Cathedral High School students worked together to grow geraniums, which were then donated for neighbourhood beautification projects funded by HCF small grants.

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The one for all, and all for one book

Hamilton's assignment: Read and react to Looking For X, as we come to understand poverty

By Bill Dunphy
The Hamilton Spectator (Nov 29, 2006)

Hamilton's One Book, One City project has returned -- and this time it's been yoked to the war on poverty.

Organizers have enlisted a Governor General's Literary Award winner and the city's arts community in the fight.

"We've taken (the One Book, One City project) one step further," said Paul de Courcy, Arts Hamilton executive director. "We decided to address and inspire conversation on a social issue, in our case poverty, and put it all together for one big event."

After hooking up with the Hamilton Public Library and the Hamilton Community Foundation, One Book, One City: Tackling Poverty Through The Arts was born.

Not only will the whole city be asked to read the book, people will be asked to interpret the themes of the book in paintings, drawings, songs, photos, dances, plays or poetry. Next May, all of these artistic interpretations will go on display across the city, an ambitious twist on the reading project idea. All that remained was choosing the book and announcing it.

Yesterday about 100 students gathered in the gym of Dr. J. Edgar Davey School and sat patiently on the floor, waiting to see which book that would be. The wait ended with award-winning author Deborah Ellis surprising the crowd by stepping out of a storage closet and up to the podium where she charmed the kids with an excerpt from Looking For X, her 2000 Governor General's Literary Award-winning novel.

Ellis achieved international acclaim for her last book, The Breadwinner, a novel set in Afghanistan. She told the children that Looking For X cuts closer to home and is the story of Khyber, an 11-year-old girl living in Toronto public housing.

Afterwards she pronounced herself delighted to have had her book chosen for this project.

"Literature is great on a personal level ... when it can be used in the community to move the community forward, I find that very exciting."

Hamilton Public Libraries have stocked up on 200 copies of the book and it's also available in local bookstores.

bdunphy@thespec.com