BIG READ MONTH DECLARED BY MAYOR OF LOS ANGELES

CHERISHING OUR VALLEY                     2013

Museum of the San Fernando Valley Board Members, Kristine Kelller (left) and Willard Simms greet the first Poet Laureate of Los Angeles Elizabeth Klein Healy at the kickoff of the city's month of the Big Read.
      Sponsored by the National Endowment of the Arts, the Big Read literacy program celebrates its fifth year with the nation-wide reading of The Thief and The Dogs by Nobel Prize winner Naguib Mahfouz, a world famous author from Egypt.
      Kristine Keller, a graduate student of anthropology at California State University Northridge is the Chair of The Museum of the San Fernando Valley's Big Read Middle Eastern marketplace and cultural celebration to be held at the Rancho Cordillera del Norte on Sunday May 19th.
      Elizabeth Klein Healty, a resident of Sherman Oaks and a graduate of California State University Northridge, will serve two years as the distinguished first Poet Laureate of the city.
Willard Simms, an accomplished playwright and poet, is the chair of The Museum's Education and
Oral Histories Committees.