Let Your Lit Shine

Here’s an interesting email I received last week:

Dear Frank

I thought of you for a project we’re doing! Would you be willing to participate on a small level in an upcoming exhibit that we are working on at the East Tennessee History Center called “Reading Appalachia: Voices from children’s literature”?

The exhibit was developed to celebrate 10 years of the Children’s Festival of Reading and to bring it home to our own back yard by shining a light on children’s books written about Appalachia, by Appalachians. It’s coming along beautifully, and opens on June 15, running through September 14. Attached is a post card showing the introductory panel of the exhibit.

What we’d like is for you to share some memories of books that you read as a child or that your parents read to you that made a lasting impact. We are asking community leaders and celebrities to talk about their favorite children’s books and what they meant to them for an insert in the News Sentinel publicizing the exhibit.

If you have a book that meant something to you as a child, I’d love to include that memory in the News Sentinel insert. Also, if you have a photo of you as a child reading or sitting in your parent’s lap being read to, we would LOVE to include it if possible.

Please let me know as we are under a fairly tight deadline and need to make accommodations. Thanks so much!

Mary Pom Claiborne
Marketing/Community Relations Dir
Knox County Public Library

I submitted my response and a photo before the deadline. Astute readers of my blog may be able to figure out which children’s books I mentioned. I wrote about them a couple of years ago. Feel free to post a guess in the comment section.