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One Book, One Chicago Expands to Full Year of Programs Pulitzer Prize winner, Isabel Wilkerson's, The Warmth of Other Suns chosen as the 2013 One Book, One Chicago selection. The Warmth of Other Suns is Pulitzer Prize winner, Isabel Wilkerson's, first book and contains ten years of her own personal research into the Great Migration of African American's from the South to the North and West. Based on interviews with more than 1,200 people, Wilkerson's book focuses on just three poignant stories to give voice to the thousands of individuals and families who risked the unknown outside of the Jim Crow South for freedom and opportunity. The Warmth of Other Suns won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction, was a New York Times Top 10 Best Book of the Year in addition to receiving other noteable awards and recognitions. Funded by Allstate and BMO Harris Bank, One Book, One Chicago is the Chicago Public Library's city wide book club that encourages the city to read the same book at the same time. Starting this year, the Library will now host a year-long discussion of one book and its ideas, an expansion from the month-long programs offered twice a year since the series started in 2001. Beginning this April and continuing into spring 2014, the Chicago Public Library and community partners will host a series of events each month, all exploring the theme of migration and how it has shaped – and continues to shape – Chicago. April - WBEZ and the Center for Civic Reflection will hold three community discussions based on Richard Wright’s Black Boy. These discussions will explore Chicago's history as a gateway for such hopeful migrants from the 20th century to today. April thru June - Art Institute of Chicago presents the exhibition They Seek a City: Chicago and the Art of Migration, 1910-1950, in which foreign- and Southern-born international artists explore important social and artistic questions in the context of a shifting cultural landscape. May - Chicago historian and recent Champion of Freedom Award recipient, Timuel Black, will join Johnson Publishing Chairman, Linda Johnson Rice, and historian Adam Green at the Harold Washington Library for a discussion across generations of how the Great Migration shaped the city and their lives. May thru October – StoryCorps, the national nonprofit oral history project, will visit 13 CPL locations each month to offer Chicagoans opportunities to tell their migration story. StoryCorps@ your library is made possible by a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) to the American Library Association (ALA) Public Programs Office. June - Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events will offer performances by Blues musicians at branch libraries in advance of the 30th Annual Chicago Blues Festival themed “Rollin’ Up the River,” celebrating the evolution of the blues from South to North up the Mississippi. October - Author Isabel Wilkerson will appear at the Harold Washington Library Center on October 1st to read from and discuss her book. Partners in this year’s One Book, One Chicago include The Art Institute of Chicago, Center for Civic Reflections, Congo Square Theatre Company, Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, Chicago Office of New Americans, DePaul University, DuSable Museum of African American History, Little Black Pearl, StoryCorps@ your library, and the Third Coast International Audio Festival. Thanks to pro bono efforts of Leo Burnett the new One Book, One Chicago program hosts a new logo and campaign inviting Chicagoans to join the conversation.
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