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Anna K. MarcILS 593Dr. OkobiMarch 31, 2014Book Club/Book Discussions Assignment ProposalBridgeport Public Library BPL’s mission statement: “We believe that libraries can change people’s lives and are a cornerstone of our democracy. The Bridgeport Public Library provides opportunities for our residents and taxpayers to pursue lifelong learning, cultural and economic enrichment and enjoyment. To accomplish this mission, we offer free and open access to creative works, knowledge and information from diverse perspectives.” Bridgeport Public Library is the Principal Public Library for the City of Bridgeport and serves to 146,425 residents (U. S. Census Bureau, 2012). Bridgeport Public Library consists of five branches: Burrough & Saden, Black Rock, Newfield, North, and Old Mill Green. The main library is located in downtown of Bridgeport and four other branches cover specific geographical areas of the city. The location chosen for the book club is the North Branch, located on 3455 Madison Ave, Bridgeport, which is the northern part of the city. Why the book club is needed in Bridgeport community?The city of Bridgeport is one of the most diverse cities in Connecticut where 39.6% of Bridgeport population is White, 34.6% are Black, 38.2% are persons of Hispanic or Latino, and 3.4% are Asian origins. In addition, 26.6% of Bridgeport population is foreign born persons and 45.6% of Bridgeport residents speak other language than English at home (U. S. Census Bureau, 2010). I believe that having a book club at BPL would be significantly helpful to its community. Since many patrons are immigrants and speak English as a second language, participating in the book club would definitely help them in integrating into the community, learning about American and other cultures, and even improving their English. Likewise, by becoming club members, patrons will be more familiar with a variety of genres, different authors, and since they will visit the library on regular basis, they will become more familiar with the great variety of the library’s collection and their services. Since there is a great diversity among library’s patrons, the club leader should make sure to include books written by foreign authors and provide a variety of subject matters as well. In short, having a book club would not only significantly affect their patrons, but it would also benefit the library.Book club name: Read & Chat Book ClubSelected books: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz I am Malala by Malala Yousafzai Boy in the Stipped Pajamas by John BoyneSchedule for the meetings: The book club will meet on the last Tuesday of each month at 6pm at Bridgeport Public Library (North Branch). Dates: April 29, 2014; May 27, 2014; June 24, 2014; July 29, 2014; August 26, 2014; September 30, 2014; October 28, 2014; November 25, 2014; December 30, 2014Members: Adults over 18Number of members: 8 to 20 members Club orientation: Medium-high structure (moderator does background research, develops questions, and moderate the discussion)Types of Books: First three titles are chosen by the moderator but the members will be encouraged to suggest titles. All fiction genres, literary fiction, nonfiction, and poetry will be included. In addition, the moderator also makes the title selection according availability of a large number of titles via the library (or the ILL).Form of communication among members: An email will be sent shortly after the meeting, consisting of the summary of the discussion. Monthly meeting reminders will also be sent. The book club will be present on Facebook, where members will be able to communicate among each other and discuss any questions or write any suggestions they have about the book they read. The Facebook page will also contain summaries, discussion highlights, and members’ opinions.Rules of the Book Club: Members have to let the moderator know when they are absent. Members whom do not finish the book are still welcome to attend the discussion. Members understand that the discussion time will be limited to the book. Having discussion about anything else will be encouraged before or after the meeting.Members respect everybody’s opinion and act in courteousness manner.Members should have equal amount of time to express their opinions.Tea and cookies will be provided by the library but refreshments from members will be welcome.Meeting format:6-6.15pm – Social time (agenda, making introduction, handing out discussion packets)6.15-7.45pm – Book discussion (brief discussion about the author, discussing questions)7.45pm – End (Record the attendees names and contact details)Book Club Activities (4/29/ 2014): Title: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao Author: Junot DiazPublisher: Penguin Group USA Pages: 352Handouts: #1 About the Author#2 Concepts of the Book & the Plot#3 Character List#4 Discussion Questions#5 Book Quotations#6 Fried Plantain recipe & Map of HispaniolaAbout the author (Moderator introduces the author by reading his biography and interesting anecdotes. These questions will be asked: If you were to talk with the author, what would you want to know? Have you read the author’s other books? Are you interested in reading more books from this author?)Junot Díaz was born in Villa Juana, a barrio in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. He was the third child in a family of five. Throughout most of his early childhood he lived with his mother and grandparents while his father worked in the United States. In December, 1974, at the age of six, Díaz immigrated to Parlin, New Jersey, where he was re-united with his father. He attended Kean College in Union, New Jersey for one year before transferring and ultimately completing his BA at Rutgers College in 1992, majoring in English; there he was involved in a creative-writing living-learning residence hall and in various student organizations and was exposed to the authors who would motivate him into becoming a writer: Toni Morrison and Sandra Cisneros. He worked his way through college: delivering pool tables, washing dishes, pumping gas and working at Raritan River Steel. After graduating from Rutgers he was employed at Rutgers University Press as an editorial assistant. He earned his MFA from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York in 1995, where he wrote most of his first collection. Diaz has said he was stunned when he received an acceptance letter from Cornell because he had not applied there. Apparently his then-girlfriend applied on his behalf. (LitLovers, 2014) Díaz is active in Dominican community and teaches creative writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and is also the fiction editor for the Boston Review. He is a founding member of the Voices of Writing Workshop, a writing workshop focused on writers of color. His first novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2008. The novel also won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Best Fiction of 2007, the Mercantile Library Center’s John Sargent Prize for First Novel in 2007, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award and was nominated for an NAACP Image Award and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao was also a New York Times Notable Book of 2007 and Time magazine’s Book of the Year. (Penguin, 2014)Discussion questions (Moderator chooses one question at a time and tosses it out to the group. Attendees will have the list of questions in their handouts. Not all questions will have to be asked or answered; it will depend on the interests and the conversation flow) How did you experience the book? Were you immediately drawn into the story or did it take you a while? Did the book intrigue, amuse, disturb, alienate, irritate, or frighten you?Do you find the characters convincing? Are they believable? Compelling? Are they fully developed as complex, emotional human beings – or are they one-dimensional?Which characters do you particularly admire or dislike? What are their primary characteristics?Who in this book would you most like to meet? What would you ask or say?If you could insert yourself as a character in the book, what role would you play?Throughout the novel, Spanish words and phrases appear unaccompanied by their English translations. What is the effect of this seamless blending of Spanish and English? How would the novel have been different if Díaz had stopped to provide English translations at every turn? Why does Díaz not italicize the Spanish words (the way foreign words are usually italicized in English-language text)?The book centers on the story of Oscar and his family—and yet the majority of the book is narrated by Yunior, who is not part of the family, and only plays a relatively minor role in the events of the story. Yunior even calls himself “The Watcher,” underscoring his outsider status in the story. What is the effect of having a relative outsider tell the story of Oscar and his family, rather than having someone in the family tell it? And why do you think Díaz waits for so long at the beginning of the book to reveal who the narrator is?In many ways, Yunior and Oscar are polar opposites. While Yunior can get as many women as he wants, he seems to have little capacity for fidelity or true love. Oscar, by contrast, holds love above all else—and yet cannot find a girlfriend no matter how hard he tries. Is it fair to say that Yunior is Oscar’s foil—underscoring everything Oscar is not—and vice versa? Or are they actually more alike than they seem on the surface?The narrator says “Dominicans are Caribbean and therefore have an extraordinary tolerance for extreme phenomena. How else could we have survived what we survived?” (p. 149). What does he mean by that? Could Oscar’s obsession with science fiction and the “speculative genres” be seen as a kind of extension of his ancestors’ belief in “extreme phenomena”? Was that his method of coping?For Oscar, his obsession with fantasy and science fiction becomes isolating, separating him from his peers so much so that he almost cannot communicate with them—as if he speaks a different language (and at one point he actually speaks in Elvish). How are other characters in the book—for instance, Belicia growing up in the Dominican Republic, or Abelard under the dictatorship of Trujillo, similarly isolated? And how are their forms of isolation different?We know from the start that Oscar is destined to die in the course of the book—the title suggests as much, and there are references to his death throughout the book (“Mister. Later [Lola would] want to put that on his gravestone but no one would let her, not even me.” (p. 36)). Why do you think Díaz chose to reveal this from the start? How does Díaz manage to create suspense and hold the reader’s attention even though we already know the final outcome for Oscar? Did it actually make the book more suspenseful, knowing that Oscar was going to die?The author, the primary narrator, and the protagonist of the book are all male, but some of the strongest characters and voices in the book (La Inca, Belicia, Lola) are female. Who do you think makes the strongest, boldest decisions in the book? Given the machismo and swagger of the narrative voice, how does the author express the strength of the female characters? Do you think there is an intentional comment in the contrast between that masculine voice and the strong female characters?How much of her own story do you think Belicia shared with her children? How much do you think Belicia knew about her father Abelard’s story?The image of a mongoose with golden eyes and the man without a face appear at critical moments and to various characters throughout the book. What do these images represent? Why do you think Díaz chose these images in particular? When they do appear, do you think you are supposed to take them literally? For instance, did you believe that a mongoose appeared to Belicia and spoke to her? Did she believe it?Oscar is very far from the traditional model of a “hero.” Other characters in the book are more traditionally heroic, making bold decisions on behalf of others to protect them—for instance, La Inca rescuing young Belicia, or Abelard trying to protect his daughters. In the end, do you think Oscar is heroic or foolish? And are those other characters—La Inca, Abelard—more or less heroic than Oscar?During the course of the book, many of the characters try to teach Oscar many things—especially Yunior, who tries to teach him how to lose weight, how to attract women, how to behave in social situations. Do any characters not try to teach Oscar anything, and just accept him as who he is? How much does Oscar actually learn from anyone? And in the end, what does Oscar teach Yunior, and the other characters if anything? (Penguin Books USA)Summary:In short, since there is a great diversity in Bridgeport community, the work of a Dominican author is chosen, so that patrons can relate not only to the author but to the story as well. The moderator will make sure that every attendee will have the discussion packet, which will contain six handouts: About the Author; Concepts of the Book & Plot; Character List; Discussion Questions; Book Quotes; and How to make Tostones. Distributing these handouts would not only aid in refreshing memories, but it will also be used as talking points. In addition, handouts also identify the characters and summarize the plot. Members will be asked to comment on book’s quotations on the handout. They will be encouraged to share their favorite passage from the book as well. Providing the fried plantain recipe will be a fun way to expose Dominican and Latin cuisine/culture to the readers. Hopefully, Read & Chat Book Club will be a great success in the Bridgeport community for many years to come. ReferencesBook Eats. (2012). How to make tostones: Brief prep, wondrous?taste. Retrieved from . (2014). Love to Read: Finding Books and Book Clubs. Retrieved from Goodreads. (2014) The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao: Quotes. Retrieved from Lit Lovers. (2014). The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (Diaz). Retrieved from Millikin. (2009). Key settings & characters: The Brief wondrous life of Oscar Wao: A Case book. Retrieved from (USA). (2014). Reading guides: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Retrieved from. S. Census Bureau. (2012). State and county quick facts. Retrieved from . (2014). The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Retrieved from ................
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