PICKENS — The Village Library in Pickens has been selected as one of 70 libraries nationwide to take part in the Great Stories Club, a reading and discussion program for underserved teens.

The competitive grant is offered by the American Library Association (ALA) with support from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

As part of the Great Stories Club series on Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation, staff from the Village Library will work with teens at Project GO, the alternative program for the School District of Pickens County which serves up to 90 behavioral at-risk students from grades 6-12. The program is restorative in nature and seeks to help students return to their schools more equipped to overcome the obstacles hindering their success.

The idea behind the program is to read and discuss stories that explore questions of race, equity, identity, history, institutional change and social justice.

The books — curated for the theme “Finding Your Voice: Speaking Truth to Power” — will include “The Poet X” by Elizabeth Acevedo; “I Am Alfonso Jones” by Tony Medina; “Piecing Me Together” by Renée Watson; and “Anger Is a Gift” by Mark Oshiro.

The titles were selected to inspire young people — especially those facing difficult circumstances or challenges — to consider “big questions” about the world around them and their place in it.

There are countless examples of young people taking a stand against injustice.

“Finding Your Voice” includes texts that highlight the necessity and power of young people speaking up, despite challenges, social pressure, and even the threat of bigger dangers. Whether it is finding righteous anger as a superpower in Mark Oshiro’s Anger is a Gift or speaking up through poetry and art as in Elizabeth Acevedo’s The Poet X, “Finding Your Voice” features young people taking a stand against racism and other injustices in order to make the world a better place.

The library will receive a programming grant and 11 copies of each of the selected books, which will be gifted to the book club participants.

The library will also receive resources and training, including travel and accommodations for an orientation workshop in Chicago in March 2019. The workshop will include dialogue facilitation training led by consultants to Everyday Democracy and program modeling led by national project scholar Susana M. Morris of the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Since 2006, ALA’s Great Stories Club has helped libraries engage young adults via accessible, thought-provoking literature. The current series is part of the Kellogg Foundation’s Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation efforts, a comprehensive, national and community-based process to plan for and bring about transformational and sustainable change, and to address the historic and contemporary effects of racism.

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By Kasie Strickland

kstrickland@cmpapers.com

Reach Kasie Strickland at 864-855-0355.