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Connections is the Humanities Council's book discussion series for adult new readers. Connections book discussions offer adult new readers an opportunity to read interesting, beautifully-illustrated books and discuss them with other adult new readers and a trained facilitator.
Connections is a book discussion series with a purpose. Each multi-book series is organized around a theme: “Peace,” “Justice,” and "Courage" are examples of the themes currently offered. The reading materials represent the best in new introductory literature ranging from picture books to simple novels or chapter books, providing rich material for discussion at levels that new readers can read and understand.
A typical Connections group meets once a month to discuss a book they’ve read. Led by trained Humanities Council scholar-facilitators, the program turns nervous non-readers into eager new readers who are encouraged to share their reading experiences and responses with others.
Connections welcomes both native English-speaking adults with low literacy skills, and those for whom English is a new language. Throughout the years, participants have included the elderly, married couples, and young single mothers. In the southern regions of New Hampshire we are experiencing more and more participants who are new to this country. At a recent series held in Dover, seven of the ten students spoke English as a new language, and their familial tongue ranged from Russian to Thai to Indonesian to Spanish. Connections enables these individuals to practice reading and speaking English, to become comfortable in a new country, and to share experiences from their homeland. As a Russian immigrant wrote on her Connections evaluation, “This program is very important for people from another country. To see Americans, to speak with them. I know more information then I knew before. Every day here – little lessons and big lessons.”
You can apply to bring a Connections series to your community with our simple one-page application form. Any non-profit organization may apply. First choose a series you'd like to host from the list below. Then contact a Connections scholar and see if she or he is available to facilitate your series. Books for these series are available from the Humanities Council's Bookbag in partnership with the New Hampshire State Library. Check with the library to ensure that the titles you'd like to use are available. Then submit your completed application. The Humanities Council will pay the scholar's stipend and mileage. The host organization pays a nominal application fee.
Folktales are one way our culture is transmitted from one generation to the next. The stories in this series reflect the issues, values, concerns, humor, and wisdom we wish to pass along as they were passed to us.
Titles in this series: Wiley and the Hairy Man by Molly Bang, Iktomi and the Ducks by Paul Goble, Swamp Angel by Anne Isaacs, McBroom's Wonderful One Acre Farm by Sid Fleischman, The Talking Eggs by Robert D. San Souci, and Rough-Face Girl by Rafe Martin.
All good stories are a form of wisdom. How do stories evolve? Why do they last? How does the same story reflect different cultures? These books feature some traditional tales retold around the world for centuries.
Titles in this series: Aesop's Fables retold and illustrated by John Hejduk, Yeh Shen: A Cinderella Story from China retold by Ai-Long Louie, Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters: An African Tale by John Stepoe, The Girl Who Loved Horses by Paul Goble, and Beauty and the Beast by Warwick Hutton.
What can we learn from other people's stories? How do we tell our own stories? This series looks at life as art and memories, and at different ways of telling a "true" story.
Titles in this series: The Best Town in the World by Byrd Baylor, Island Boy by Barbara Cooney, WIlfred Gordon McDonald Partidge by Mem Fox, Family Pictures/Cuadros De Familia by Carmen Lomas Garza, Arctic Memories by Normee Ekoomiak, When I Was Young in the Mountains by Cynthia Rylant, and But I'll Be Back Again: An Album by Cynthia Rylant.
We all know stories of legendary sports champions - people who can run faster, throw farther, and leap higher than the rest of us. You'll meet some of them in these books. And you'll also meet some "ordinary" people here - people of all ages, shapes, sizes, and physical abilities. What they have in common with the legends is that their courage matches their dreams, and that makes them champions, too.
Titles in this series: JoJo's Flying Sidekick by Brian Pinkney, The Field Beyond the Outfield by Mark Teague, Teammates by Peter Golenbock, William Clarence Matthews, a Baseball Pioneer by Karl Lindholm, Dogteam by Gary Paulsen, and Woodsong by Gary Paulsen.
What is courage? Who are our heroines and heroes? Can ordinary people show courage in everyday actions? Each of these stories invites the reader to consider the actions we take and the choices we make in our own lives every day.
Titles in this series: Keep the Lights Burning, Abbie by Peter & Connie Roop, Sidewalk Story by Sharon Bell Mathis, All Joseph Wanted by Ruth Radin, Brave Irene by William Steig, Kate Shelley and the Midnight Express by Margaret Wetterer, Stone Fox by John Reynolds Gardiner, Knots on a Counting Rope by Bill Martin, Jr., and Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt.
Some of the strongest bonds we forge in life are those of friendship. How do we make friends - and keep them? What responsibilities does friendship bear? How do we honor our friends? This series is about how our friends are and what they mean to us.
Titles in this series: A Chair for My Mother by Vera Williams, Now One Foot, Now the Other by Tomie dePaola, Ramona and Her Father by Beverly Cleary, The Very Best of Friends by Margaret Wild, The Scarebird by Sid Fleischman, Charlotte's Web by E.B. White, Frog and Toad are Friends by Arnold Lobel, Chicken Sunday by Patricia Polacco, and Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson.
This series looks at where we live, and how we live there. The books focus on issues of growth and change in our environment - some natural and some manmade. How do we balance progress with preservation? What responsibilities do we bear to future generations? To other species? And is it still possible to live "on the land?"
Titles in this series: Window by Jeannie Baker, Once There Was a Tree by Natalia Romanova, Letting the Swift River Go by Jane Yolen, The Lady and the Spider by Faith McNulty, Alejandro's Gift by Richard E. Albert, Bear by John Schoenherr, and My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead Bear.
What was life like for the people who lived in what we call "New England" a hundred years ago? Two hundred? Seven thousand? Many things have changed over time - are there constants, too? Can ordinary people make history? Can we?
Titles in this series: How Two-Feather was Saved from Loneliness by C.J. Taylor, The Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare, Ox-Cart Man by Donald Hall, Old Home Day by Donald Hall, A River Ran Wild by Lynne Cherry, Lyddie by Katherine Paterson.
Home isn't just a place. It's an idea. The books in this series explore some of life's most important questions, and help us to focus on those places "where the heart is."
Titles in this series: Little Bear by Else Holmelund Minarik, Little Jake and Me by Mavis Jukes, Georgia Music by Helen V. Griffith, The Little House by Virginia Lee Burton, Town Mouse Country Mouse by Carol Jones, An Angel for Solomon Singer by Cynthia Rylant, Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey, Cross-Country Cat by Mary Calhoun, and The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson.
Our lives are a series of journeys, near and far, for many purposes and to many destinations, outside and inside ourselves. We come to crossroads, take wrong turns, get good and bad directions, end up in unexpected places. We are different people at the end of a journey. And the end of one journey is often the beginning of the next.
Titles in this series: Follow the Drinking Gourd by Jeannette Winter, The Long Way to a New Land by Joan Sandin, Just Us Women by Jeanette Caines, Hey Al by Arthur Yorinks, Catwings by Ursula LeGuin, The Treasure by Uri Shulevitz, The Gold Coin by Alma Flor Ada, and The Goats by Brock Cole.
In our everyday lives, as in the momentous affairs of nations, we must decide: What does it mean to do the right thing? How do we deal with an enemy? Should we ever take advantage of someone who treats us kindly? If hurt by a friend, or helped by an enemy, should we pay back in kind?
Titles in this series: The Pied Piper of Hamelin by Michel Lemieux, A Penny a Look by Harve & Margot Zemach, Sam, Bangs, and Moonshine by Evaline Ness, The Little Red Hen by Margot Zemach, Old Henry by Joan W. Blos, The Man Who Could Call Down Owls by Eve Bunting, and Weasel by Cynthia DeFelice.
To respond effectively to injustice without resorting to violence is perhaps one of the greatest challenges humanity faces as we seek a more peaceful world. Literature gives us many vivid and frightening images of war, but peace is more elusive and less understood. The books for this series help to show that peace is not so much the absence of conflict as a commitment to resolve conflict in ways that nourish the integrity of all parties.
Titles in this series: Old Turtle by Douglas Wood, The Knight and the Dragon by Tomie dePaola, Ghost Dance by Alice McLerrin, The Wall by Eve Bunting, The Whispering Cloth by Pegi Deitz Shea, Pink and Say by Patricia Polacco, The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf, The Lily Cupboard by Shulamith Levey Oppenheim, and Number the Stars by Lois Lowry.
This Connections series provides new adult readers with views into ways of life beyond the United States as well as into the lives of immigrant families in the United States. Featured books at various reading levels explore national identity, personal and political liberty, violence and hope, cross-cultural communication, difference and conformity, and history and memory.
Titles in this series: The Breadwinner by Deborah Ellis, Feathers and Fools by Mem Fox, The Day of Ahmed's Secret by Florence Parry Heide, Sanyasin's First Day by Ned Shank, Talking Walls by Margy Burns Knight, The Araboolies of Liberty Street by Sam Swope, and A Picnic in October by Eve Bunting.
This series offers new readers opportunities to visit other countries and cultures through literature. Several of the featured titles follow American characters who are exploring past or present-day ties to other nations and customs. From Asia to Africa, from Mexico to Russia, these characters struggle to maintain their connections to families and countries in stories that expand the idea of a homeland to include more than one place.
Titles in this series: Parvana's Journey by Deborah Ellis, Boundless Grace by Mary Hoffman, Grandfather's Journey by Allen Say, Home at Last by Susan Middleton Elya, Jalapeno Bagels by Natasha Wing, The Keeping Quilt by Patricia Polacco, and One Grain of Rice by Demi.
Suzanne Brown
394 Dogford Road
Etna, NH 03750
603-643-1352 home
603-646-3993 work
suzanne.h.brown@dartmouth.edu
Hope Godino
Exeter Public Library
Exeter, NH 03833
603-772-6036 home
603-772-3101 work
dewey@exeterpl.org
Jennifer Lee
P.O. Box 194
Durham, NH 03824
603-659-4827 home
jenniferjalee@aol.com
Copyright © 2003-2006, New Hampshire Humanities Council, All Rights Reserved
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