Skip to footer

'12 Years a Slave' will be distributed to schools as part of World Book Night

Special World Book Night copies of '12 Years a Slave' will be made available to schools.

|
Luke MacGregor/Reuters
A volunteer distributes books on World Book Night in London.
  • By Molly Driscoll Staff Writer

As Oscar night approaches, it has been decided that “12 Years a Slave” – the memoir from which the Oscar-nominated film was adapted – will now be part of the World Book Night celebrations this April.

According to industry newsletter Shelf Awareness, special copies of “12 Years a Slave,” printed for the occasion by publisher Dover Publications, will be made available to various schools as part of World Book Night, which is celebrated on April 23.

“With the attention brought to this important book by the award-winning movie, we felt that we should make it available as part of World Book Night's mission," WBN US executive director Carl Lennertz said. "One third of our half million free books each year go into underfunded rural and urban high schools, and when Dover Publications offered to work with us on this, we jumped at the chance.”

Titles being distributed on World Book Night had been announced this past October and included such works as “Where’d You Go, Bernadette” by Maria Semple, “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children” by Ransom Riggs, “Wild” by Cheryl Strayed, and more, with 35 different titles being handed out in total.

The event is being celebrated in the US and Germany for the third time this year and in the UK and Ireland for the fourth. As part of the celebration, those who sign up hand free copies of the selected titles to family, friends, or anyone they meet.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to '12 Years a Slave' will be distributed to schools as part of World Book Night
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Books/chapter-and-verse/2014/0228/12-Years-a-Slave-will-be-distributed-to-schools-as-part-of-World-Book-Night
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe