BCEF Grant Helps Support Townwide Participation
in the 2009 "One Book" Event

The Bolton Community Education Foundation has awarded a grant of $1,500 to help bring a New York Times best-selling author to Bolton in September 2009.

The Foundation and Bolton High School are co-sponsoring Bolton’s own “One Book" event. In keeping with ongoing efforts to bring an understanding and appreciation of Chinese culture and history to the Bolton community, the chosen book is Colors of the Mountain by Da Chen.

Colors of the Mountain is a classic story of triumph over adversity and a memoir of a boyhood full of spunk, mischief, and love. The book has been compared to Angela’s Ashes and went on to become a New York Times bestseller. Da Chen, born in 1962 in Communist China during the Cultural Revolution, tells a story of his childhood growing up in a family of eight, struggling to attend school, and dealing with the harshness of being a member of the despised “landlord” class. This book is also the required summer reading for all BHS students.

The author, who has been described as “an engaging, almost mesmerizing, speaker," will visit Bolton for two days in September. There will be a book discussion, reception and signing for the entire Bolton community on Monday, Sept. 14, from 6-8 p.m. at the Bolton Senior Center on Notch Road. Mark your calendar so you don't miss this exclusive author visit to our town!

The author also will visit Bolton High School on Tuesday, Sept 15, to give a school-wide presentation that is also open to the community.

The Foundation is planning to sponsor other programs planned for this fall to help connect one of Connecticut’s smallest towns with the country that has the largest population in the world!

About the Author

Da Chen has been featured in Newsweek, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Time Asia, NPR, CNN International, The Diane Rehm Show, CSPAN Book TV, and Fox News Channel. His books are translated into eleven languages and are frequently chosen as common reader selections among American universities, and used as textbooks by schools such as Yale, Vassar, Wellesley, the Culinary Institute of America, the United Nations-affiliated Vienna International School, and in many high schools and middle schools.

He arrived in America at the age of 23 with $30 in his pocket, a bamboo flute, and a heart filled with hope, and attended Columbia University School of Law on a full scholarship. Upon graduating, he worked for the Wall Street investment banking firm of Rothschilds, Inc.

A 2007 Quill Awards finalist for Brothers in the general fiction category, Chen is also the recipient of the 2007 Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature by the American Librarians Association, and the 2007 Rip Van Winkle Award for outstanding contributions to Children’s Literature by the New York Library Association. Additional information on the author is available at www.dachen.org.

About the Foundation

The Bolton Community Education Foundation is a private, non-profit organization, incorporated in February 2004. The primary goal of the Foundation is to support and enhance educational opportunities for the entire Bolton community. Its Board of Directors is made up of community members who serve on a volunteer basis.