One Book One School One Community

You’ve read the book. Now meet the author.

Free livestream on May 27 at 6:30 pm.

You’re invited to spend the evening with Elana K. Arnold, the award-winning author of young adult and children’s books.

If you’re the parent or grandparent of a Warwick elementary student, you’ll recognize her name. She’s the writer of A Boy Called Bat, among many other highly acclaimed and best-selling stories.

If you’re not a parent, a word of explanation. All 2,000 elementary students and their families have been reading A Boy Called Bat as part of the One Book One School One Community program. It’s funded every year by the Warwick Education Foundation. [link to donation page]

We’d normally pay for the author to visit to Warwick schools and hold a public event for the whole community.

Thanks to livestream and the Warwick School District technology experts,  hundreds or even thousands of Warwick families can see Elana K. Arnold simultaneously. This really will bring us together as one community—a community that reads with its children. We hope it inspires students to not only read more but be more adventurous in their writing.

A Boy Called Bat was chosen for this year’s One Book One School One Community program after being honored as a Global Read Aloud selection. It’s been described as “tender and important” and “the first book in a funny, heartfelt, and irresistible young middle grade series starring an unforgettable young boy on the autism spectrum.”

Besides the Bat series, Elana K. Arnold has written many other critically acclaimed young adult and children’s books. Her novel Damsel was a Printz Honor winner; What Girls Are Made Of was a National Book Award finalist; and several of her books are Junior Library Guild selections. She lives with her family and “menagerie of pets” in Southern California and teaches in an MFA program focused on writing for children and young adults.

Register for the livestream here. There’s no charge. So please join all of us on May 27 at 6:30 pm.

For more information, you can contact Will Maza, learning facilitator at Kissel Hill Elementary, at wmaza@warwicksd.org. Warwick’s One Book One School One Community Committee has taken the lead in this year’s One Book program, and we’re very grateful to them. Or send Barb Mobley an email at info@WarwickEF.org.

We’re delighted for any opportunity to encourage storytelling. It’s so important in discovering who we are, interpreting our experiences, and seeing how others are different from us—and yet very much the same.

And we’re always grateful for your contributions, which make everything we do possible.