Amazement Square scores grant for reading program

By: Casey Gillis | Lynchburg News and Advance
Published: June 17, 2008

The National Endowment for the Arts has awarded Amazement Square a $10,000 grant to boost reading in the Hill City.

The funding is for a nationwide initiative called The Big Read, which offers residents the opportunity to read and discuss a book chosen from a list of 23, through a series of community-based programs.

“The idea behind this isn’t just to read,” said Rebecca Grawl, the museum’s exhibitions and program coordinator. “It’s to read the same book, to open up dialogue with your
neighbors.”

Grawl said the effort is an extension of what Amazement Square is doing with the “Year of the Author” program, in which the museum’s programming is inspired by a different author each month.

“We’re already sort of (working) to get people to read and to make reading fun again,” she said.

Amazement Square is one of 208 organizations selected for The Big Read and is the first children’s museum chosen as a host. In other cities, grants of between $2,500 and $20,000 were awarded to libraries, municipalities and arts, culture, higher education, and science organizations.

Grawl and the museum staff chose Ray Bradbury’s classic “Fahrenheit 451” after talking with representatives from the Lynchburg Public Library and Lynchburg City Schools, which are among several local groups partnering with Amazement Square to present The Big Read.

“Programmatically, it is just a lot of fun and is an extremely relevant story for today,” she said.

The book, first released in 1953, is about a futuristic society where critical thought through reading is outlawed and books are regularly burned. Grawl said it raises questions about the future of books in an electronic age, the right to personal privacy and censorship.

Local Big Read activities will kick off with a daylong carnival on Sept. 27 and will run through November.

Grawl said they’re mapping out six weeks of highly concentrated programming, including public readings, book discussions and debates at area restaurants and coffee houses, movie screenings, a Heritage High School performance of the text and an essay contest.

“It can engage the entire community, not just our visitors,” she said.

“We’re trying to hit people at different demographics (and) times of day. We want to make it so easy for people to be involved with The Big Read.

“If someone goes to one thing, it’s a success.”