2019 All Henrico Reads Author–Lisa Scottoline
Once again, we are excited to partner with the Henrico County Public Library to announce this year’s All Henrico Reads author, Lisa Scottoline (https://scottoline.com). The featured title is Keep Quiet. In addition, we have identified three optional titles with thematic connections to the featured title for middle school students.
MS:
- Black Book of Secrets by F.E. Higgins
- On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
- Scar Island by Dan Gemeinhart
HS: The feature title, Keep Quiet by Lisa Scottoline
2018 All Henrico Reads Author –Reyna Grande
Born in Mexico, Ms. Grande was two years old when her father left for the U.S. to find work. Her mother followed her father two years later, leaving Reyna and her siblings behind in Mexico. In 1985, when Reyna was going on ten, she entered the U.S. She later went on to become the first person in her family to graduate from college. She has a B.A. in creative writing and film & video from the University of California, Santa Cruz. She also has a Masters in Fine Arts from Antioch University for creative writing. Ms. Grande is an award-winning novelist and memoirist. She has received an American Book Award and the Latino Book Award. Her works have been published internationally in countries such as Norway and South Korea. Currently Reyna teaches creative writing at UCLA Extension.
2017 All Henrico Reads author Sy Montgomery!
Sy Montgomery is a graduate of Syracuse University. She was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Keene State College, Franklin Pierce University and Southern New Hampshire University.
To research books, films and articles, Ms Montgomery has been chased by an angry silverback gorilla in Zaire and bitten by a vampire bat in Costa Rica, worked in a pit crawling with 18,000 snakes in Manitoba and handled a wild tarantula in French Guiana. She has been undressed by an orangutan, hunted by a tiger, and swum with piranhas, electric eels and dolphins. She has searched the Altai Mountains for snow leopards, hiked into the trackless cloud forest to radio-collar tree kangaroos, and learned to SCUBA dive in order to commune with octopuses.
2016 All Henrico Reads author Chitra Divakaruni!
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni is an award-winning and bestselling author, poet, activist and teacher of writing. Her work has been published in over 50 magazines and her writing has been included in over 50 anthologies. Her books have been translated into 29 languages, including Dutch, Hebrew, Bengali, Russian and Japanese, and several of her works have been made into films and plays.
Born in Kolkata, India, Ms. Divakaruni came to the United States for her graduate studies, receiving a Master’s degree in English from Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. She teaches in the nationally ranked Creative Writing program at the University of Houston. She serves on the Advisory board of two organizations that help South Asian or South Asian American women who find themselves in abusive or domestic violence situations. She has also served on the board of Pratham, an organization that helps educate underprivileged children in India.
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2015 All Henrico Reads author Tayari Jones!
Tayari Jones was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia where she spent most of her childhood. She was educated at Spelman College, the University of Iowa and Arizona State University. She started writing seriously at Spelman College. Her first novel, Leaving Atlanta, is a three-voiced coming of age story set against the backdrop of The Atlanta Child Murders of 1979 to 1981. This novel, which was written while she was a graduate student at Arizona State University, won the 2003 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for Debut Fiction. Her second novel, The Untelling, is also set in Atlanta. This novel is the story of a woman seeking to overcome the trauma of her past. It was awarded the Lillian C. Smith Award for New Voices. Silver Sparrow, her third novel was published in 2011. It was nominated for an NAACP Image Award and the 2013 IMPAC Dublin International Literary Award. Tayari Jones has taught creative writing at The University of Illinois and also at George Washington University. In addition, she has led workshops in Portugal, Ghana, Uganda, and Brazil. She is now a member of the Fine Arts faculty at Rutgers University.
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2014 All Henrico Reads Author Lee Smith!
Lee Smith was born in Grundy, Virginia, a small coal-mining town in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Her mother, Virginia, was a college graduate who went Grundy to teach school. Her father, Ernest, a native of the area, operated a store. After spending her last two years of high school at St. Catherine’s in Richmond, Virginia, Smith enrolled at Hollins College in Roanoke. She and fellow student Annie Dillard (the well-known essayist and novelist) became go-go dancers for an all-girl rock band, the Virginia Woolfs.
Lee Smith has published 13 novels and four collections of short stories. She is a recipient of the Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the North Carolina Award for Literature, and a Southern Book Critics Circle Award.
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2014 Middle School Author Shelley Pearsall!
Shelley Pearsall, a native Ohioan, public school teacher, and a museum historian, visited our school system on Monday, January 13, 2014. Ms. Pearsall uses the influence of her past in a lot of her writings. Our students continue to read All of the Above, a book that combines reading and math!
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2013 All Henrico Reads author Adriana Trigiani!
Adriana Trigiani, born in a small coal mining town in southwest Virginia, used her hometown as the setting of her first novel, Big Stone Gap. After graduating from Saint Mary’s College in South Bend, Indiana, Ms. Trigiani moved to New York City to become a playwright. She founded the all-female comedy troupe “The Outcasts” and went on to accrue several television credits, including one as a writer/producer on The Cosby Show.
Reviews from the Washington Post to the New York Times to People have described Ms. Trigiani’s novels as “tiramisu for the soul”, “sophisticated and wise”, and “dazzling.” They agree, “her characters are so lively they bounce off the page”, and that “her novels are full bodied and elegantly written.”
Our students read both Viola In Reel Life and The Shoemaker’s Wife.
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Fall 2012 Junior Book & Author event
Founded in 1926, the Junior League of Richmond is an organization of women committed to the mission of promoting voluntarism, developing the potential of women, and improving the community through the effective action and leadership of trained volunteers. The Junior League of Richmond’s vision is to empower, educate, and enhance the quality of life for women, youth, and families, with an emphasis in the East End community, through effective programming and collaboration.
The Junior Book & Author event is a program that reaches out to local middle school children, a demographic that often lacks special literacy efforts by other organizations and programs. The intent of JLR’s event is to foster a love of reading and writing by providing the unique opportunity to learn about and visit with an author through personal school visits, Chat ‘n’ Chew book clubs, and the annual Be a Junior Author writing competition.
The Junior League of Richmond welcomed award-winning author, Donna Jo Napoli to our fall 2012 Junior Book & Author event. Ms. Napoli has written 68 books for readers of all ages, including 14 picture books, 34 chapter books and 20 young adult novels. Her writing ranges from contemporary fiction to fantasy to historical novels. Ms. Napoli’s Stones in Water won the Golden Kite Award from the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators and Breath was named as an honor book. Stones in Water also won the Sydney Taylor Award. Ms. Napoli’s Alligator Bayou was honored as a Parent’s Choice Gold Award book and North and King of Mulberry Street were Silver Award books.
