- Dates
- 2025-09-20 – 2025-10-11
- Kind
- Educational program
- Where
- Beaver Island Community Center building
- Eras
- Modern era
- Concepts
- literatureeducationcommunityecology
- Within
- Beaver Island
Summary
The Beaver Island District Library announced a September 20, 2025 kickoff for an NEA Big Read centered on Andrew Krivak’s The Bear. The kickoff was planned at the Community Center, where participants could receive the book, a schedule, and attend the first survival-themed movie. BIDL described a nine-month program of arts and crafts, movies, book discussions, and related presentations; later newspaper coverage confirms that the program continued into October with Community Center movies, creative writing, speakers, and Dark Sky programming.
Evidence limits
The forum is a first-party institutional announcement and strongly supports the grant, selected book, kickoff plan, and intended program. The later newspaper schedule corroborates continuation, and the January forum notice documents a later author engagement, but no source provides an attendance count or a retrospective account of the kickoff itself; this record therefore remains probable rather than established.
Sources
- The Library promoted the kickoff in an image-only notice. The title supports the event identity, while the attached poster is catalogued but not transcribed; the later detailed announcement is used for the date, venue, book, and program description.forum · www.beaverislandforum.com · 18 · t018573
- The Library separately promoted Gina Mangra’s foraging program. The later Big Read schedule places it at the library on September 22 at 7 p.m.; the attached poster itself is catalogued but not transcribed.forum · www.beaverislandforum.com · 18 · t018574
- BIDL announced that the library had won a grant supporting NEA Big Read programs, named Andrew Krivak's The Bear as the selected book, and scheduled a September 20 kickoff at the Community Center with book distribution, a program schedule, and the first survival movie. It described a planned nine-month series including arts and crafts, movies, book discussions, and later library and wildlife activities.forum · www.beaverislandforum.com · 18 · t018598
- The Library announced the October 4 Community Center screening of The Road as the October Big Read movie. It documents the planned continuation of the program, not attendance or completion.forum · www.beaverislandforum.com · 18 · t018605
- The Library promoted Lois Campbell’s October 11 food-preservation program, which was also listed in the September Big Read schedule. The attached poster is catalogued but not transcribed; the forum announcement establishes the planned program, not attendance or completion.forum · www.beaverislandforum.com · 18 · t018618
- Northern Islander, October 2025, "NEA Big Read Schedule for October."Subsequent library reporting identifies The Bear as the Big Read book and describes continuing book discussions, Community Center movies, creative writing, speaker engagements, and a Dark Sky collaboration, corroborating an ongoing program rather than independently recounting the September kickoff. No public copy of this file is known; the archive holds one and can provide it on request.
- Follow-on first-party notice scheduled a January 26 hybrid community visit with Krivak. It extends the documented program into 2026, but does not confirm attendance or completion.forum · www.beaverislandforum.com · 18 · t018673
Added 7 August 2026. Recent changes
Cite this article
Beaver Island Archive, “Beaver Island District Library NEA Big Read kickoff, 2025”, https://beaverislandarchive.org/events/beaver-island-nea-big-read-launch-2025/, accessed [date], citing Beaver Island District Library, “NEA Big Read- The Bear Kickoff event,” Beaver Island Forum, September 3, 2025, topic 18573. (and 6 further sources listed on the page).
Last revised 2026-08-07. Fill in [date] with the date you read it — this page is static and cannot know that.
BibTeX for “Beaver Island District Library NEA Big Read kickoff, 2025”RIS for “Beaver Island District Library NEA Big Read kickoff, 2025”