August 21, 2009
Washington, DC

Inspired by veteran Big Read organizer (and Caldwell Public Library Director) Karen Kleppe Lembo’s July 31 article in The Recorder, here’s the library’s Big Read by the numbers . . .

 253: Number of Big Read activities offered by Caldwell Public Library in Caldwell, New Jersey, as part of their Big Read of Cynthia Ozick’s The Shawl

$8,000: Amount of Caldwell Public Library’s Big Read grant

18: Number of organizational partners (not including schools, libraries, or museums) for The Big Read

2: Number of sponsors that donated matching grant funds for the library’s program (Rotary Club of the Caldwells and Kiwanis Club of Caldwell/West Essex

>$20,000: Amount of in-kind donations received for the library’s Big Read

1,000: Number of copies of The Shawl in circulation throughout Caldwell during The Big Read

33: Number of official book discussions around The Shawl

400: Number of Big Readers who were able to meet Cynthia Ozick during her visit to Caldwell

16: Number of schools—nursery school through college—that partcipated in Caldwell’s Big Read

1,000: Number of teens that attended teen-friendly panel discussons and participated in a collaborative art exhibit

15,500: # of crayons collected for The Crayon Project at 12 collection bins created by Boy Scout Troop 6. Created by Teh Fair Lawn Jewish Center, the project is a Fair Lawn community rpoject that is collecting one crayon for each child lost during the holocaust. Some of the crayons will be used by local artist Herb Stern to create a permanent memorial to the lsot children, while the rest of the crayons will be donated to underserved schools.

countless: Inspired by Rosa’s shawl, number of squares that have been knit, crocheted, and/or tied by Caldwell crafters to create blankets that are being donated to local domestic violence shelters, halfway homes, and Native American reservations

3: Number of Big Read grants received by Caldwell Public Library to date (You can count on—pun gleefully intended!—Caldwell’s Big Read of poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow to arrive in early 2010)