Sonoma County's Big Read features 'Tom Sawyer'

<p>Like a lot of teens, Kiana Gonzalez Twitters.</p><!-- Nothing to do. The paragraph has already been output --><p>But the 15-year-old's tweets aren't personal. They're all about a guy. His name is Tom and he's a bit of a bad influence. He skips school, sneaks out at night, gets other kids to do his work and leads his buddies into dangerous situations.</p><p>For the next few weeks Gonzales, a sophomore at Rancho Cotate High in Rohnert Park, will assume the identity of Tom Sawyer, using 21st-century technology to conjure up the voice of one of the 19th century's most beloved literary characters. Tweeting under the name TomSawyerBR8, she keeps followers abreast of her alter ego's latest exploits as she makes her way through Mark Twain's 1876 classic.</p><p>Enlisting a teen to Tweet the charms of Mark Twain is just one way boosters are broadening their reach in an effort to engage the community in The Big Read, a countywide effort led by KRCB public television and radio, to get folks of all ages, from Cloverdale to Petaluma, on the same page all at once.</p><p>This month and next, “Tom Sawyer” is the focus of everything from theatrical productions and radiocasts to library programs, talks and discussion groups.</p><p>On Saturday, kids in Petaluma got a taste of what it was like to be a child in Tom's time during “Tom Sawyer Days.” Put on by The Friends of the Petaluma River, kids donned costumes and made like Tom and Becky in an authentic river camp and pirate's lair at Steamer Landing Park. Snacks were served in hobo “bindle sticks.”</p><p>A national movement spearheaded by Sonoma County poet Dana Gioia during his tenure as head of the National Endowment for the Arts, The Big Read aims to bring literature back into the center of American culture.</p><p>The beauty of “Tom Sawyer,” said Gioia, who splits his time between Santa Rosa and Washington, D.C., where he now works for the Aspen Institute, is that it can be enjoyed by children and adults on differing levels. It is one of a menu of more than 30 works picked by a panel of educators, librarians and writers, including Gioia, that communities in all 50 states can select for their own Big Reads.</p><p>“I read it when I was 14 or 15 as a freshman in high school in Southern California. When I reread it 40 years later, for the The Big Read, I was amazed to see how Mark Twain had written an entirely different novel,” he said. “When you read it in middle age, so much of it is an elegy for what boyhood was like. Whereas when you're a kid, it's just an adventure story that has somebody about your age in it. The novel is suffused with a nostalgia for innocence that is quite lovely.”</p><p>Gioia said the program is wildly popular, engaging communities in every state and helping to reverse an alarming downward trend in literary reading.</p><p>“The largest increases were among the groups we targeted most specifically, young adults 18 to 25 and 25 to 34,” he said, adding that “Tom Sawyer” is an ideal vehicle to excite the interest of boys, who tend to read less than girls.</p><p>The agency provides support with grants for special programs, resource material and books, and produces audio discussions as well.</p><p>Although Sonoma County has been engaging in an annual read-in since 2002, inspiring Gioia to take the concept national when he assumed the helm at the NEA, this year's book has been particularly engaging, said Big Read Coordinator Melissa Kelley.</p><p>It has a cross-generational appeal and as well as the the infectious theme of outdoor adventure, she said.</p><p>More groups than ever have been enlisted, moving beyond schools, libraries and literary groups to include stage productions, radio theater, a ballet at the Spreckels Center. Outdoor activities range from an amphibian hunt in Healdsburg on April 24 and a campfire at Doran Beach that same day to adventure and fishing lessons at Spring Lake Park on April 25.</p><p>KRCB got a $20,000 NEA grant which is underwriting the airing of filmmaker Ken Burns' biography of Mark Twain, and for the purchase of 1,000 books for schools and libraries. Those funds also have paid to bring Paul Flores, a bi-lingual performer and educator, into school and introduce Twain to non-native speaking students by drawing comparisons between Tom's colloquial speech and Spanglish.</p><p>Kiana Gonzalez said reading “Tom Sawyer” has left her a little envious of the footloose life kids used to have.</p><p>“I love the technology we have, but sometimes I wish I lived further back,” she said, “when you didn't have that, and had to create your own stuff to play with.”</p>