Vote for your 2020 read!
One Book One Community organizers are once again asking the public to vote for next year’s One Book, One Community (OBOC) book selection! The public vote initiative is a way to promote community involvement in the selection of the title, rather than handing over a single title each year. This year there will be five titles on the ballot. The 2020 OBOC regional campaign represents collaboration between 40 libraries in four counties: Cumberland, Dauphin, Perry and York.
How the voting works…
From a ballot with five book titles that made the final grade by the Book Selection committee, the public is asked to pick one of the five books that they would be interested in reading and discussing in 2020. To vote the public will go to https://forms.gle/y7HbVGDVEFLUQT5s9 to access an online ballot. For those who wish to fill out a paper ballot, they must go to participating libraries to cast their vote.
One Book, Your Vote for the OBOC 2020 title will take place August 1 – 31, 2019. The winner will be announced to the public in November 2019. With the public vote for the 2020 title, reading of the OBOC title will take place in January, and programs at the public libraries will begin in February, which is designated as both Library Lovers’ Month and Book Lovers’ Month. Multiple copies of the winning title will be available at your local participating library beginning in January 2020.
How the voting works…
From a ballot with five book titles that made the final grade by the Book Selection committee, the public is asked to pick one of the five books that they would be interested in reading and discussing in 2020. To vote the public will go to https://forms.gle/y7HbVGDVEFLUQT5s9 to access an online ballot. For those who wish to fill out a paper ballot, they must go to participating libraries to cast their vote.
One Book, Your Vote for the OBOC 2020 title will take place August 1 – 31, 2019. The winner will be announced to the public in November 2019. With the public vote for the 2020 title, reading of the OBOC title will take place in January, and programs at the public libraries will begin in February, which is designated as both Library Lovers’ Month and Book Lovers’ Month. Multiple copies of the winning title will be available at your local participating library beginning in January 2020.
One Book One Community
Finalists 2020
Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds (Atheneum Books, 2017)
Will has two choices when he steps into the elevator. And he’s got 8 floors and seconds to decide. After his brother is shot and killed, Will has to decide if he’ll follow the rule of taking revenge against the person responsible. But as the elevator descends from his eighth-floor apartment, Will is greeted by different ghosts who all share their views of the rule. This gripping novel is told in verse, where Reynolds deals with themes such as love, revenge, and the cycle of violence.
Dread Nation by Justina Ireland (Balzer + Bray, 2018)
Jane McKeene wasn’t born long before the dead rose during the Battle of Gettysburg—an event that ended the Civil War and changed America forever. Jane is nearing the end of her education—a mix of etiquette and weaponry so she can protect the upper tier of society. In this new America, the safety of people falls to the shoulders of a few—where laws place minority children into combat schools to learn how to dispose of the dead. When families and people start to go missing, Jane finds herself caught up in mishaps, and finds herself fighting for her life against enemies. This is a novel where race, humanity, and adventure come together.
Heartland: a Memoir of working Hard and Being Broke In the Richest Country on Earth by Sarah Smarch (Scribner, 2018)
People usually think of the heartland of the United States as a bounty of agriculture and a place where comfort abounds. This memoir traces the life of Sarah among the life of the working poor. Intergenerational poverty and life choices affect the lives of this Kansas farm family.
Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo (Harperteen, 2018)
Xiomara Batista has learned to use her fists to do her talking. Xiomara does have plenty to say and pours herself into her poetry. But she is at a crossroad. She loves to write poetry, and aspires to compete in slam poetry, but finds the pressure of her mom’s vision of her being a good Catholic girl and working in her twin brother’s shadow to be a challenge. When she is invited to join her school’s slam poetry club, X must decide how to maneuver the intersection of her mother’s vision of her while trying to discover her own vision of herself. A coming of age story told in poetic verse about love and discovering oneself.
VOX by Christina Dalcher (Berkley Publishing, 2018)
A decree is put out by the government that women are not allowed to speak more than 100 words daily. If they go over that limit, they are wearing a device that gives them an electric shock. This is only the beginning…Dr. Jean McClellan, a linguist who explores how the brain produces language, is given a chance to change this as she works with a team of scientists to overturn a brain injury to the President’s brother.