Welcome to the seventh year of All Pikes Peak Reads (APPR)! We hope you will join us in this important community experience. Pikes Peak Library District in El Paso County, Colorado, and a group of 30 community partners present this program each year.
All Pikes Peak Reads is an effort to involve diverse groups of all ages to read and discuss the same books, and to explore relevant social issues related to themes in the APPR selection. The project also promotes literacy and is the first "one book" project in the country to incorporate an original adaptation for the stage.
For 2008, readers in the Pikes Peak region will reflect on the past and envision the future with this year's selection, The Grapes of Wrath. In addition to The Grapes of Wrath, APPR will include a nonfiction selection, The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan, and other reading selections appropriate for younger readers.
New to APPR this year is a partnership with a community-wide visioning project called Dream City: Vision 2020. This regional endeavor encourages civic engagement among people of all ages, and will include opportunities for residents to share their dreams and visions for the community in the year 2020.
All Pikes Peak Reads begins with a free kick-off event on September 21 at America the Beautiful Park in downtown Colorado Springs.