The “Big Read” – 2010
The “Big Read” – 2010
At the five-year anniversary of hurricane Katrina, the NCGS Big Read is designed to encourage all of our girls and school members to connect around some of the important themes that will shape our activities in NOLA — community, service, and social justice — The New Orleans Big Read provides a focused program of reading and related activities for NCGS students of all ages.
Each of the suggested books focuses in some way on New Orleans culture or Hurricane Katrina stories and recovery. They are important works in their own right but should also engage our students, who cannot be with us in June, in thinking and talking about some of the topics we hope to explore during Annual Conference. The New Orleans Big Read will set the stage for those educators attending, too, and serve a point of discussion before the conference, during, and after.
We’re aiming for 100% participation from NCGS schools.
Recommended Reading
The lists below are arranged by school level (descriptions from Amazon). In addition to those that focus on NOLA and Hurricane Katrina, for those particularly voracious readers — or faculty members! — we have also listed (separately) a few other recommended “good read” and video options that are simply set in New Orleans or about the area in general.
LOWER SCHOOL
Two Bobbies: A True Story of Hurricane Katrina, Friendship and Survival by Kirby Larson
Ages: 4-8. Simple prose introduces two animals, a cat and a dog, that survived Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, and, after four months of wandering, were rescued by the Best Friends Animal Society. An excellent introduction to Katrina for young children, this touching animal tale memorializes a modern catastrophe and pays tribute to the many volunteers who traveled to New Orleans to help.
Others for Lower School:
Super Storms by Seymour Simon
Ages: 6-8. Examines superstorms and their potential destructiveness, including thunderstorms, hailstone showers, tornadoes, hurricanes, and typhoons.
Today Is Monday in Louisiana by Johnette Downing
PreSchool-Grade 3 — A variation of a Louisiana song with a twist–each day a new food is served as a faceless assortment of children come one by one to the table. Eventually, there are seven, with seven different dishes in front of them, a cat and dog underneath the table waiting for scraps, and a grandmotherly figure overseeing everything.
MIDDLE SCHOOL
8 State Hurricane Kate: The Journey and Legacy of a Katrina
8 State Hurricane Kate is the unforgettable story of the powerful bond between a cattle dog rescued from a rooftop and the woman who wouldn’t give up on her. As they make that courageous journey, new worlds open up for Jenny and Kate, an amazing survivor and teacher. Kate’s remarkable story, a tale of love, courage, and compassion, has inspired many others. Her legacy is a rescue network that continues to help dogs across the country. 50% of book profits go to the 8 State Kate Fund, providing financial relief for animals in desperate situations. Learn more here.
Also for Middle School:
Katrina — Amari’s First Hurricane by Ro’bin White Morton
Ages: 9-12 Story of Hurricane Katrina and how it affected a little boy name Amari and his family. Amari shares his love for his little city along with the fear of losing his grandparents in the flood. It teaches the reader about New Orleans before and after the hurricane.
UPPER SCHOOL, FACULTY, other ADULTS
1 Dead in Attic by Chris Rose
Hurricane Katrina boosted Rose’s career and damn near destroyed his life. A columnist for the Times-Picayune, Rose wrote disarmingly direct, funny, and fully loaded essays about the horrific aftermath of the storm, the terror and loss, injustice and irony. An intrepid explorer of the wreckage, Rose chronicles the decimated city’s horrible smell, daunting debris, and Twilight Zone atmosphere. Readers love and rely on his column, which earns him a Pulitzer, and when he self-publishes a collection of his essays, it promptly sells 65,000 copies. But as a conduit for all the sorrows of the lost city, Rose experiences a catastrophic inner storm and candidly reports on his plunge into depression. This frank and compelling collection combines Rose’s original book with later dispatches from hell covering all of 2006 and adding up to vivid and invaluable testimony to the true repercussions, public and personal, of the devastation of a city.
Other for Upper School and Adults:
Nine Lives: Death and Life in New Orleans by Dan Baum
After Hurricane Katrina, Dan Baum moved to New Orleans to write about the city’s response to the disaster for The New Yorker. He quickly realized that Katrina was not the most interesting thing about New Orleans, not by a long shot. The most interesting question, which struck him as he watched residents struggling to return, was this: Why are New Orleanians—along with people from all over the world who continue to flock there—so devoted to a place that was, even before the storm, the most corrupt, impoverished, and violent corner of America? By resurrecting this beautiful and tragic place and portraying the extraordinary lives that could have taken root only there, Nine Lives shows us what was lost in the storm and what remains to be saved.
Why New Orleans Matters by Tom Piazza
In Why New Orleans Matters, award-winning author and New Orleans resident Tom Piazza illuminates the storied culture and uncertain future of this great and most neglected of American cities. With wisdom and affection, he explores the hidden contours of familiar traditions like Mardi Gras and Jazz Fest, and evokes the sensory rapture of the city that gave us jazz music and Creole cooking. He writes, too, of the city’s deep undercurrents of corruption, racism, and injustice, and of how its people endure and transcend those conditions. And, perhaps most important, he asks us all to consider the spirit of this place and all the things it has shared with the world—grace and beauty, resilience and soul.
Zeitoun by Dave Eggers
Through the story of one man’s experience after Hurricane Katrina, Eggers draws an indelible picture of Bush-era crisis management. Abdulrahman Zeitoun, a successful Syrian-born painting contractor, decides to stay in New Orleans and protect his property while his family flees. After the levees break, he uses a small canoe to rescue people, before being arrested by an armed squad and swept powerlessly into a vortex of bureaucratic brutality. When a guard accuses him of being a member of Al Qaeda, he sees that race and culture may explain his predicament. Eggers, compiling his account from interviews, sensibly resists rhetorical grandstanding, letting injustices speak for themselves. His skill is most evident in how closely he involves the reader in Zeitoun’s thoughts.
More books to consider:
City of Refuge by Tom Piazza
Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
DVDs for Upper School and Adults:
When the Levees Broke by Spike Lee.
Jazz by Ken Burns.
Trouble the Water. Carl Deal, Tia Lessin.
On the same page…
Let us know in the box below how your school will participate in The Big Read. We welcome book suggestions, as well.
GPS (Girls Preparatory School, TN) has had a connection with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina for a few years.
1. Several students from New Orleans schools relocated to Chattanooga and enrolled at GPS.
2. Three faculty members and fifteen students participated in a four-day Winterim Habitat for Humanity build in New Orleans during February 2007.
3. On several occasions during the past few years, the Friday morning Current Events presentation for all students has included specific information about the impact of Hurricane Katrina on the community and on-going recovery projects.
This year, as we looked for ways to participate in the NCGS Big Read:
1. Selected senior English students will read and discuss excerpts from 1 Dead in Attic by Chris Rose, columnist for The Times-Picayune in New Orleans.
2. Students enrolled in Democracy in a Global Setting have completed a unit on Hurricane Katrina and the U. S. government’s response to the crisis. During this unit, students have researched, discussed and analyzed governmental responses with a goal of creating a framework for a more positive response to future disasters.
3. GPS is offering a seniors-only trip to New Orleans on May 26- May 30, 2010. Students will participate in a re-build project.
Linda Mines, History Department Chair, Girls Preparatory School (TN)
After recently looking over a packet that I received from the Federal Reserve in Atlanta while attending an Ethics in Economics conference, I decided that the 39 seniors enrolled in Discrete/Economical Topics will do a 4-day video/curricular investigation into Katrina’s Classroom: Financial Lessons from a Hurricane. This series focuses in on three families directly affected by Katrina, their survival stories, and the need for financial responsibility in everyday life as well as during a disaster such as Katrina. Themes of financial responsibility, preparation, and decision making are woven throughout. By watching in the stories, engaging in the discussions, and participating in the activities, the students will learn:
• Distinguish between needs and wants (encompassing the concept of scarcity).
• Explain why wise financial decision making is the key to meeting needs and attaining wants.
• Identify fundamental tools and practices that are required to become financially responsible.
• Predict the consequences of failure to plan financially.
• Relate the benefits of financial planning to their own lives.
• Apply fundamental financial practices and tools.
To add to the relevance of this discussion, two of our students reloated from New Orleans to Chattanooga and are in two of my three sections of the course. With them having recently completed their presentation in chapel the significance should be present and bring added meaning to the discussions and subsequent internalization of the material.
Chris Zeller, Girls Preparatory School (TN) faculty member