Honky

Bringing an author to town is one of the best things that we do. Doing it as part of a community read is, well, simply the best. We librarians introduce regular folk--our friends, family, and patrons--to books and the people who write them. It allows us to share a little of the magic that we experience every time we go to a conference to meet an author, hear her speak, have dinner with him. I got to do all of that last night, (and I didn't even have to make any of the arrangements, worry about doing an introduction, or be the one to get everyone to the auditorium on time!) I went to Southington for the culmination of their "Southington Reads--Get on the Same Page" event with Dalton Connelly, the author of Honky, the story of a white kid growing up in a black neighborhood in New York.
Jay Johnston, Southington PL's director, asked me about a year ago what I knew about OneBook projects. I told him what I could, most of it from my experience in southeastern CT with One Book One Region, now ably led by Groton's Betty Anne Reiter. Then Deb Zulick in the CLC office put Jay in touch with the wonderful Russell Perrault of Random's Vintage Books imprint, and the rest was easy, (easy because Southington's Jean Chmielewski took over from there and made it all happen.) I not only got to have dinner with the author, but I got to sit next to him. He is also a big fan of audiobooks, and was quite impressed with Southignton's recent rollout of dowloadables. I was able to tell Dalton (Jay insists on calling him Dr. Connelly because he has a PhD and is chair of the social science department at NYU, but, heck, the guy is about thirty, and looks like one of my Kingswood students.) about how Apple prevents both Recorded Books and Overdrive from being able to download their products onto the ubiquitous iPOD, therefore preventing the 50 million owners from having access to downloads from their public library. Anyway, it was a wonderful evening for the 300 people of Southington who got to meet, and even question, a real New York author, and for me to remember just why I went into this business!