Albion’s Big Read: The Program

Founded in 2015, Albion’s Big Read is a program made of love – love of reading, love of young people, love of Albion, MI.

We operate on the basic principle that people love to do things that bring them joy. Unfortunately, many kids in our community – like many kids in our country – don’t love reading in large measure because their reading lives have been fairly joyless. They associate reading with boredom, not fun; with isolation, not community; with school, not life.

That is why Albion’s Big Read creates a context of joy in which young people experience the relevance and community-making power of books. We do that by way of our Big Read Youth Leadership Program, a summer program that brings Albion 8th-10th graders to Albion College where they read, eat, laugh, talk, make art, take risks, and – here’s the kicker – learn to lead discussions about books.

 Then every October (our Big Read month), our leaders bring their joy at reading into our community. How? They lead community-wide discussions of that year’s Big Read book. Those discussions anchor a month of rich, book-based programming that has impacted many thousands of local people since the program’s inception.