Programs & Events

10th Annual Reading Across Rhode Island
May Breakfast with Author Geraldine Brooks

Saturday, May 5, 2012
9am – 12pm
Rhodes on the Pawtuxet, Cranston, RI

Click here to download the registration form for Reading Across Rhode Island 2012.

Join Co-Chairs Gale Eaton, Director of the URI Graduate School of Library and Information Studies and Robin Kall of Reading with Robin, as well as hundreds of Rhode Islanders as we celebrate the 10th year of Reading Across Rhode Island!

Enjoy breakfast, browse books for sale, bid on penny social items and hear Pulitzer Prize winning author Geraldine Brooks speak about the 2012 Reading Across Rhode Island book Caleb's Crossing. The author will also be available for book signing after the event.

Tickets are $30 for members of the RI Center for the Book and $40 for non-members. The $40 ticket price includes a one-year membership to the RI Center for the Book, as well as all the benefits of a Membership. Learn more about Membership Benefits here.

Click here to download the registration form for Reading Across Rhode Island 2012.

For more information, contact RI Center for the Book at sheala@rihumanities.org or (401) 273-2250.

Join Rhode Island Center for the Book for a series of programs related to the 2012 selection Caleb's Crossing by Geraldine Brooks.

Weaver Library Presents: We Still Live Here – Âs Nutayuneân
Monday, February 13, 2012 at 6:30pm
41 Grove Avenue, East Providence, RI.
East Providence Public Library

Weaver Library invites you to a special film screening of We Still Live Here – Âs Nutayuneân, a new documentary by award-winning filmmaker Anne Makepeace. Associate Producer and Researcher Jennifer Weston will attend the screening, introduce the film, and open the floor for discussion after the screening.

We Still Live Here – Âs Nutayuneân tells the unprecedented story of the return of the Wampanoag language, a language silenced for more than a century. At the heart of the film is the brilliant, engaging, passionate Jessie Little Doe Baird. Indomitable, resolute, hilarious and humble, she is a marvel to watch as she finds her way from the tiny Indian enclave of Mashpee, Massachusetts, to becoming a celebrated linguist honored with a MacArthur 'genius' award in 2010 for her unprecedented work with her community to bring their long forgotten language back home.

We Still Live Here interweaves the present-day story of Jessie and other Wampanoags reclaiming their language with historical events that silenced the language and severely impacted their culture – epidemics, missionary pressures, land loss, and the enslavement and indenture of Native children. The film's powerful animation illuminates and deepens the emotional impact of these devastating events, even as the contemporary story brings a new and surprising conclusion to the story and a hopeful vision of the future.

This program is free, open to all. To learn more about the film and view the trailer, visit the Makepeace Productions site.

More Upcoming Events

Monday, February 27 at 6:30-8:00pm at the Central Falls Public Library -
Through a combination of storytelling, song and dance along with a craft of a very popular corn husk action figure, presenter Annawon Weeden, a Mashpee Wampanoag, brings the history and culture of the Wampanoags to a family audience.

Monday, March 12th at 7:00 at the Peace Dale Public Library -
The Great Awakening: Religion and the Shaping of Native American Cultures, a presentation by Linford Fisher, Assistant Professor of History at Brown University.

Monday, March 26th at 7:00 at the Newport Public Library -
Educating Women in New England from the Colonial Era through the Early 19th Century, a presentation by Kathryn Tomasek, Assistant Professor of History at Wheaton College.

Monday, April 9th at 7:00 at the Providence Public Library -
Caleb's Crossing: Indian and English Gods in Early New England, a presentation by William Simmons, Professor of Anthropology at Brown University.

Reading Across Rhode Island - Let the Journey Begin!

Reading Across Rhode Island, Rhode Island's One Book, One State community read program is kicking off its 10th year! The 2012 title is Caleb's Crossing by Pulitzer Prize winning author Geraldine Brooks. In Caleb's Crossing, skilled storyteller Geraldine Brooks has created a work of historical fiction laced with palpable research that illuminates 17th century repression intensified by the harshness of pioneer life but undermined by kindness and compassion. This vividly detailed journey of Caleb Cheeshahteaumuck, the first Native American to graduate from Harvard College in 1665, is a story about friendship, spiritual attitudes of faith and belief, of bigotry, prejudice---and hope.

Contact

For more information on Reading Across Rhode Island events, send an email to sheala@rihumanities.org or call (401) 273-2250. Read more about the book and the author on Geraldine Brooks' website..