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One Book, One Community announces 2008 book selection

Compiled by MSU News Bulletin staff

The One Book, One Community program has announced its 2008 book selection, They Poured Fire on Us from the Sky, by authors Benson Deng, Alephonsion Deng and Benjamin Ajak.

The OBOC program, sponsored by MSU and the city of East Lansing, encourages the community to read the same book and come together to discuss it in a variety of settings. The book is assigned reading for all incoming MSU freshmen.

Author appearances and events

Courtesy photo This year’s One Book, One Community selection was written by three “lost boys” from Sudan: (from left) Benson Deng, Alephonsion Deng and Benjamin Ajak.

Community members can meet one of the authors, Benjamin Ajak, along with the authors’ mentor, Judy Bernstein, as they kick off the month-long OBOC program on Aug. 20 at East Lansing High School. The pair also will greet freshmen at MSU’s Academic Welcome on Aug. 21.

Ajak and Bernstein will return to East Lansing on Sept. 18 to participate in a community-wide book discussion and to visit with students at East Lansing High School.

A number of other events will be announced.

Support One Book, One Community

From March 19 to 25, the Barnes & Noble book store in East Lansing will donate a percentage of every sale to the OBOC program. Customers should mention that they would like their purchases to benefit the program.

About the book

In 1987, civil war invaded villages across Sudan, forcing 27,000 “lost boys” to flee into the bush. Unable to return home, most lived in small bands or large groups, sometimes numbering in the many thousands, walking the countryside in search of refuge and clinging to the hope of finding and reuniting with what remained of their families.

Nearly half of the boys died along the way.

They Poured Fire on Us from the Sky tells the remarkable true stories of three of those lost boys: Ajak and his cousins Benson and Alepho Deng. Many years after their ordeal, the boys, now young men, tell of their experiences in a series of short essays written for Bernstein.

The book takes the reader on a journey through violence and deprivation. The boys tell their stories as simple narratives, sad at times, but never with self pity, recounting the events and circumstances of their own journeys.

For more about the One Book, One Community program, contact Ginny Haas at (517) 355-5060, Ami Van Antwerp at (517) 319-6927 or visit: www.onebook.msu.edu.