The Big Read

The Public Libraries of Jefferson County Big Read is a community reading project organized by the Jefferson County Library Cooperative to get citizens reading and talking about a single great work of literature.

Spring 2008

Using a $20,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts the initiative kicked off in January 2008 with a focus on Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning 1960 novel To Kill a Mockingbird.

2000 copies of To Kill a Mockingbord were purchased for distribution through area libraries and bookstores, as well as through Read it Forward, which places books in public places around the area.

The library reported that over 100,000 people participated in the project.

Fall 2008

The second selection for the Big Read is Rick Bragg's The Prince of Frogtown.

References

• "Read, big success." (July 17, 2008) Birmingham Weekly

External links

• "Project Mockingbird" website
• The Big Read at the National Endowment for the Arts