At King's Books the other day I was able to pick up my button for Tacoma Reads: The Pact. If you aren't familiar with Tacoma Reads Together, you should be.

Tacoma Reads is a program created after September 11th, 2001. From the Tacoma Public Library website:

In the aftermath of the tragic event of September 11, 2001, Tacoma educator Patrick Erwin sought a way to bring the Tacoma community together to talk about the issues which appeared to keep the community apart. Remembering What if all Seattle read the same book?, a project begun by Seattle’s Nancy Pearl, Erwin met with Mayor Brian Ebersole and others to suggest that perhaps Tacomans should be encouraged to come together to read, reflect upon, and then respond to the ideas and issues raised by one good book – one book which the entire community would be encouraged to read and discuss. In short order, Tacoma Reads Together was born.

The rest of the Tacoma Reads Together history can be found here.

The 2007 Tacoma Reads selection is The Pact by Drs. Sampson Davis, George Jenkins and Rameck Hunt. This is the inspiring true story of three young black men from the projects in Newark, New Jersey. All three were chosen to attend University High School, a magnet school in the city. As they bonded together as friends, the three made a pact to graduate, and go on to become doctors. All three succeeded.

I was lucky enough to meet all three doctors at the Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students (ABRCMS) in 2003. They were the keynote speakers and I was running the books sales for the event. I sold 600 books in less than 2 hours. The line wrapped around the room. Their story wasn't just amazing, they were great speakers, and they stayed afterwards to meet with every single person (1000 people attended the session) who wanted to shake their hands.

There is also a version of The Pact written for younger readers called We Beat the Street.

Posted by: Ensie at 01:56 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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1 Altoona's April book is "To Kill A Mockingbird."

Posted by: Eden at April 05, 2007 02:41 PM (BDCWt)

2 I have never read "Mockingbird". I really should. I'm reading "Emma" right now. Considering I work in a bookstore, there are a number of classics I have shamefully ignored.

Posted by: ensie at April 05, 2007 03:20 PM (6We+3)

3 Just skip the unnecessary background that starts on page 2 or 3 or so. It's dry and doesn't have an impact on the story. Then it'll hook ya.

Posted by: Eden at April 06, 2007 06:05 AM (BDCWt)

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