Featured Family Reading & Discussion Programs

Below is a selected list of recently awarded Grants for Family Reading and Discussion Programs.

Imaginative Worlds

Floyd Memorial Library
Greenport, Suffolk County

"Imaginative Worlds” is a theme that goes right to the heart of the Together program’s main purpose by directing our discussion towards the ways in which we all imagine and negotiate the world differently. It draws special attention to the differences between the way we see the world as children or as grown-ups. Our theme raises several questions centering around the way the imagination relates to individual identity, to relationships with others, and to our sense of what we call the “real” world.

• Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
• Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll
• Tuesday by David Wiesner
• The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster, illustrated by Jules Feiffer
• Zoo by Anthony Browne
• The Magician's Elephant by Kate DiCamillo, illustrated by Yoko Tanaka

Tolerance

Guilderland Public Library
Guilderland, Albany County

Our society is facing a time when there is a need for tolerance to be nurtured in both the school and home environments. One need only read the newspaper or internet stories of teen suicide and bullying to realize that teaching Tolerance is not just a goal, but a mandate! Our meetings will offer opportunities for the exploration and discussion of this critical issue among the group’s participants.

• Pink and Say by Patricia Polacco
• The Watson's Go to Birmingham – 1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis
• Baseball Saved Us by Ken Mochizuki, illustrated by Dom Lee
• The Liberation of Gabriel King by K. L. Going

Family Ties

William B. Ogden Free Library
Walton, Delaware County

Everyone belongs to a family in some way. Though at times there is comfort and ease in being part of a family; at others it’s messy, angry and suffocating. A smoothly run family requires work from all of its members and the rewards for that work may be gracious, mysterious or hard. There are life lessons in these relationships.

• The Watson's Go to Birmingham – 1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis
• Shooting the Moon by Frances O'Roark Dowell
• Pictures of Hollis Woods by Patricia Reilly Giff
• The London Eye Mystery by Siobhan Dowd

Friendship

Adriance Memorial Library
Poughkeepsie, Dutchess County

Not only is the theme of friendship a popular humanities theme, but it is also one that everyone can relate to. There are so many wonderful books for young people that are based on the theme of friendship. We anticipate that this theme will encourage a lot of discussion.

• The Little Red Hen by Paul Galdone
• Bird Lake Moon by Kevin Henkes
• Charlotte's Web by E. B. White
• Lily's Crossing by Patricia Reilly Giff