In one video clip, Police Chief Susan Ballard reads from the Dr. Seuss classic “Horton Hears a Who”: “I’ll just have to save him, because, after all, a person’s a person, no matter how small.”
In another, Eran Ganot, the men’s basketball coach for the University of Hawaii, reads from “Stonecutter’s Credo” by Jacob Riis: “When nothing seems to help, I go look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without so much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred-and-first blow, it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before.”
And sportscaster Jim Leahey picks up the book he’s reading about Ulysses S. Grant and, in his amazing Jim Leahey voice, makes the lines from a history book sound like theater: “I felt like anything rather than rejoicing at the downfall of a foe who had fought so long and valiantly and had suffered so much for the cause, though that cause was, I believe, one of the worst for which a people ever fought, and one for which there was the least excuse.”
The video clips are the beginning of a collection in a multimedia campaign to encourage reading.
PBS Hawaii has long sponsored campaigns to foster reading, both for children and adults. For example, the Great American Read was a series that explored the power of reading by focusing on America’s 100 best-loved novels.
This month, the local public broadcasting station, which is a nonprofit educational organization, launched a new initiative called “Get Caught Reading” with a series of video clips like the ones with Ballard, Ganot and Leahey, and events planned around the state.
“During this time of considerable intolerance in the world, reading provides a bridge for everyone to explore new worlds and to empathize with other human experiences,” said Jody Shiroma, the new PBS Hawaii vice president of communications. “Books provide an easy and affordable way to explore and enjoy unknown places, meet strangers and to teach you about countries and societies that you may never have the opportunity to experience in your lifetime.”
The chief, the coach and the beloved broadcaster each chose the book from which they read. In another clip, poet Mahealani Wendt reads from her own work. Shiroma wants the public to join in by picking a book they love and sending in photos or video clips of themselves reading to be shared on social media.
The website is pbshawaii.org or use the hashtag #GETCAUGHTREADING. Everyone is invited to join in even if they don’t sound as resonant as Leahey.
Shiroma suggests implementing simple things like starting reading groups with friends, creating family read-aloud time, even packing a paperback in your lunch bag.
“We want people to take the concept and run with it by building reading into their lives in ways that are meaningful to them,” Shiroma said.
Reach Lee Cataluna at 529-4315 or lcataluna@staradvertiser.com.
