NEW ORLEANS – One Book One New Orleans (OBONO) and University of New Orleans (UNO) announced a new partnership to connect students to the larger New Orleans community through a shared reading experience.
For the past 20 years, OBONO has selected one book each year as the focus of its citywide reading and literacy initiatives; its 2024 selection is “Black Creole Chronicles,” a collection by former Louisiana Poet Laureate Dr. Mona Lisa Saloy. OBONO works to get the selected book into the hands of adults experiencing incarceration, low literacy, poverty, visual impairment, and other obstacles that could prevent them from accessing the book.
For this first time, OBONO’s selected book will also be the common reader for UNO’s College of Liberal Arts, Education and Human Development. Faculty from various schools and departments – including Anthropology & Sociology, Language & Literature, School of the Arts, and School of Education – will incorporate Saloy’s work into the curriculum for their fall semester classes.
“We in the College of Liberal Arts, Education and Human Development are excited to launch our partnership with One Book One New Orleans as we establish a culture of active readers!” says Dean Samuel Gladden. “Students, faculty, and staff will be reading the same book and sharing ideas in class, over lunch, or in other encounters on campus and off. We are especially fortunate that this year’s selection, ‘Black Creole Chronicles’ by Mona Lisa Saloy, was published by UNO Press, making this a perfect fit for the inaugural year of our project.”
In addition to sharing the book in the classroom, UNO will host programming focused on Black Creole Chronicles during the upcoming academic year. Students will also have opportunities to attend off-campus events hosted by OBONO, enabling them to become part of a community of readers throughout the city.
For OBONO Executive Director Dr. Megan Holt, this partnership is a dream come true. “I have wanted for years to bring the One Book experience to a college campus,” she says. “Opportunities for engagement between students and the community have the potential to create connections that help us all build a stronger New Orleans.”
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