Brady Mallory

WDAZ Reporter Brady Mallory concluded not on the "Best of" week of Literary Lunches, he closed out this school's run. Mallory read from Ellen DeGeneres' The Funny Thing Is..., a collection of humorous essays. Early in the Literary Lunches season, Mallory first read an excerpt from Harper Lee's classic To Kill A Mockingbird early in the Literary Lunches.

Picturing reading

At yesterday's session of Literary Lunches,  Torie Johnson, director of special education for the Grand Forks Public Schools, read from a number of different books: two familiar children's books, Thomas' Snowsuit written by Robert Munsch and illustrated by Michael Martchenko and Love You Forever also written by Munsch and illustrated by Sheila McGraw, and Jacqueline Woodson's Locomotion, the story of William C. Motion written in poetry.

The common theme was pictures. Thomas's Snowsuit and Love You Forever both include illustrations; Woodson's does not. Still, Johnson encouraged us to really listen to and think about the images Woodson has created for Locomotion.

Here's what Woodson says about Locomotion at her website: 

Lonnie C. Motion has had some tough breaks in his life. But this fall, Lonnie’s fifth grade class is learning to write poetry and suddenly, Lonnie is finding the words to tell the world about his family, the fire that took his parents away, his little sister, his world.

Officer Troy Vanyo on Friday the 13th!

      Officer Vanyo entertained the groups today with reading from a short story collection entitled The Ghost Next Door.  Some of the selections he read were "The Ghost Hotel," "Strange Doings at the Parker House," "Host of Ghosts."  He also talked about the importance of reading in law enforcement and the ability to write with clarity!




A highlight of the reading:
Officer Vanyo: "I'm going to read a ghost story."
Student: "With the lights on?"

Solemn writers to consider

At yesterday session of Literary Lunches, Calvary Lutheran Church pastor Troy Troftruben read selections from Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Elie Wiesel, both of whom spent time in concentrations camps during World War II. The Weisel selection was an excerpt from Night and the Bonhoeffer selections were poems "Power of Good" and "Christian and Pagans."

Follow the hyperlinked text below to learn more about Wiesel.

Elie Wiesel was born in the small town of Sighet in Transylvania, where people of different languages and religions have lived side by side for centuries, sometimes peacefully, sometimes in bitter conflict. The region was long claimed by both Hungary and Romania. In the 20th century, it changed hands repeatedly, a hostage to the fortunes of war.

Follow the hyperlinked text below to learn more about Bonhoeffer.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (German pronunciation: [ˈdiːtʁɪç ˈboːnhœfɐ]; February 4, 1906 – April 9, 1945) was a German Lutheran pastor, theologian and martyr. He was also a participant in the German resistance movement against Nazism and a founding member of the Confessing Church. His involvement in plans by members of the Abwehr (the German Military Intelligence Office) to assassinate Adolf Hitler resulted in his arrest in April 1943 and his subsequent execution by hanging in April 1945, 23 days before the Nazis' surrender. His view of Christianity's role in the secular world has become very influential.

Troftgruben explained that he find both Wiesel and Bonhoeffer interesting because they consider where a god is in horrible circumstances.

Marathon man

At yesterday's session of Literacy Lunches, Grand Forks Central math teacher Steve Paintner read about the origins of marathon. Why? For one, yesterday was the annual running of the Boston Marathon.

The first Marathon occurred in 490 BC when Pheidppides ran from the battled near Marathon to Athens (25 miles) to deliver the news that the Greeks had defeated the Persians in war. After doing so, he collapsed and died on the spot. In 1896 Olympics the Marathon was resurrected in Athens; runners went from the Marathon Bridge to Athens.

The Boston Marathon, held on Patriots' Day, the third Monday in April, is the world's oldest annual marathon and is one of the world's major marathons.

But there's more to Paintner's choice of reading about marathons. Paintner himself is a marathon runner, something he became some seven years ago when he and fellow GFC science teacher Eric Polries ran in a marathon to raise money to honor the late Markus Bryant, for whom the Markus Bryant Spirit Award is named. Bryant was a student at GFC who, despite being ill with cancer, worked hard and persevered, exemplifying courage to all who were around him.  Bryant died in 2002..

Paintner's now in training to run the half marathon, one of the events in the annual Fargo Marathon, an event he's never missed. He's also twice run in the Minneapolis Marathon.

Mark Rios reads from The Last Lecture

Alerus Financial commercial/business banker Mark Rios, read from Randy Pausch's The Last Lecture for yesterday's session of Literary Lunches.

Rios, originally from Hawaii, served in the military in active duty. He has a degree in education from the University of North Dakota. He has one daughter; she is a graduate of Red River High School. And his wife Sandy graduated from Grand Forks Central. 

The Last Lecture is a collection 53 lectures and stories Pausch gave after he was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 2007. Although Pausch knew he was going to die, he wanted other people to know who he was and he wanted his children to know about their father. Paush said that "We cannot change the cards we are dealt....just how we play the hand."





Submitted by GFC freshman Matt Orr and GFC English teacher Nancy Devine

Spanning the years

In yesterday's session of Literary Lunches, Grand Forks Central technology education teacher Joe Ford addressed discrimination. He began his reading by drawing students attention to a Converse National 1964 yearbook of state champions, a document that shows the teams of white students and black students were separated; in other words, they didn't play one another.

Then Ford read a section from basketball player Bill Russell's memoir Red and Me about how Russell and his African American teammates responded to a segregation at a restaurant. The "Red" in the memoir is Red Auerbach.

In Red Auerbach, Russell found his partner, and over 13 years they won 11 N.B.A. championships. During that time, from incidents on court and off, Russell slowly came to trust Auerbach the man as much as Auerbach the coach or general manager. “Red and Me,” which he wrote with Alan Steinberg, is the story of their relationship. (from Bill Bradley at NYT)

Ford also read from with a selection from Red Auerbach's book Let Me Tell You A Story: A Lifetime in the Game.  John Feinstein is co-author of the book. 

Ford concluded with a selection from Abe Winter's Memoir of an Unknown Sports Writer. The selection featured Grand Forks Central graduate Glen Hansen, part of GFC's 1970s state basketball champion team.

Spread the Word

Yesterday a very special guest came to Grand Forks Central in support of the Spread the Word to End the Word campaign.

Special Olympian Erin Baumann, who was born with Down Syndrome, read a speech she had written about how derogatory words affect people with intellectual disabilities. She told those who attended the session of Literary Lunches what it's like to have Down Syndrome and what it's like having people use those derogatory words.

She gave many of the students and teachers who attended much to think about in respect of the use of words like "stupid," "dumb" and the ever present R-word. Baumann also brought up an important legislative point, Rose's Law.

In October 2010, "President Obama signed Rosa's Law, making a simple, but monumental change in the language used to refer to individuals with disabilities. The law, named for Rosa Marcellino an 8-year-old girl with Down Syndrome, will change the phrase 'mental retardation' to 'ntellectual disability' in all federal statutes."

Monday we will put up a video of Baumann so you too can hear what Baumann had to say and learn what websites you can visit to help those intellectual disabilities and those who are participating in the Special Olympics.

submitted by GFC senior Justin (Jfish) Fischer

Words have power

At yesterday's session of Literary Lunches, Grand Forks Central special education teacher Kelli Henke reminded us that "words can hurt people."

Henke, who read in conjunction with the Spread the Word to End the Word campaign, brought us into the world of House Rules, Jodi Picoult's novel about Jacob, a young man with autism.  In the excerpt Henke read, Jacob's mother Emma tells us about her son who's interested in forensics, so much so that he stages a fake crime scene at their house.

Emma also addresses words, in particular labels. She says, "It's a term [Asperger's Syndrome] we use to get Jacob the accommodations he needs in school, not a label to explain who he is. "

Below is the United Kingdom version of the book trailer for House Rules.

Karl Goehring

The importance of stories

During Friday's session of Literary Lunches, reader Dawn Botsford emphasized the importance of story.

And Botsford read from Growing Up on Cole Creek---Or Was It Just a Coulee? by Jeannette Roder Klevberg, Botsford's mother. Chronicled in this work are stories about Klevberg's youth, including that when Klevberg went to Grand Forks Central in 1948, her family got their first refrigerator. Klevberg rented a bedroom in Grand Forks, so she could attend high school in the "big town" of Grand Forks. During her time at GFC, she lived in a rented bedroom, ate at Black Cafe's in downtown Grand Forks and kept a diary of her boyfriends. And, in school, students participated in penmanship class and weekly spelling bees.

Klevberg finished her book six months before she died and turned it over to Botsford and her siblings for editing, proofreading, photos and formatting. Klevberg's family self-published the book and donated the proceeds to the American Cancer Society; the second printing proceeds were donated to Ethiopia Reads. Books from the third printing are left to sell, with a variety of organizations set to receive the profits.

Kleberg told Botsford that she had at least two more books to write, something that perhaps informs Botsford's belief in the power of story.

"I would encourage you to interview your grandparents and write those stories down. If you don't write those stories down, they will be lost and we need those stories, " Botsford said.

Botsford is an events coordinator in the office of ceremonies and special events at UND, located in the office of the vice president for student affairs. She grew up on a farm near Northwood and got both her bachelor's and master's degrees at UND. Her son, Tom, graduated from GFC in 2006.

Literary connections

Though the author Cathy Williams read from at yesterday's session of Literary Lunches may not be familiar, the local event that writer attended is familiar: the annual UND Writers Conference.
Williams read the work of Karen Russell, who participated in the 2010 Writers Conference for which the topic was wit.  Specifically, Williams read the title story from Russell's St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves.

In an online interview at Book Browse, Russell talks about the importance of reading. Click the text below to read more.


What in your own life made you want to become a writer?
Reading, definitely. I loved reading so much; I mean, I still do, but not with that sort of illicit midnight intensity. I was such an anxious kid, and reading was a way out. At sleepovers, I would sneak away and lock myself in the bathroom and read the other kids’ books. Here was a way to step-out of your child’s body and into the mind of a Salem witch or a bunch of warring rabbits. It’s still amazing to me. It was spooky and intimate and totally intoxicating, to step into an author’s private rooms. I’d read the words and they became my rooms. Then I wanted to be a writer myself, to do to others what these authors were doing for me.

For the young and young at heart

Former Grand Forks Central teacher Cathy Woidtke encouraged the audience at Friday's sessions of Literary Lunches to "Find a child to read to this Christmas. It's fun."

Woidtke read from A Christmas Guest by White Bear Lake, Minnesota writer David RaRochelle, and My Penguin Osbert by Elizabeth Cody Kimmel.

"I love children's books...the simplicity of the message," Woidtke said.

In other news, Grand Forks Central sophomore Deion Hanson won an autographed copy of Lois Lowry's The Giver.  Students who attended Literary Lunches during November were eligible for the drawing.

A book that continues to be read

At yesterday's session of Literary Lunches, Grand Forks Public Schools school board member Cynthia Shabb read from a text familiar to many Grand Forks Central students: The Giver. This Lois Lowry book follows Jonas as he learns about his new role in a community virtually devoid of choice, a community that is completely ruled by sameness.

Shabb, a former English teacher, read the section in which Jonas hears the rules that will govern his new role. She always read a section in which Jonas gets a memory of and experiences snow.

Lowry was at the Empire Theater Friday October 29, 2010 as part of the Greater Grand Forks Big Read. Her picture book, Crow Call, was selected for the Little Read component of this event, because it addresses war. (The Big Read book is The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien, a book that focuses on the Vietnam War.) At Friday's event, Lowry recounted how she got the idea for The Giver.

The following, from a 2004 interview with Lowry, then 68, does the same.

Lowry, 68, got the idea for "The Giver" years ago when she was traveling regularly to visit her parents, who were in a nursing home. Her father was still in decent physical health, but his memory was failing. Her mother was very ill physically, but her memory was intact.

"I would travel home with that in my mind, and I began to think a lot about the concept of memory. When it was time for me to begin a new book, I began to create in my mind a place and a group of people who had somehow found the capacity to control memory," Lowry said. (Karen MacPherson at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette online )

Unexpected Sparrow flies in

Jim Sparrow, Captain Jack Sparrow's "better looking brother," not only read at Friday's session of Literary Lunches, he also played guitar to a packed house (room 159). The younger Sparrow's reading selections were How I Became a Pirate and Pirates Don't Change Diapers both written by Melinda Long and illustrated by David Shannon.

Sparrow was in full pirate regalia and had with him his trusty mate, a Martin guitar. And while he read, his ship "The Great Gatsby," was docked on the Red River near Applebee's. Sparrow also explained that his brother Jack is more well-known because of the trouble he gets into. Jim's relative anonymity is the product of his good behavior, including a dry ship.

Toward the end of the second lunch session, one of Sparrow's crew members showed up, a mate that suggested that the Dr. Seuss classic, Green Eggs and Ham, is a cookbook.

Local reader reads area writer

Though Gary Malm is no longer in school, he's done some homework recently.. The homework? Finding the right piece to read at Grand Forks Central's Literary Lunches.

And at yesterday's session of Literary Lunches he read from Gary Paulsen's Soldier's Heart, the story of Charley Goddard, a fifteen-year-old, one of the first Minnesota volunteers during the Civil War. Malm, a retired teacher and current Grand Forks County county commissioner,  found the book on a list of the best read-alouds for kids.

He not only read from the novel, he read about Paulsen, a Thief River Falls native. Malm recounted what Paulsen said of the librarian in his home town: "When she handed me a library card, she handed me the world."

Malm himself is an avid reader. "I read all over the place, " he said. "I have four [books] going right now."

And if you're interested in finding out what Civil War battles really looked like, (in their original, uncommercialized state)  Malm suggested you go to Tennessee to see a reenactment of the Battle of Shiloh where it took place.

Award-winning author Tim O'Brien visits Grand Forks Central

Author Tim O'Brien said that writing The Things They Carried  "was a challenge I set for myself," one he likened to "creating a tennis net seven feet high" for a game of tennis. He said wanted to write something that "could've actually happened," something in which the narrator is Tim O'Brien and he wanted to fiction about the Vietnam War, which he described as a "small daily bunch of horrors, one after the other."

O'Brien, Friday's celebrity reader for Literary Lunches, talked about his work, including The Things They Carried, the selection for the Greater Grand Forks Big Read. The book, a suite of stories about the Vietnam War, in which narrator Tim O'Brien shows the reader glimpses of war. Though the characters are fictional----including the narrator-- O'Brien said that the characters are as real to him as the people in his own life. "Bodies don't have to be with us to be real."

If O'Brien had known what he was getting into, he said he might not have become a writer. Still, he finds "the payoffs of doing what I do...can be enormous." He spoke of one of those pay-offs in particular, a letter he got from a young Minneapolis woman, who wrote about how her parents weren't getting along and how painful it was to live in a household with such turmoil. Then, in an advanced placement English class she read The Things They Carried, a book which she gave to her father to read. Because he soon began to open up, she wrote O'Brien to say, "Thank you for getting a family talking."

Ultimately, O'Brien said he's trying to make art, to write something that will "entrance you...keep you reading."

He also talked about the importance of reading and what students should be reading. "Whatever gets you reading is okay."

He offered advice for young writers. "You don't have to go to war to write a book.  If you have lived up to the age of thirteen, you have enough material to write a novel.  You have known love, disappointment, betrayal.

"Pay attention to the life you're leading, and you'll have a wealth of stories."

O'Brien spoke at UND the night before and, during Literary Lunches,  reiterated sentiments he shared there.  If we want to respond to post-traumatic stress syndrome, we should "stop having wars."

The Things They Carried was a finalist for the 1990 Pulitzer Prize as well as the National Book Critics Circle Award. 

The Big Read is an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) designed to restore reading to the center of American culture.

Local sponsors include the University of North Dakota, the North Dakota Council on the Humanities, the Community Foundation of Grand Forks, East Grand Forks and Area, Red River Valley Writing Project, the Chester Fritz Library, Grand Forks Public Schools, Lake Agassiz Reading Council, Alerus Financial, Frandsen Bank and Trust, Friends of the Library, WDAZ and Clear Channel Radio. Grand Forks is one of 75 communities nationwide participating in The Big Read from September 2010-June 2011. 

For a calendar of Greater Grand Forks Big Read events, click here.

(Photos of Tim O'Brien courtesy of Kris Arason )

What is wealth?

Marty Martinson, the main character in VJ Smith's The Richest Man in the World is an unlikely hero. He worked at Wal-mart in Brookings, South Dakota. He greeted customers and engaged them in conversation when they were in his check-out line. But Martinson made an impression on Smith, and he made an impression on Grand Forks Public Schools activities director Todd Olson, yesterday's reader during Literary Lunches. It is from this non-fiction book that Olson read.

Olson read an excerpt explaining how Smith and Martinson met and how Martinson's engaging personality got Smith to write a letter to the head of Wal-Mart. Instead of offering up perfunctory greetings to his customers, Martinson talked with his customers and listened to what they said. The excerpt not only showcased Smith and Martinson but also the connections Olson shared during his reading...the kind of connections skilled readers make with ease.

Olson was a basketball coach for 12 years, a math teacher for 14.

Professional philosopher in da house

"The choice to have an active mind is yours," UND philosophy professor Jack Weinstein told yesterday's Literacy Lunches audience.

What he read illustrate what an active mind considers. He read The Basho of Honk, a Nick Paumgarten New Yorker piece about turning responses to NYC's annoying car honking into short poems. Weinstein also read a Jacob Neusner speech from William Safire's Lend Me Your Years: Great Speeches in History. In Professor Jacob Neusner Defines the Social Contract Between Teacher and Student, Neusner argues that "Great teachers don't teach; they help students learn." In other words, great teaching is about getting people to think.

Weinstein, a native of New York City, is the director of the Institute for Philosophy in the Public Life.

A keeper of books

It wasn't just books and reading yesterday when Wendy Wendt direct or the Grand Forks Public Library spoke during Literary Lunches. She offered encouragement and advice to students.

"As you're thinking about your careers, think about what you really like to do," she said.  Wendt liked to read as a child but never thought anyone could work in a library, something she now does and loves.

Wendt read from The Last Book in the Universe by Rodman Philbrick, an author perhaps best known for Freak the Mighty.

And Wendt highlighted upcoming events such as The Big Read with an appearance by Tim O'Brien and a discussion with Lois Lowry about her book Crow Call. Students might be familiar with Lowry because of her book The Giver.

Take a look below at the scheduled events:

Great Conversation withTim O'Brien
Award-winning author, Tim O'Brien, will be appearing in Grand Forks to discuss his book, "The Things They Carried"
Event Location: Chester Fritz Auditorium, Grand Forks, ND 58201-6324

Date: Thu, Oct 14, 2010
Time: 7:00pm – 9:00pm

Book: The Things They Carried

Kids' Big Read Book Discussion of "Crow Call" by Lois Lowry

Story time for children of all ages. Features "Crow Call" by Lois Lowry, the story of a young girl who is reunited with her father after he has been away on military service for an extended time.
Event Location: 2110 Library Circle, Grand Forks, ND 58201-6324

Date: Sat, Oct 16, 2010
Time: 2:00pm – 2:30pm

Book: The Things They Carried