CENTER FOR THE BOOK AT THE NEW HAMPSHIRE STATE LIBRARY

by Mary Russell, Director
NH State Library

From the Director's Desk...Each U.S. state, and the District of Columbia, has a Center for the Book affiliated with the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress. These centers promote books and reading in their communities through various projects and programs. This past March, the Center for the Book at the New Hampshire State Library was granted a renewal of our Library of Congress affiliation, through 2008. Our plan is to continue to build on the various programs and projects begun since our founding in 2003. I would like to take this opportunity to bring you up-to-date, briefly, on some of these projects. More information on all our activities is available at www.nh.gov/nhsl/bookcenter.

New Hampshire Authors' Room - Part of our mission is "to celebrate and promote...the literary heritage of New Hampshire" and with that in mind we have established the New Hampshire Center for the Book Authors' Room at the N.H. State Library in Concord. State Librarian Michael York described the room as "a special place in the State Library dedicated to New Hampshire writers, and it is our hope they will feel welcome here and they will use our resources about New Hampshire." Currently, the Authors' Room features a display on the works of the Granite State's nine poets laureate including images of each poet, a display of their books, sample poems, and binders of resource materials on each of them. A special issue of Book Notes - all about New Hampshire's Poets Laureate - was published in connection with this exhibit. We plan to have a couple of different displays in the room each year that focus on some specific aspect of New Hampshire's literary heritage. It might be work of a particular type, such as novels or biography; work by a particular group of writers, like the poets laureate; or writings on a specific topic, like the Old Man of the Mountain.

Book Notes - In the spring of 2005 we published our first issue of Book Notes, our biannual newsletter. The newsletter includes information on Center for the Book projects as well as articles about the literary heritage of the Granite State. Members of the Center for the Book receive copies of the newsletter and sample copies have been distributed to libraries, book stores, and various groups of people whom we felt might be interested in a particular issue. Membership in the Center starts at just $5.00 per year.

Ladybug Picture Book Award - New Hampshire children from preschoolers to those in third grade selected Skippyjon Jones by Judy Schachner, published by Dutton Children's Books, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, as the winner of the 2005 Ladybug Picture Book Award. With 13,936 children casting ballots for their favorite picture book from among 10 titles, Skippyjon Jones won with 4,982 votes. Sponsored by the Center for the Book at the New Hampshire State Library, the Ladybug Picture Book Award was established in 2003 to promote early literacy and honor the best in recent children's picture books.

IMPAC Dublin Literary Awards - The N.H. Dublin Award committee has announced its nominees for the 2007 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, the largest and most international prize of its kind. These are fictional works of high literary merit published in English during 2005. After reading and discussing many excellent books, the committee selected these titles for nomination: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer; Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami; Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro.

Letters About Literature - Letters written by Isabel Starr of Hollis, Kylee Drugan-Eppich of Madbury, and Steve Therrien of Exeter were selected as the New Hampshire winners in the 2006 Letters About Literature (LAL) writing competition. LAL is a reading and writing promotion program of the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress, presented in partnership with Target Stores and coordinated in New Hampshire by the Center for the Book at the New Hampshire State Library. To enter, young readers wrote a personal letter to an author explaining how his or her work changed their view of the world or themselves. Readers selected authors from any genre - fiction or nonfiction, contemporary or classic. There were three competition levels in the program; upper elementary, middle school, and high school. The contest theme encouraged young readers to explore their personal response to a book and then express that response in a creative, original way. This year there were more than 47,000 entries nationwide. Twenty-eight New Hampshire semi-finalist were selected across the three competition levels by a panel of judges working on behalf of the Library of Congress. Our three winners were selected from this group of outstanding letters by a panel of New Hampshire judges: Ann Hoey, Youth Services Coordinator at the N.H. State Library; Selma Nacach-Hoff, English Department Coordinator, Manchester High School Central; Amanda Joaqin-Allan, Special Education Teacher, Auburn Village School; Rob Greene, Editor, Hippo Press; Donna Ciocca, author of Harley & Homer; and the poet John-Michael Albert.