Reading Across Rhode Island

Reading Across Rhode Island (RARI) is Rhode Island’s only One Book, One State program focused on a single book selected to stimulate meaningful discussions across our state. Once the selection is made in October, bookstores, schools, and libraries spread the word and build up momentum toward our January RARI Kick Off event featuring local speakers and information about RARI resources. The Center provides thousands of books (all purchased at local bookstores) at no cost to schools and libraries to fuel discourse that flows from connecting over a shared story and then bolsters the program with an in-depth resource guide compiled by experienced teachers. The Center integrates dramatic and visual arts to enrich the reading experience. RARI penetrates every city and town in Rhode Island across all generations and classes of citizens. The Center collaborates with Rhode Island PBS, National Education Association of Rhode Island, the Rhode Island Library Association, and statewide educators to provide high school educators across the community with the foundation, tools and resources for teaching and discussing the RARI book.

“Civic engagement is dependent upon people’s belief that they can affect change within their own communities. Community requires: Open participation to everyone, intentional interactions with one another, celebrations of both what unites us and what makes us unique, and spaces to create shared experiences. Reading Across Rhode Island does all of that. This is a program that creates community. – Kate Wells, State Librarian of Rhode Island

Students reading a Reading Across RI book.

How it Started

Reading Across Rhode Island began in response to the attacks of September 11, 2001, when fear, loathing and misunderstanding were palpable in our communities. Librarians, readers, and educators committed to civic engagement to create greater understanding across differences came together to select an inspiring book and to engage in a statewide dialogue. Through the power of stories, the program was designed with the intention of sparking discussion, creating spaces for sharing multiple perspectives and promoting new understandings of ourselves, our neighbors, and the critical challenges that we face as a community. It was a positive step forward in the aftermath of such a tragedy, and it continues to be a powerful model to promote the common good.

Learn about the 2026 Reading Across Rhode Island Program

Contact Kate Lentz at kate@ribook.org for sets of books available to classroom teachers, library discussion groups and senior centers. Further reading lists, book discussion guides, the author’s website, audio interviews and other supplementary materials may be found on the Rhode Island Center for the Book website at ribook.org.

Reading Across Rhode Island is a program of the Rhode Island Center for the Book, made possible through a vibrant collaboration of librarians, teachers, book group leaders and readers from across the state. It is the Center’s “One Book One State” community read program that promotes a single book to help stimulate meaningful discussions across our state. Founded in 2003, the RI Center for the Book is the state affiliate of the Center for the Book at the Library of Congress and resides at The Pell Center at Salve Regina University.