2018 Library Big Read: DRACULA
On Wednesday, October 31st, the annual day of Halloween in America, the Wenzhou-Kean Library sponsored a Library Big Read event to celebrate the holiday when horror becomes entertainment. The book chosen for the Big Read was DRACULA, originally published in 1897, the first popular entertainment book to introduce the English speaking world to Vampires, beings that die and come back to life in a variety of human and animal forms to feed on the blood of living humans. Humans bitten by vampires themselves become the living dead. More than 120 years later, there are motion pictures, television shows, and even video games that use the vampire as scary entertainment. But the original novel available as an open e-book (http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/345) and in the Library print book collection is a classic novel and a very dramatic, scary story.
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During the Big Read event, taking place from 12:00 noon to 24:00 midnight, students, faculty, and staff took turns reading 10 minutes of this novel, taking the stage in B101 without any rehearsal. Just picking up the book and reading to the audience. More than 20 WKU students and 10 faculty and staff participated in the reading. In addition, the teenage daughter of Professor Richard Torgerson also read. Eight WKU students read for a total of 30 minutes, which qualified them for Kean University Co-Curricular Transcript Credit (CCT). Come to think about it, we have an incredible group of readers that challenge reading out loud, on a stage, with no rehearsal. This picture illustrates those Big Read stars. More reading activities are being planned for these eager readers.
During the event, an additional presentation was given. During the afternoon and evening, for about 30 minutes, a compilation of music and motion picture videos was shown, some very scary, and some very funny. Professor Kent Willis selected these classic examples of American Halloween media culture.
