If you see a copy of The Hunger Games lying on the table at Starbucks or notice the bestselling book nestled in a chair at the DMV, don’t just pass it by. Pick it up, read it, and, then, pass it on.
Read To Succeed and One Book of Rutherford County are offering a new feature this year with their selection ofThe Hunger Games: a chance to “find” a copy of the book and pass it on to a friend.
Thanks to a generous donation of The Hunger Games from Ingram Book Company, Read To Succeed and the One Book committee will place copies of the book around Rutherford County in well-populated areas (think your favorite coffee shop, a restaurant in Murfreesboro’s downtown square, or Smyrna’s town hall). These copies are free and will be marked with a sticker on the front indicating it’s for One Book. In the front of each book, readers indicate where the book was found, their name, and the date. The book then gets passed on or placed around town for someone else to find.
To make the exchange even more enticing, each person can log their book in at www.readtosucceed.org/onebook.htm. This will enter them to win one of two $20 gift cards to Barnes & Noble.
“The book crossing concept epitomizes the community spirit of reading that One Book represents,” says Kory Wells, One Book Committee Co-Chair. “We believe this will add a new dimension to this year’s One Book experience.”
In the fall of each year, Read To Succeed’s One Book of Rutherford County program challenges residents to join together to read a chosen book. This year's selection is the bestselling adventure novel by Suzanne Collins. One Book is a collaboration of Read To Succeed, Ingram Books, Linebaugh Library, Barnes & Noble, Greenhouse Ministries, United Way, and Middle Tennessee State University to promote reading and literacy in Rutherford County.
This year, Read To Succeed chose to partner with Greenhouse Ministries to promote One Book. Greenhouse Ministries provides assistance with food, clothing, job skill training, adult education classes and counseling for thousands of Murfreesboro residents each year, serving a core local need that the characters in The Hunger Gamesare all too familiar with. Through the late spring, Read To Succeed’s One Book and Greenhouse will be partnering on food and clothing drives, as well as promotional events (look for a presence in the Murfreesboro Christmas parade December 11).
“The Hunger Games isn’t like our choices in the past,” says Laura Beth Payne, a professor of English at MTSU and One Book Committee Co-Chair. “The action and intrigue of the book is compelling, but for diverse ages and reading levels.”
The choice was a strategic one, Payne says. By choosing a widely-accessible book, Read To Succeed is able to reach an even wider audience than it has before. Parents and teens can read the book together—they can talk about reading at the dinner table.
“The response has been overwhelming already this year,” says Read To Succeed Executive Director Lisa Mitchell. “People who aren’t normally big readers are telling me they couldn’t put it down, and they’re anxious to talk about the different themes in the book.”
And that, says Mitchell, is exactly the point of One Book: getting the community excited about reading.
