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What's a Community Read?

jodiwebb9
Join the twelfth year of the Longwood Gardens’ Community Read—a program designed to encourage reading for pleasure and to start a conversation surrounding gardens, plants, or nature.
Join the twelfth year of the Longwood Gardens’ Community Read—a program designed to encourage reading for pleasure and to start a conversation surrounding gardens, plants, or nature.

What better way to create a feeling of community than to get everyone talking about the same thing - in this case, the same book. When they headed off to college all my children were assigned a "One Read" , "Common Reading" or "Freshman Reading" book. They ranged from novels to books about a current event to an anthology about new beginnings (a perfect topic for freshman college students). Of course, you don't have to be heading off to college to participate in this feeling of community. Libraries, towns, states and more are all arranging their own group reading programs.


I just got the info on the 2025 Community Reads organized by Longwood Gardens. Naturally, these books always fall under the theme of gardening or the natural world. Everyone reads the book and then can meet the author for a book signing and reception. Other community reads involve events throughout the year connected to the title. There are so many options for fun activities beyond an author visit!


  1. Book club-type meetings for people to discuss the book

  2. Trivia night related to the book

  3. Contest related to the book (poetry or short story writing, cooking, art)

  4. Displays at your local library of bookstore of "If you liked our Community Read you should read...."

  5. Presentation of the book's movie version or a dramatic reading of an excerpt

  6. An event that is related to the book (a hike, visit to a historical site, craft session)


Quick tip from some author friends of mine: if you can't afford to have an author travel to your community, ask about a virtual visit which can be very affordable and often FREE.


Sound fun? Check out the American Library Association (ALA) outline for organizing a community wide reading event HERE.




If you aren't too busy arranging a community read event in your hometown, join the Longwood Garden Community Read. There are two books: one for children and one for adults. You can purchase them at Longwood Gardens, your local book store or check them out at your local library. Since they were published several years ago (15 and 7 years, respectively) they are quite affordable and may be gracing the shelves or your fav used book store.You can sign up for the author conversation with Ruth Kassinger on March 29 HERE. If you come to the gardens you'll have to pay admission to the gardens, but the virtual portion (6 pm to 7:15 pm) is free.


Adults: Paradise Under Glass by Ruth Kassinger


Paradise Under Glass is a witty and absorbing memoir about one woman’s unlikely desire to build, stock, and tend a small conservatory in her suburban Maryland home.


Kassinger found herself in need of a positive path after the death of her sister, her home becoming an empty nest, and her own battle with breast cancer. A resident of Maryland, she visited the conservatory of the U.S. Botanic Garden in Washington D.C. and was inspired to add a much smaller-scale conservatory to her home. “It occurred to me that adding a conservatory to our house was just what I needed,” Kassinger says. “Warm and humid, beautiful, ever-green, peaceful and still, a conservatory would be the perfect antidote to the losses and changes of middle age. It would be my personal tropical paradise where nothing unexpected lurked in the landscape.”


Kassinger was definitely not a skilled indoor gardener before taking her conservatory leap. As an experienced writer and researcher, she knew she needed to learn about indoor gardens and how to grow indoor plants if she was to be successful—the results of which she shares in Paradise Under Glass. This wonderful combination of warm humor, personal anecdotes, and fascinating history makes for a terrific read.


Children: The Extraordinary Gardener by Sam Boughton


Sam Boughton’s picture book The Extraordinary Gardener is a beautifully illustrated story about a young boy seeking color in a dreary world.


Joe is a boy just like any other, but with a bigger imagination. Joe lives in an ordinary apartment building in a rather ordinary city. His world is rather gray. But he spends his time imagining a wonderful, colorful world filled with exotic plants and unusual animals. One day, Joe decides to plant a seed on his balcony. He waits and waits, but nothing happens! Joe gives up and returns to his daily life, but when he least expects it, he sees that the seed has taken root and turned into the most beautiful tree.

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