Last week I was in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, where Neither Wolf nor Dog was the first annual selection for their “Community Reads” program. Their hope was to get 3000 people in the community to read and discuss the book. I was invited down to give several presentations.
It was a fine event and I was deeply moved, as well as energized, by the community’s interest in the book and subjects it raised. What I believe it did, at least for much of the reading population, was to open them to the difficulty of reaching out to the new immigrant groups that are moving into their community. What they had seen in Neither Wolf nor Dog was someone going to a community not his own, with different values and a different history, and trying to find a way to connect respectfully while holding onto his own identity.
That’s a bit of a cartoon version, but it moves in the right direction.
Among the various presentations I gave was one to a group of civic leaders — mayor, city manager, city council, school board, school administration, social service folk, etc. It was the only one I had actually prepared in a formal sense, so I thought I’d post it on the website so you could listen in your own mind to what I had to say.
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