INDIANAPOLIS — Libraries, schools and community organizations seeking to celebrate the Indiana’s bicentennial in 2016 through reading and conversation are encouraged to apply for a new resource called the Next Indiana Bookshelf. Created by The Indiana Center for the Book and Indiana Humanities, 55 groups will receive the Bookshelf sets, which include a copy of each of the 13 titles designed to encourage thinking and discussion about the present and future of Indiana.
The Next Indiana Bookshelf includes fiction, nonfiction, essays and poetry, as well as titles appropriate for adults, young adults and children. Each book has a strong connection to Indiana, either set in Indiana and/or written by a Hoosier author. To apply to receive a free set of these books, visit www.indianahumanities.org/next-indiana-bookshelf. The deadline for applications is Nov. 23
Every school and library in Indiana will receive a poster of “The Indiana Chant,” written for the bicentennial by South Bend, Ind.-based children’s author April Pulley Sayre. Teachers and librarians are encouraged to use the chant for readings and performances in the weeks and months leading up to Statehood Day on Dec. 11, 2016.
The 13 titles are: Earth Works: Selected Essays by Scott Russell Sanders, The Essential Etheridge Knight by Etheridge Knight, Food For Thought: An Indiana Harvest by David Hoppe, The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf by Mohja Kahf, The Indiana Chant by April Pulley Sayre, Invincible, Indiana by Nate Dunlevy, Kurt Vonnegut: Letters by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., edited by Dan Wakefield, Paper Towns by John Green, Raintree County by Ross Lockridge, Jr., Running Out of Time by Margaret Peterson Haddix, Sailing the Inland Sea: On Writing, Literature, and Land by Susan Neville, Soldier Girls: The Battles of Three Women at Home and at War by Helen Thorpe, What This River Keeps by Greg Schwipps.