel the world doing research on the planet’s rarest and most beautiful creatures. These encounters, along with her relationships with those closer to her farm in New Hampshire, form the basis for her reflections on how animals can teach us how to find passion, create families, cope with loss and despair, feel gratitude, love and forgiveness, and of course, how to be a good creature in the world. “All the animals I’ve known—from the first bug I must have spied as an infant, to the moon bears I met in Southeast Asia, to the spotted hyenas I got to know in Kenya—have been good creatures,” says Montgomery. “Each individual is a marvel and perfect in his or her own way. Just being with any animal is edifying, for each has a knowing that surpasses human understanding.”

Publisher’s Weekly says the book “shimmers with grace and wonder… Montgomery’s lyrical storytelling and resonant lessons on how animals can enhance our humanity result in a tender, intelligent literary memoir.” The New York Times calls her “equal parts poet and scientist,” and the Boston Globe has dubbed her “part Indiana Jones and part Emily Dickinson.”

Sy Montgomery’s books for both adults and children have earned her countless honors. She is the winner of the 2009 New England Independent Booksellers Association Nonfiction Award, the 2010 Children’s Book Guild Nonfiction Award, the Henry Bergh Award for Nonfiction, given by the ASPCA for Humane Education, and many more. Her research and writing has also led to several collaborations with National Geographic TV.

To complement the themes of How to be a Good Creature, DLIT is suggesting the community read other book titles by Sy Montgomery. Several of Montgomery’s books for adults have been bestsellers, most notably The Soul of an Octopus, a 2015 Finalist for the National Book Award, and The Good Good Pig, her memoir of life with her pig, Christopher Hogwood, which became an international bestseller. In addition, Montgomery’s many books for children about animals and the natural world make her works a good fit for coordinating programs sponsored by the public schools in Dedham. Her most recently published picture book, Inky’s Amazing Escape, is Amazon’s pick for the Best Children’s Nonfiction Book of 2018.

From January to March, Dedham community members will be encouraged to read Montgomery’s book individually or in book clubs, and are invited to celebrate the program at DLIT’s Dedham Reads Together gala finale event in April. Copies of the book will be available at both Dedham libraries, as well as The Blue Bunny Bookstore in Dedham Square. In the weeks leading up to the gala finale, activities and programs will be scheduled throughout town and in the public schools to support a community-wide reading and learning experience.

Prior Dedham Reads Together events have culminated with popular book-themed party events drawing hundreds of guests. Last year’s Cuban-themed party at the Endicott Library celebrated the book Havana by Mark Kurlansky. Previous years have featured The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwambe, The Lincoln Letter by William Martin, The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe and Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote, The Art Forger by B.A. Shapiro, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, The Season of Open Water by Dawn Tripp, and Strong Boy by Christopher Klein.

The Dedham Library Innovation Team (DLIT) is a 501(c)(3) organization committed to creating collaborative, positive partnerships between the libraries, schools, public officials, businesses, and residents in order to support the strategic vision and development of a best-in-class, vibrant public library system in Dedham.

Along with the annual Dedham Reads Together program, DLIT has also been responsible for the Dedham Little Free Libraries Project, two Murder-Mystery night events at the Dedham Public Library, independent film screenings, a speaker series, and the past three summer Book It 5K races. In addition, DLIT has funded annual technology and book purchases and provided advocacy for both Dedham's public libraries and our school libraries. DLIT has been honored with the Massachusetts School Library Association Advocate Award. More information can be found on the Dedham Library Innovation Team’s website, dlitdedham.com.

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