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Lewiston and Auburn public libraries bring community together with reading

The Lewiston/Auburn Read is a city-wide initiative where people of the community can bond over reading a book. This year’s book is "Front Desk" by Kelly Yang.

LEWISTON, Maine —

The Lewiston and Auburn public libraries, along with local public schools and the city of Lewiston, are teaming together for the second annual Lewiston/Auburn Read. 

The initiative aims to bring the community together by having neighbors, friends, family, classmates, and everyone in the community reading the same book.  

This year, the community chose the book "Front Desk" by Kelly Yang. 

“It’s all about community. It’s about bringing people and kids together. You are really just reading one book together, so you can relate to the characters. And it really shares an empathy and comradery with neighbors and your dentist and librarians and teachers and your principal and your classmates. So it really helps kids connect to the rest of the world, to the people around them, and helps build community across ages and across backgrounds,” Sara Turner, children’s librarian for the Lewiston Public Library, said. 

This year includes in-person events, which is a welcome change from last year’s online only events. You can find the full list of events on Lewiston Public Library’s website. 

Another change from last year is that Auburn has joined the community read. 

“I think that this is showing that we are LA. We are one. We are going to read a book together no matter what river you are over,” Brandon Dyer, children’s librarian for Auburn Public Library, said. 

“I think having Auburn participate this year is going to make an even more wonderful community read because now it’s two communities getting to bond together and really share in that experience,” Turner said. 

"Front Desk" is geared toward fourth- to sixth-graders. But whether you are a teenager, an adult, or a parent whose child is too young to read, you can still enjoy the book. 

“It is really a great book for all ages to read," Turner said. "We have grandparents that are reading to their grandkids. Even as an adult reading this book, it’s actually set in the earlies '90s, so I could relate to it for the time period.”  

“I think it’s a great way to form friendships, form a bond, but also continue learning and improving their literacy, no matter if they can or cannot read the book, they are going to have someone that’s going to read it to them,” Dyer said. 

Sara Turner also had an interview with the author, Kelly Yang, and you can click here to watch that. 

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