World Book Night Celebrated in New Rochelle

World Book Night was celebrated in New Rochelle on April 23rd as part of the Sound Shore Shakespeare Festival, organized by the New Rochelle Council on the Arts. UNESCO has declared April 23^rd the International Day of the Book, an annual celebration designed to spread a love of reading and books, and this year publishers in the United States joined their U.K. counterparts to create World Book Night with the simple goal of putting books into the hands of those who want to read but don’t have easy access to reading material.

     This year World Book Night was celebrated in more than 5,000 communities across the U.S., including New Rochelle, thanks to publisher Pamela Dorman, literary agent Stuart Krichevsky, and community coordinator Stephanie Tomei. Working with Communities for All Ages, the New Rochelle Council on the Arts, the Museum of Arts & Culture and NRHS English Dept, Chairman Leslie Alstchul, the New Rochelle event brought together New Rochelle High School students with residents of Garito Manor and members of the Hugh A. Doyle Senior Center.

     The students – including Samantha Gray, Ella N’Daiye and Julius Tanner -- each selected a title from a list of 25 books; 20 copies of each title were delivered to the high school to be distributed to participants in the World Book Night project. Over light refreshments (cupcakes, cookies, fruit  and coffee) in the House IV Cafeteria the group discussed the books and participants chose the ones they wanted to read.

    The World Book Night process begins with each participating country choosing its own list of books. In the U. S., the multi-layered selection process was basically made by independent booksellers and librarians. In the end, 25 books were chosen (among them are Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, H. G. Bissinger’s Friday Night Lights, Sue Grafton’s Q is for Quarry, and Khaled Hosseini’s Kite Runner).  Then 40,000 special World Book Night editions of each title were printed, for a total of 1 million books that were given away by thousands of volunteers. The publication and other costs for World Book Night U.S. is supported by American book publishers, the American Booksellers Association, Barnes & Noble, the American Library Association, the Association of American Publishers, and Ingram Book Distributors. Visit www.us.worldbooknight.org  for more information.

     In addition to funding from the New Rochelle Council on the Arts, the Sound Shore Shakespeare Festival is being made possible through support from the Arts Alive program of Arts Westchester, with funding from the Decentralization Program of the New York State Council on the Arts, with additional support from the City School District of New Rochelle, the New Rochelle Fund for Educational Excellence, and the New Rochelle Public Library.For more information visit NRCA on the web at www.newrochellearts.org.