Toni Morrison: Sustaining Community: Shared Reading

For their third event of the “Toni Morrison: Sustaining Community” program, the Department of English of the Florida State University is collaborating with Chris Omni of Mother Earth Academy for a shared reading of Toni Morrison’s Please, Louise, a children’s book Morrison co-wrote with her son, Slade.

This parent-and-child oriented event builds on the themes present in Morrison’s writing. The emphasis in Please, Louise, on the wonders of seeing your community and environment through new eyes, on “reading” places and people as well as books will be sure to inspire participants to new kinds of reading practices. Ms. Omni shares insights to help participants develop self-restoration strategies that focus on Eco-mindfulness and Eco-literacy. Students are invited to engage in creative work as a means for self-development and care. Course activities for this introductory class also include personal engagement with greenspaces to include close observation, reflection, and nature-inspired storytelling.

Among the objectives for this event are encouraging parents and kids to develop the ability to “read” the environment while “listening” to the language of the landscape; to reflect upon their personal symbolic meanings in greenspaces and share their thoughts through verbal expression; and to practice self-restoration strategies that may be useful to implement in the future. Thirty copies of the book will be available for distribution at the event.

This program series is funded in part through a Florida Humanities Greater Good: Humanities in Academia grant in partnership with Florida State University.