{"id":32034,"date":"2022-10-13T23:30:22","date_gmt":"2022-10-14T03:30:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=32034"},"modified":"2022-10-21T17:35:54","modified_gmt":"2022-10-21T21:35:54","slug":"dancing-and-authors-talk-to-round-out-2022-one-book-one-aurora-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/dancing-and-authors-talk-to-round-out-2022-one-book-one-aurora-program\/","title":{"rendered":"Dancing and author\u2019s talk to round out 2022 One Book One Aurora program"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Over the course of 2022, book lovers across Aurora have been enjoying Swimming Back to Trout River, the debut novel of Linda Rui Feng.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The story follows five-year-old Junie in the wake of China\u2019s Cultural Revolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Taking readers from the present, to the past, and back again, the evocative story has sparked a community-wide dialogue, with events ranging from An Evening with Jan Wong, live performances in the Library\u2019s Living Room space, writing and photography contests, writing workshops and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, the program is set to culminate this month with further cultural performances and a virtual event with the author herself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Cultural Revolution is the backdrop to the novel and the fall programming [at the end of September] was An Evening with Jan Wong, an award-winning journalist and bestselling author speaking about her experiences in China and her work as a foreign correspondent with China in the late 80s and early 90s,\u201d says Reccia Mandelcorn, Manager of Community Collaboration for the Aurora Public Library, who also spearheads the One Book One Aurora (OBOA) campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was fascinating to hear what it was like to witness the 1989 massacre at Tiananmen Square. She was watching from the balcony and to hear her perspective on current political relations, including the detention of the two Michaels\u2026the audience was very well-informed and they asked fabulous questions that really sparked an amazing conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Partnerships have been \u201cessential\u201d to the OBOA campaign, she said, and one such key partnership was with the York Chamber Ensemble, which performed earlier this month at the Library with the orchestra and soloist Joyce Lai taking on the Butterfly Lovers Concerto.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur living room was packed and the audience was absolutely transformed by the magic of the performance,\u201d says Ms. Mandelcorn. \u201cWhat I loved was seeing all the children, many of whom were enjoying their first experience of classical music. There was one little boy who was underneath the staircase dancing. Who would expect somebody would be dancing to a classical performance?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you invite a community to go down a common literary path, perhaps the unexpected is the only thing that can be expected as each reader will have different takeaways from what is on the page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGoing Back to Trout River offered rich opportunities for programming with its themes of politics, immigration, family and music,\u201d says Ms. Mandelcorn, adding that programming will continue this Saturday, October 15, with The Art of Chinese Dance, performed by The Mellow Sisters & Tian Shu Art Group, a non-profit art group that supports Chinese culture and promotes multiculturalism, with this set of artists sharing cultural experience through both dance and vocals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 2022 One Book One Aurora campaign will conclude next Saturday, October 22, with a virtual question and answer session with Rui Feng over Zoom. The talk is set to begin at 2 p.m.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGuests will meet the author and get a fascinating glimpse into the events that shaped this powerful book,\u201d says Ms. Mandelcorn. \u201cCome online and meet Linda. She\u2019s fascinating, she\u2019s an academic, storyteller, novelist, and to talk about the book\u2026 I know that many people are anxious to meet her because they loved this book, but I think this will be an experience for people who haven\u2019t read the book, because they will leave with something positive.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And, in the end, that\u2019s what it is all about: leaving a positive legacy and always keeping an eye on what books might continue to unite the community through the written word.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe OBOA project is supported by the Library but it is owned by the community and every year we invite book clubs to sign on to receive copies of the book to discuss at their meetings and what was really exciting this year is the number of book clubs has grown from a couple when we first started to nine this year, and each has between five and 25 members. This is not including the casual book clubs but registered book clubs that are reading. That was very exciting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis year\u2019s selection, Going Back to Trout River, it offered rich opportunities for programming with its themes of politics, immigration, family, music. If anyone has a great title in mind for next year\u2019s selection, I hope [the community] will contact me at rmandelcorn@aurorapl.ca<\/a>. Authors have to be in commuting distance to Aurora. We hope that we will be back to an in-person format next year. The book needs to have themes we can draw upon to enlarge the reading experience through programming and contests. I\u2019m looking for ideas.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more information on this weekend\u2019s performances, to register for next Saturday\u2019s book talk, or take part in ongoing virtual programming, visit onebookoneaurora.com.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir
Editor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the course of 2022, book lovers across Aurora have been enjoying Swimming Back to Trout River, the debut novel of Linda Rui Feng. The story follows five-year-old Junie in the wake of China\u2019s Cultural Revolution. Taking readers from the present, to the past, and back again, the evocative story has sparked a community-wide dialogue, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":32035,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/2022-10-13-01.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-8kG","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-15 14:01:02","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32034"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32034\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}