Celebrate Reading

Program Description

Come Celebrate Reading

By Lorna Hershinow

 

 

Boost pleasure in reading by participating in Oahu's twelfth Celebrate Reading program. Our primary mission is to serve middle, high school and college students to conversation with writers and life-long readers. The Hawaii Council of Teachers of English has worked hard to support HWP 's outreach program for several years, with their role as umbrella organization now being taken over by Pacific Writers' Connection.

 

Fittingly, this year we feature a stunning range of nine Pacific writers to read and hear and talk to, making choice difficult for Oahu readers who have to select one of eleven concurrent break-out conversations, at 10:00, 10:55 and 12:30 pm. Choose between two morning readings, both led by Hawaiian MCs. At nine a.m, in the Art Auditorium, Kealoha will warm the stage for younger readers with one of his own performance poems, and introduce Witi Ihimaera, Kaui Hart Hemmings, Markus Zusak and Lois-Ann Yamanaka.

 

Victoria Kneubuhl will emcee the morning reading in the HIG Auditorium, Diamond Head of the Kuykendall Courtyard. Poet Kai Gaspar, Kaui Hart Hemmings (running over to read mature material), Christopher Moore from San Francisco, and Uzma Aslam Khan from Pakistan will perform to a smaller, more seasoned audience.

 

With Lopaka Kapanui there to tell stories, Matthew Kaopio celebrating painting as well as culturally rich story, and Tahitian-American Tiare Picard joining our Big Island Hawaiian poet Kai Gaspar to demonstrate the force and beauty of poetry, we are able to appeal strongly this year to students from charter and Hawaiian immersion schools, as well as to college students of Hawaiian and Pacific culture.

 

Christopher Moore's outrageous, inventive humor has earned him a strong following. Your students and colleagues will romp through Lamb , in which Jesus Christ's best friend tells of Christ's teen years and exploration of Eastern cultures (after Biff is spirited to an American motel to get his gospel down, despite the distraction of contemporary TV). Moore also knows a lot about whaling, and transports readers into a whaley ship off the coast of Maui, far under the sea. His satiric, hilarious novels turn teens on to reading.

 

Our young international visiting writer's two novels are hugely different. Markus Zusak's ambitious and moving The Book Thief is a favorite of adult bookclubs, though he's a successful writer for young adults. The long novel takes us to Germany in the 1940s, and inside the lives of Gentile foster parents, the girl they have taken in, and the 24 year old Jew they are hiding, at huge risk, in their basement. By contrast, I Am A Messenger by Zusak fits our reading program because it's set in the Pacific, among youngsters who have chosen not to study at university, and is about giving to the community.

 

Most teachers have heard of our distinguished Maori visiting writer. Witi Ihimaera is charming and the grandfather of Maori literature. His novel Bulibasha, King of the Gypsies is full of feuding between Mormon Maori families, sheep-shearing, sports and tension between a grandfather and a grandson, who we keep company with from fourteen to sixteen. (He's sold the film rights.) Shockingly, Whale Rider went out of print in America this past summer, but our state library has 68 copies of the New Zealand novel, many schools already own sets of this novel and our service-learning leaders have a small stash of them to share.

 

Celebrate Reading is most proudly a service-learning program, one designed to foster civic-mindedness and to reward leader-readers with the chance to explore future careers involving reading, writing and presenting positions. We are eager to invite mentor readers to form reading partnerships or to lead reading and writing circles that meet on line or face-to-face. We train facilitators of literature circles of all ages, and at the festival we encourage conversations about writing as well as about reading, because we aim to celebrate not only the authors but Hawaii readers and writers who construct meaning and use literature to lead examined lives.

 

Celebrate Reading is not only multi-cultural but diverse in genre. Writers and readers of all ages can talk about fantasy and journalism with leaders in their fields. Kate Elliott's Jaran received a rave from Orson Scott Card—and she loves talking with teens about fantasy. Discuss the art of the novel, the short story, performing poetry or telling stories of peace or about ghosts. Chat with Matthew Kaopio about writing four books, especially the sequel to Written in the Stars .

 

This year we offer a strong strand in life-writing: Greg Mortenson's life in Three Cups of Tea , Mavis Hara's stories in An Offering of Rice and Joe Tsujimoto's memoir-turned-novel Morningside Heights. Virgilio Felipe's Hawaii: A Pilipino Dream tells of the life of a Filipino boy who matures after coming to work in Hawaii . Our other Filipino author, Michelle Cruz Skinner, composed Balikbayan , a collection of short stories, when only 23.

 

Performance poetry, story-telling, novels, short stories, drama, biography, creative non-fiction, journalism—come celebrate literature with us in all its forms, from Macbeth to Jill Yamasawa's poems about teaching at McKinley High.

 

HWP will sponsor three reading festive and social reading events this year, in culmination of long months of reading for pleasure on Oahu, Kaua'i and Maui. Books are supplied to those involved in service-learning-supported book clubs, and to as many participant schools as possible. Oahu's annual festival at UHM comes first, on April 18. The program for Maui's annual festival at the Maui Community College's new student lounge on April 20 (contact Laura Lees at llees@hawaii.edu ) is still under negotiation. Matthew Kaopio and Witi Ihimaera are coming, and invitations are out to Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston, Lee Cataluna, Lee Tonouchi. One of Maui 's cadre of writers will join then, and then Paul Wood and Kealoha will each give workshops

 

Kaua'i's biennial festival will be celebrated on April 24 at the Kaua'i CC's Performing Arts Center. Their cohort of teacher-leaders, led by Roberta Zarbaugh (who welcomes inquiries at Roberta_Zarbaugh@notes.k12.hi.us ), has planned an seven-artist program involving Witi Ihimaera, Markus Zusak, Patricia Wood, Christopher Moore, Kaui Hart Hemmings, Kiana Davenport and Kealoha, their MC. You can catch any schedule changes by consulting the HWP website at www.hawaii.edu/hwp.

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We are looking for new leadership. The director of Celebrate Reading, Lorna Hershinow, won't be dropping out entirely, but plans to retire to a support position and to have others take the program in the direction they choose. So do please write to our leading volunteer Linda Nagata (lmnagata@)yahoo.com) or to Lorna herself at hershinow@gmail.com (or call 239-9726) if you're interested in being on the Oahu team. That way, you can shape Hawaii Writing Project's future outreach to youth and their teachers, librarians and family members. We're hoping for festivals next year on the Big Island and on Lana'i. Scott Westerfeld and Jacqueline Woodson have already agreed to come.

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