Group wants residents to read same book

In John Grisham's book "A Painted House," 7-year-old Luke Chandler picks cotton all day in sweltering heat on the farm his family leases outside the town of Black Oak, Ark. Luke marks the passage of days by how many games his beloved St. Louis Cardinals are out first place and dreams of playing baseball for them one day. His mother's dream is to live in a painted house, a yearning that stands for all the dreams a poor family of 1950s cotton farmers might have.

By February, everyone in Cape Girardeau will be talking about Luke, his family and their dreams, Julia Jorgensen hopes. She dreams Grisham may even come to Cape Girardeau to talk about "A Painted House" himself.

The Cape Central High School librarian and some fellow teachers are organizing a community reading event they call United We Read. Their plans are for an organized discussion of "A Painted House" to occur somewhere in Cape Girardeau every day in February.

Starts Feb. 1

The discussions will begin Feb. 1 at the River City Yacht Club, where Pam Spradling will lead an after-dinner discussion of the book. Denise Stewart, executive director of the Otahki Girl Scout Council, has signed up to guide a discussion Feb. 19. A discussion will be led the next day at Central High School by Bill Springer, an English teacher who is one of the organizers.

The Cape Girardeau Public Library staff will hold a discussion Feb. 27. Other dates for book discussions have not yet been filled in.

In addition, 38 different community dignitaries are being lined up to read the book's 38 chapters on the community access channel.

This kind of community-wide reading project is a relatively new and increasingly popular idea. Seattle may have started the movement with a citywide discussion of "A Lesson Before Dying." Chicago sponsored a reading and discussions of "To Kill a Mockingbird." St. Louis organizers of a similar project are trying to decide which book to read.

In March, an initiative called ReadMOre will sponsor a statewide reading and discussion of "A Farewell to Manzanar," a book about a Japanese-American family's life in a California internment camp during World War II. Libraries and bookstores throughout the state will stock the book, and the authors will be invited to tour the state talking with discussion groups.

Civic clubs and businesses are being asked to donate money to buy books. With a $200 grant from the YELL Foundation, United We Read also will buy audio and large print books. Librarian Betty Martin at the Cape Girardeau Public Library has ordered a large number of copies of the paperback edition, to be published Dec. 26. These will be distributed to libraries in the city and to the Cape Girardeau Senior Center.

Bookstores in Cape Girardeau also have been notified about the event so that they can stock extra copies.

OK from Grisham

Grisham has given permission for the first chapter of the book to be read for broadcast and copied. Copies will be placed in the waiting rooms at doctors' and dentists' offices in hopes of enticing people to read the whole book. He has donated an autographed copy of his book "The Testament" to be given away during February.

Radio station KRCU 90.9FM and Schnucks grocery store plan a demonstration of 1950s foods in February. The university also plans to bring in a cotton farmer to talk during a discussion at the University Center.

A Web site going up in the next two weeks will provide information about discussion groups. The site will be a link from the high school's homepage, www.cape.K12.Mo.us/chs. When United We Read is completed, copies of the book will be collected and sent to another city wanting to read together.

The project has been endorsed by the city's Vision 2020 program. Beginning Jan. 14, Vision 2020 committee members will be available to speak to service clubs about United We Read. Guidelines will be provided to anyone who wants to be a discussion leader.

Spradling said she readily agreed to lead a discussion because she and Jorgensen have known each other since high school and because she admires the librarian's zeal.

"It seemed like a perfect opportunity to encourage people to read," she said.

Spradling, who is married to Cape Girardeau Mayor Al Spradling III, loves reading. "I used to read ravenously, but as I've gotten older I've gotten a little bit more selective," she said. A number of Grisham books have been on her reading list.

Those looking for another Grisham legal thriller in "A Painted House" might be disappointed. No lawyers appear in the book. Instead, it is based on the writer's own boyhood in Black Oak and family stories he says may or may not be true.

Jorgensen calls the book "a snapshot of life in 1952."

"It takes you back to a time in Middle America that was calmer, when family was the center of the universe."

Luke has dreams and secrets from his parents. Everyone can relate to that childhood reality, Jorgensen says.

Organizers of United We Read chose "A Painted House" because they wanted a book by a living Southern author and a book that appeals to many different generations. It also covers territory familiar to most Southeast Missourians, from a family trip to Kennett to Luke's love for the St. Louis Cardinals to the St. Francis River that winds its way through the book.

Jorgensen has invited Grisham to come to Cape Girardeau during February but he has not yet responded. She's been told he's in his attic in Virginia finishing his next novel.

Pushes many buttons

Bill Springer, an English teacher at the high school, led a trial discussion group for students in November. He is about the same age an actual Luke would be now, so the time and place it evokes are memories for him. "I knew all those people," he says.

But the book has universal appeal.

"It pushes a lot of buttons," Springer said. "The 18-year-olds got it."

Getting people in a city to read the same book at the same time will have a unifying effect, Jorgensen expects. "I want people in Cape Girardeau to talk about it in the grocery story. I would like to hear conversations about reading."

Springer says it doesn't matter whether people like the book or not. In fact, he's looking forward to hearing what people who don't like it have to say.

"It's a starting place to converse," he says.

sblackwell@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 182