Vermont Humanities

Vermont Reads in Schools

Author Katherine Paterson with student
Vermont Reads

Since 2003, Vermont Humanities has invited students, adults, and seniors across the state to read the same book and participate in a wide variety of community activities related to the book’s themes.

Learn more about Vermont Reads

Painting of two girls in 1950s San Francisco in a corner under a streetlamp

Teenager Lily Hu is fully immersed in the life and culture of San Francisco’s Chinatown, home to Chinese immigrant families like hers. But as she comes of age in the 1950s, her passion for rockets and space exploration is matched by her curiosity about the Telegraph Club, located in a neighboring part of the city her parents have asked her to avoid.

For the 21st year of the Vermont Reads program, we invite Vermont communities to plan projects centered around Last Night at The Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo and its themes of self-acceptance, familial and cultural ties, US/China relations, LGBTQ+ and Feminist history, McCarthyism and xenophobia, music of the 1940s and 1950s, and the Asian American experience, among others.

We’re constantly impressed by the creativity and dedication shown by middle and high school teachers who build curriculum around our Vermont Reads choices. Their projects have included cartooning lessons, author visits, creative writing seminars, protest marches, special luncheons, and even a trip to a local cemetery!

Librarians Carole Renca (left) and Amy Cudney gathered books about the Civil Rights Movement and the Great Migration to help Edmunds Middle School teachers lead Brown Girl Dreaming projects in 2017. A quilt inspired by Jacqueline Woodson’s memoir was raffled to help Edmunds purchase more library materials about diversity.

Librarians Carole Renca (left) and Amy Cudney gathered books about the Civil Rights Movement and the Great Migration to help edmunds Middle School teachers lead Brown Girl Dreaming projects

As part of two virtual Vermont Reads events held in 2020—including one for students across the state—former Vermont State Librarian Jason Broughton asked Angie Thomas, the author of The Hate U Give, about the first book she could never put down. Her answer: “Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry” by Mildred D. Taylor. “It was about a Black girl in Mississippi, and I was a Black girl in Mississippi,” Thomas said.

Vermont Humanities*** December 8, 2021