MHC Books & Resources | Maine Humanities Council

Books, Poetry, and Big Ideas

can bring people together.

Many of the programs we create or support are built around texts—stories long and short, poems, essays and illustrated books, our Featured Reads, you name it. Whatever their form, they are all people’s efforts at expressing something important about their experience of the world around them.

Featured Reads

Whether used in Discussion Projects, Readers Retreat, Read ME, or representing Maine at the Library of Congress National Book Festival, our Featured Reads offer many opportunities for participation and connection in communities across Maine.

There There

Tommy Orange’s astonishingly wide-ranging novel is a chorus of voices that tells the plight of the urban Native American—grappling with a complex and painful history, with an inheritance of beauty and spirituality, with communion and sacrifice and heroism.

Moon in Full

Marpheen Chann’s heart-warming journey weaves through housing projects and foster homes; into houses of worship and across college campuses; and playing out in working-class Maine where he struggles to find his place.

The Road to Dalton

In most small towns, the private is also public. When one of Dalton’s own makes an unthinkable decision, the community is left reeling. In the aftermath, their problems, both small and large, reveal a deeper understanding of the lives of their neighbors, and remind us that no one is exactly who you think they are.

Fighting for YES!

A picture book biography about disability rights activist Judy Heumann’s early life and her important role in the signing of landmark legislation – Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. Section 504 – established thanks in large part to the ongoing work of Judy and her community – laid the foundation for the Americans with Disabilities Act.