LISTEN MY CHILDREN AND YOU SHALL HEAR...
CHRISTOPHER BING IS VISITING CALDWELL THIS YEAR!

As part of Caldwell's celebration of The Big Read of the poetry of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow this spring, Christopher Bing, acclaimed illustrator of The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere, is coming to Caldwell area schools the week of March 22, 2010, including a free public presentation at Mount St. Dominic Academy's new Doris M. Byrne Performing Arts Center on March 23, 2010 at 7:00 p.m.

Mr. Bing will be visiting public and parochial schools in the Caldwells and The Children's Institute in Verona, visits made possible through funding from The Big Read, a program of the National Endowment for the Arts; matching funds provided by the Kiwanis Club of Caldwell/West Essex and The Rotary Club of the Caldwells; and a $2,400 donation from the Caldwell/West Caldwell Education Foundation. Because of this generosity, thousands of children will participate in The Big Read of the Poetry of Longfellow.

So that all members of the community can "Listen…and hear", Mr. Bing will offer a program, free to the public, on Tuesday evening, March 23, 2010 at 7:00 p.m. in the new Doris M. Byrne Performing Arts Center at Mount Saint Dominic Academy, 3 Ryerson Avenue, Caldwell, New Jersey. This special evening is the third in the successful speaker series offered by the Library, Mount Saint Dominic Academy and Caldwell College to the community at large. Previous speakers, authors John Wefing and Brad Parks, spoke at Caldwell College's Werner Hall, where Joy Rodino will close out the series in April.

Mount St. Dominic Academy's Head of School, Sister Frances Sullivan, O.P., expressed her delight that The Mount is hosting this special evening, "For artist Christopher Bing to be sharing his talents with the Caldwell community is a gift for us all. We are grateful to our longstanding friends -- Caldwell College, the Caldwell Public Library and the Township of Caldwell, and we are so pleased to be able to show our appreciation by opening the doors of our spectacular new Performing Arts Center to present a program brought to us through The Big Read."

The school, along with James Caldwell High School, has participated in the library's two prior Big Reads, Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence and Cynthia Ozick's The Shawl. "Through these experiences, our young women and our faculty, along with the students, faculty and administrators of James Caldwell High School, were able to express their multitude of talents and to learn from speakers, performers, Supreme Court Justices, and three generations of women whose lives were changed through the Holocaust. Now, with The Big Read of the Poetry of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, we are once again being given opportunities to share with our school and community."

A renowned illustrator and political cartoonist, Christopher Bing's first book for children, Casey at the Bat, was a 2001 Caldecott Honor Book. His second, The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere, was named 2002 School Library Journal Best Book of the Year and an American Library Association Notable Children's Book. Lincoln Shot: A President's Life Remembered (2008) is also a grand work of Bing's. In addition to these books, Bing's political cartoons have appeared in the Boston Globe, Wall Street Journal and other publications. Mr. Bing lives with his wife and three children in Lexington, Massachusetts, in a house directly on the Freedom Trail, the route Paul Revere rode on that fateful night.

Bing's work has been praised for meticulous research that informs his finely detailed drawings. His dramatic illustrations are rich with historical detail. The book also includes historic materials – cards, maps and coins – that bring the story alive. Bing admires Longfellow and his poetry but is not shy about pointing out the historical inaccuracies: "Longfellow got it wrong," says Bing, "but he was a writer dramatizing events and taking artistic license. The challenge was how to balance that artistic license with the historic reality of the events."

Caldwell is one of only three communities in the nation to have chosen The Poetry of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow – out of 267 communities nationwide who were awarded grants for The Big Read during 2009-2010. The communities of Sudbury, Massachusetts and Omaha, Nebraska are also reading, reciting, and programming around Longfellow, and it was through our friends in Sudbury that Caldwell came to know of Mr. Bing's fame and renown.

For more information on this event, and The Big Read of Longfellow, please contact the Caldwell Public Library at (973) 226-2837 and stay tuned to www.caldwellpl.org.