Reading Across Rhode Island, Pell Center to host virtual kick-off of community reading program

Reading Across Rhode Island (RARI), Rhode Island’s community reading program, kicks off virtually on Tuesday, Jan. 25, at 7:00 p.m. with the the Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy. The event will be held live on the Pell Center’s Facebook page, and registration about the kick off can be found on the Eventbrite page.

For 2021, RARI will be reading the New York Times best-selling “Firekeeper’s Daughter” by Angeline Boulley, a groundbreaking YA thriller about a Native teen who must root out the corruption in her community. “Firekeeper’s Daughter” gives fascinating insight into life on and off an Indian reservation told through the eyes of a resilient and resourceful heroine.

The author Boulley is an enrolled member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, and she often writes about her Ojibwe community in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. She is a former Director of the Office of Indian Education at the U.S. Department of Education. “Firekeeper’s Daughter” is her debut novel, and it was an instant bestseller.

The kickoff for “Firekeeper’s Daughter” will be with Lorén Spears of the Narragansett Indian Tribe, RARI’s 2022 honorary chair as well as the executive director of Tomaquag Museum. Readers are invited to join Spears — along with moderators Jim Ludes, executive director of the Pell Center; Silvermoon Mars LaRose of the Narragansett Indian Tribe,  assistant director of the Tomaquag Museum; and Maureen Nagle, the RARI chair.

Reading Across Rhode Island is a program put on by the Rhode Island Center for the Book, and the program is made possible through a collaboration of readers, librarians, teachers and book group leaders from across the state. Registration and more information about Reading Across Rhode Island’s community reading program launch can be found on the Pell Center’s Eventbrite page.