Great Books summer reading program

Even with all the great movies and TV shows, there is nothing quite like a good book. If your child loves reading, consider the Great Books summer reading program. David Ward, founder of the Great Books program fills us in.

We are going to read some Hemingway, maybe some Twain, maybe we'll do a little Dante Inferno. But the point of it all is the discussion and the debate. These might be small fragments from work, or something like that. We'll take that small portion that is just enough to be provocative to open up the issues of freedom and the major issues of life and discuss and debate and do it all in a way, by asking questions. The professors are not there to preach and, and state a point of view, but really to provoke the child's own best thinking.

Getting ready for college is a big undertaking. American schools are much in demand around the world. We now have kids coming from all over the world to our best universities. Being prepared, how to do one's best thinking, finding confidence, these are all key pieces of the experience. Something that I think that summer program serves up, the "Wall Street Journal" said about us, that we are a unique community. A lot of average kids, too, that are just there to do reading and own best thinking and it all seems to work. So really what happens, it is like a summer camp for readers.

It is a lot of fun. We do a lot of other things, too. There is soccer, film and sports and it is a good summer fun.

These are small groups. It is 65 at most for a week. When we break into discussion group, it might be 8 or 10. Add to that, a Pulitzer Prize winning author that stopped by to spend time with us for the week. It becomes a very exciting environment.

We have been doing Great Books for ten years now. We started of the half dozen kids sitting under an apple tree at Amherst College where we are now 600 kids coming for maybe 30 countries around the world. Great films are something that we began last summer. We are looking to have maybe a director or two. Still to be named. This is, visit us over the summer, screen writers. It is something new to look at again the issues of life, as we find them in art and culture and film. We will have young student filmmakers come in.

We were very lucky a couple of summers ago to have some parents, parents of Great Books, summer campers, say that it was time to do something about scholarships. They started a program called the Open Books Foundation. Visit online at openbooksfoundation.org .

This year, the Mass Humanities Counsel has given us a hand. It is, if their funding continues, as we hope it will, we will have ten scholarships as a result of Mass Humanities helping us. That will be for Massachusetts residents. There will be testing. That sort of thing but looking for bright young minds always.