October is Lake Forest Reads:Ragdale Month

Join your friends and neighbors in reading the novel, Into the Beautiful North by Luis Alberto Urrea during Lake Forest Reads:Ragdale, October’s celebration of literature and the arts in Lake Forest. Then choose from a schedule of related activities ranging from a festive Mariachi Band performance, to book discussions, to a lecture on Mexican-American border issues. The month-long calendar culminates in a visit by the author, Luis Alberto Urrea on October 28th. (Click here for the full schedule,)

Into the Beautiful North is the story of nineteen-year-old Nayeli who works at a taco shop in her Mexican village and dreams about her father, who left for the U.S. when she was young. He hasn’t been home since then and his letters have stopped. While watching the film, The Magnificent Seven, she decides to go north herself and recruit seven men -- her own "Siete Magníficos"-- to repopulate her hometown and protect it from the banditos who plan on taking it over. This funny, poignant story deals with topical issues surrounding the United States’ relationship with Mexico and our policies along the Mexican-American border. 

Lake Forest Reads:Ragdale is a one book/one community program sponsored by Lake Forest Library and The Radgale Foundation.  The program encourages the Lake Forest community to read one book by a writer affiliated with Ragdale, the artists’ residency that has supported emerging and best-selling authors and their creative process for over 35 years. Community Partners include Dickinson Hall, Friends of Lake Forest Library, Jolly Good Fellows, and Lake Forest College. Programs are being held throughout the community and all are open to the public. Most are free unless otherwise noted.  Copies of the book are available to borrow at Lake Forest Library and to purchase at Lake Forest Book S

tore.

Luis Alberto Urrea, 2005 Pulitzer Prize finalist for nonfiction and member of the Latino Literature Hall of Fame, is a prolific and acclaimed writer who uses his dual-culture life experiences to explore greater themes of love, loss and triumph. Born in Tijuana, Mexico to a Mexican father and an American mother the critically acclaimed and best-selling author of 13 books, Urrea has won numerous awards for his poetry, fiction and essays. Urrea's recent novel, Into the Beautiful North, a national best-seller, earned a citation of excellence from the American Library Association Rainbow's Project and was selected by the National Endowment for the Arts for their Big Read program.  Urrea lives with his family in Naperville, Illinois. He is a professor of creative writing at the University of Illinois-Chicago.