March 2026 Message from Community Services Director Melody Sky Weaver

March 4, 2026

The Joys of Connecting Reading and Nature in this Year’s Annual Port Townsend Public Library’s Community Read

by Melody Sky Weaver, Community Services Director

Believe it or not, librarians are passionate. Passionate about books. Passionate about reading. Passionate about sharing books, reading, and whatever our libraries are doing within our communities. We don’t want to be the best kept secret in Port Townsend. We’d much rather do everything we can to tell as many people as possible about our services, collections, special events, and weekly programs. And what better way to share than in the City’s monthly eNewsletter.

Andrew Carnegie—whose philanthropy built thousands of library buildings across the world in the early 20th century (many of them still in use a hundred plus years later), including the one in Port Townsend—said, “There is not such a cradle of democracy on earth as the Free Public Library.” Public libraries support a community’s cultural, educational, and informational needs by bringing people, ideas, and information together. We librarians want to encourage a lifelong love of reading. We are cheerleaders for knowledge, learning, creativity, and adventure.

March is special in Port Townsend and my favorite month. The city has proclaimed March its official Reading Month—all of it dedicated to reading, building community and connections. The program known as Community Read takes place all month long, with the explicit goal of promoting closer ties among community members through the shared experience of reading and discussing the same book and ideas raised by the book. I love the instant sense of connection that is created when you see someone on a park bench, in a coffee shop, or on a bus reading a book you are reading or have read. What an incredible thing to share – the world of a book together. Carl Sagan’s famous quote rings so true here, “A book is made from a tree. It is an assemblage of flat, flexible parts (still called "leaves") imprinted with dark pigmented squiggles. One glance at it and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, the author is speaking, clearly and silently, inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people, citizens of distant epochs, who never knew one another. Books break the shackles of time ― proof that humans can work magic.” Even a physicist can believe in magic.

The concept of community reads/one book one communities began in Seattle in 1998, when former Seattle Public Library luminary Nancy Pearl created “If All of Seattle Read the Same Book.” Nancy Pearl is known as “America’s Librarian” and even has an action figure from Archie McPhee’s toy shop- a true marker of success, and I have at least three of her action figures given to me as gifts over my 20-year career in public libraries and city government.   Twenty years later, this One City, One Book experience thrives in hundreds of cities nationwide. It has been going strong in Port Townsend for 21 years. The longest continuously running program of its kind that we know of in Washington. We proudly kept the program during the pandemic and are grateful to be back in person. Each year we pick a very different book in hopes different genres will welcome new readers to our events.

This year’s Community Read is Ian’s Ride: A Long-Distance Journey to Joy by Karen Polansky is a story about how even after tragedy joy can be found in the darkest of places. Ian has transformed his situation into becoming a world record breaking athlete, a leader helping other quadriplegics through technological innovations, and through community building events such as organizing the annual Sea To Sound is a 74-mile, three-day, multi-modal group ride spanning the entire length of the Olympic Discovery Trail. We chose this book because of its local ties, inspiring story, and connection to trails.

Ian's story is an inspiring tale of overcoming adversity, connecting with nature, and finding joy. We are excited to share his journey with the community and discuss the importance of making community and outdoors accessible for all. With our new Community Services Department which oversees the public library, parks, facilities, and art this book showcases how we can connect literature and nature and inspire our community to read and get outside together.  Finding ways to connect with people with different lived experience than our own makes our lives richer.

We were all deeply moved at the library by Ian's story and look forward to the conversations and connections that will be generated through this year's 21st Community Read.

Ian’s biography brings courage, humor, adventure, and celebration of some of our hometown heroes to our monthlong reading festivities including a self-paced Adventure log, programming about our trails, a fun StoryWalk™ at Kah Tai Lagoon Nature Park, birding, and an inspiring documentary.  Ian Mackay and Karen Polansky conclude the month with an author talk at 6:00p.m., March 26, at the Northwest Maritime Center, followed by a book signing, with books available from Imprint Books. I hope you will join us in building community through shared reading and discussions as well as an appreciation for how much accessibility in all our spaces both indoors and outdoors matters.

Learn more here https://ptpubliclibrary.org/library/page/community-read

Community Read 2026 is made possible through generous support from the Port Townsend Library Friends and Foundation and many community sponsors. It takes a beautiful village to bring Reading Month to Port Townsend annually.