Blair decides on ‘Fahrenheit 451’ for reading event

By Amanda Clegg, aclegg@altoonamirror.com
Area libraries want to plug everyone in to the joy of reading with this year’s The Big Read: One Book Blair County event in April.

The countywide event will focus on Ray Bradbury’s ‘‘Fahrenheit 451,’’ with book discussions, movie screenings, an art contest and an Altoona Fire Department barbecue.

Deborah Weakland, executive director of the Altoona Area Public Library, said last year’s event, One Book Altoona, grew to encompass all of Blair County. The program received a $2,500 National Endowment for the Arts grant.

The NEA sponsors The Big Read ‘‘to boost national reading rates and get people of all ages interested in literature,’’ according to a Penn State Altoona press release.

Weakland said this year’s event is targeting 12- to 16-year-olds with teen book discussions.

‘‘That’s when we lose people,’’ Weakland said. ‘‘In those middle years, so much is going on in their lives, they tend to stop reading at that point.’’

Teens often are pulled in many directions with school and extracurricular activities that little time is left to read, Weakland said.

‘‘There’s [only] so many hours in the day,’’ she said. ‘‘It’s tough.’’

She said she hopes the event will encourage people to squeeze reading in when they’re sitting in traffic or waiting at the dentist’s office.

Weakland said many of the messages in ‘‘Fahrenheit 451,’’ such as censorship and a society driven by television, appeal to teens.

She said the subject matter is so relevant today that Bradbury might have penned the classic last year rather than 50 years ago.

The Hollidaysburg Area Public Library is holding Pencilmania again this year during The Big Read.

In a literary tribute last year to Harper Lee’s ‘‘To Kill a Mockingbird,’’ which was the book chosen for last year’s One Book Altoona, 26 volunteers copied the 100,388 words out of the book using one pencil.

By the time the book was recopied by hand, one inch of the pencil remained, said Janet Eldred, library director.

The library this year would like 50 volunteers to copy the words from ‘‘Fahrenheit 451’’ for the event.

To participate in Pencilmania, visit the library, call 695-5961 or e-mail hapldirector @atlanticbb.net.

‘‘It’s fun,’’ Eldred said of the county program. ‘‘It’s a way to get everybody in the county reading and sharing a particular book.’’

For more information on The Big Read, visit http://www.altoonalibrary.org/onebook.

Mirror Staff Writer Amanda Clegg is at 949-7030.