About The Big Read: Whatcom READS!
The Big Read: Whatcom READS! is a community-wide reading and discussion program intended to encourage all Whatcom County residents to read the same book and create a county-wide book club experience.
The Big Read: Whatcom READS! is modeled after the highly successful Seattle Reads program which began in 1998 and became a national phenomenon. Communities across the country, large and small, from New York to San Francisco to Spokane, have been hosting similar programs to wide acclaim.
In 2008, Whatcom County Library System and Whatcom Community College were each awarded federal grants administered by the Washington State Library to help establish the Whatcom READS! program. These libraries quickly brought in other libraries as partners as well as local businesses and other community organizations.
In 2009, Bellingham Public Library, along with all our local partners, applied for a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to host The Big Read: Whatcom READS! in 2010.
The Big Read is an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts, designed to restore reading to the center of American culture. The NEA presents The Big Read in partnership with the Institute of Museum and Library Services and in cooperation with Arts Midwest. The Big Read brings together partners across the country to encourage reading for pleasure and enlightenment.
The Big Read answers a big need. Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America, a 2004 report by the National Endowment for the Arts, found that not only is literary reading in America declining rapidly among all groups, but that the rate of decline has accelerated, especially among the young. The concerned citizen in search of good news about American literary culture would study the pages of this report in vain.
The Big Read aims to address this crisis squarely and effectively. It provides citizens with the opportunity to read and discuss a single book within their communities.
Locally, these organizations share the NEA's vision of creating an annual literary happening that will have neighbors talking with neighbors about great literature.
