Press Release
For Immediate Release
January 9, 2009
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Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic Regional Unit of the Upper Southeast (RFB&D®) is pleased to announce that it has formed a unique partnership with the Virginia Foundation Center for the Book to participate in The Big Read in Virginia, a statewide reading program. This partnership will allow RFB&D eligible students and non-students alike who struggle with reading due to print disabilities to have access to the unabridged audiobook versions – on CD or via download – of this year’s Big Read in Virginia book selections.
The 2008-09 Big Read in Virginia selection is the modern classic Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. The Big Read in Virginia is a statewide program sponsored by the Virginia Foundation Center for the Book. It is available now for RFB&D members.
Also available soon from RFB&D will be the Big Read for Little Readers book, Roy Makes a Car, written by Virginia author, Mary E. Lyons. The book is based on a folktale collected by Zora Neale Hurston in her anthropological work in the 1930’s. Mary E. Lyons herself is recording Roy Makes a Car at RFB&D’s Charlottesville studio.
Virginia First Lady Anne Holton, wife of Governor Tim Kaine, reprises her role as Honorary Chair of The Big Read in Virginia, having been the Honorary Chair for the previous year’s program featuring To Kill a Mockingbird.
To make this event easy for everyone to participate, the Center is offering free Teachers Guides with lesson plans for schools, and free Reader’s Guides for book groups and individual readers. Also available are free audio CDs with commentary on the novel and author Zora Neale Hurston by Alice Walker, Jerry Pinckney, Ruby Dee and others.
Nationally, The Big Read is an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) in partnership with the Institute of Museum and Library Services and in cooperation with Arts Midwest. It is aimed at addressing the decline in pleasure reading among American adults by providing the opportunity to read and discuss a single book within communities. This year the NEA supports The Big Read celebrations by presenting grants to208 organizations nationwide. The Big Read in Virginia is the only statewide program in the nation.
RFB&D is a nonprofit educational library, serving more than 237,000 students from kindergarten through graduate school and beyond who cannot read standard print due to a visual impairment, blindness, or other physical or learning disability such as dyslexia. For information about RFB&D membership, visit www.rfbd.org or contact RFB&D Member Services Department at 800-221-4792.
For more information, or to obtain the free guides, visit virginiafoundation.org/bookcenter and click on “The Big Read” or contact Susan Coleman at spcoleman@virginia.edu.
The Virginia Foundation Center for the Book is also home to the Virginia Festival of the Book, an annual event held in Charlottesville each March; the Virginia Arts of the Book Center; the Virginia Literary Calendar; and “VABooks!” a monthly book recommendation column. More information can be found at virginiafoundation.org/bookcenter.
Contact:
Susan Coleman, Director, VFH Center for the Book
Virginia Foundation for the Humanities
145 Ednam Drive Charlottesville, VA 22903
PH: 434-982-2983 FAX: 434-296-4714
spcoleman@virginia.edu
virginiafoundation.org/bookcenter
Contact:
Gail Milligan, RFB&D Virginia State Director
Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic (RFB&D)
3500 Remson Court Charlottesville, VA 22901
PH: 434-326-4944 FAX: 866-899-0942
gmilligan@rfbd.org
www.rfbd.org