Stratford Library Launches 'One Book, One Stratford'

"One Book, One Stratford," a community-wide reading event, will be launched next month by the on Saturday, September 8 at 11 a.m. in the Lovell Room.

The program will kick off a planned by the library through November 2012. The idea of the One Book program is that everyone in town reads the same book at the same time, much like a town-wide book club. The library has chosen Connecticut author Conor Grennan's acclaimed memoir, Little Princes, as the town selection.

In search of adventure, 29-year-old Conor Grennan embarked on a year-long journey around the globe, beginning with a three-month stint volunteering at an orphanage in civil war-torn Nepal. But a shocking truth would forever change his life: these rambunctious, resilient children were not orphans at all but had been taken from their families by child traffickers who falsely promised to keep them safe from war before abandoning them in the teeming chaos of Kathmandu.

For Grennan, what started as a footloose ramble became a dangerous, dedicated mission to unite youngsters he had grown to love with the parents from whom they had been stolen.

It's a breathtaking adventure as he risked everything in the treacherous Nepalese mountains to bring the children home. Grennan eventually returned to Nepal to launch Next Generation Nepal (NGN), a nonprofit organization dedicated to reconnecting trafficked children with their families.

He resides in Connecticut with his wife and two children. A New York Times bestseller, Little Princes is both an inspiring story and page-turning adventure.

At the kick-off event on September 8 Conor Grennan, currently on the west coast, will be in attendance via SKYPE to discuss his memoir. Copies of Little Princes will be given free to the first 50 attendees (one per family). Light refreshments will be served. The library currently has multiple copies for loan and the book is also available on Kindle and Nook eReaders. The One Book event is co-sponsored in part by HarperCollins and the J.T. Friderichs Memorial Fund. 

For further information, call the library’s Public Relations & Programming Office at 203.385.4162 or visit: www.stratfordlibrary.org