Article
By LINDA CONNER LAMBECK lclambeck@ctpost.com
Published
in the Connecticut Post,
April 16, 2007 © Copyright, Connecticut
Post  BRIDGEPORT
- First lady Laura Bush told an audience at the Barnum Museum Monday she was in
high school when "To Kill A Mockingbird" was published, but saw the
movie before she read the book.
Robert Duvall's portrayal
of recluse Boo Radley made a deep impression on her young mind. Not
until she was a librarian in Texas and could read on the job did Bush really come
to know the classic Harper Lee novel that is the centerpiece of the city's "Big
Read" program to promote reading and literacy. Bush,
the honorary chairwoman of The Big Read, a National Endowment for the Arts initiative,
helped promote the project by giving a short address and taking part in a panel
discussion on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book about life in the 1930s-era Deep
South.  She
told a crowd of some 200 invited guests that the competing demands of television,
the Internet and video games are keeping Americans, particularly the young, from
discovering the joys of a good book.
"We need to restore
literature to center of America community life," she said. "It's important
for all Americans to read our country's literary classics, because these works
define us as a nation." The lingering effects of Sunday's
nor'easter almost kept Bush from making her second visit to Bridgeport. Originally
scheduled to appear in Hartford at the Mark Twain House and then travel to Bridgeport,
the visit to the capital city was canceled because of bad weather.  Bush
was to announce in Hartford that The Big Read would be adding Twain's "Tom
Sawyer" to the list of a dozen suggested books when the national reading
initiative expands to as many as 200 communities this fall.
In
Bridgeport, the audience included guests from the city and its Big Read partners
in Shelton, Norwalk and Stamford. They share a $40,000 federal grant. "Connecticut
may be a small state, but the four cities represented here have taken to The Big
Read in a big way," Bush said.  Dominica
Hill, 13, an eighth-grader from St. Andrew School, sat with a row of classmates
invited to the event because they took part in a short film clip about the city's
Big Read.
"I think it's amazing she's taking the time
to come here. I didn't think she would," Hill said. Chanelle
Hudson, another St. Andrew's student, said she has read as far as chapter 21 in
"To Kill a Mockingbird." "I liked the beginning.
In the middle it got a little boring, but now it's getting exciting," she
said. As part of the program, Hannah Reis from Beacon Falls
and Eliott Purcell and Nick Marcus of Shelton, all child actors from Center Stage
in Shelton, performed a five-minute scene from the novel.  Dana
Gioia, the chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, also at the event,
said The Big Read got started after studies showed reading was becoming less and
less of an American pastime, particularly among young people.
He
called the overall response to the reading project enormous. It is already in
73 communities. In addition to the Bridgeport partnership, there are programs
in Waterbury, New Haven and Hartford. He called the first
lady's endorsement of the project wonderful. "She's a
passionate reader. I never see her where she's not reading a book," he said.
The first lady was introduced by Mayor John M. Fabrizi, who said he couldn't
be any more thrilled to have her visit the city. Bush got
a standing ovation and digital cameras raised above heads clicked for the better
part of a minute before she began her 10-minute speech in her native Texas drawl.
She began by mentioning a personal connection to Bridgeport
- her chief of staff, Anita McBride, was born here. She also
pointed out that while The Big Read is a new phenomenon, state Sen. Bill Finch,
D-Bridgeport, who was in the audience, paid tribute to "To Kill A Mockingbird"
three years ago when he named his son Atticus, after a lead character in Lee's
book, the lawyer Atticus Finch. Michael J. Bielawa, the city's
community relations librarian, called it a good day for Bridgeport. "It's
wonderful no matter what your politics are," he said. Museum
Director's Remarks | Mayor Fabrizi's Remarks | 
