Friday Reconnect: Langston Week One

By Oliver Perry, Read to Them Staff

Hello friends! Congratulations on finishing the first half of Finding Langston by Lesa Cline-Ransome! We hope you’ve enjoyed reading along with us so far, as we go on a journey with our main character, Langston. Clem, Erroll and (especially) Lymon have been making Langston’s already difficult time in Chicago even worse, but Langston discovers a whole new world in the George Cleveland Hall library. Can you remember your first experience with a library? What was it like? Discuss with your family, friends, and teachers!

We are taking a different (but very exciting) approach to this week’s activity. This time, we want to hear from YOU! The author of Finding Langston, Lesa Cline-Ransome, did a live Q & A on our Instagram with a member of our staff. If you could ask the author anything in the world, what would you ask her?Check out the conversation below, and then create a post in the Flipgrid community answering that question.

We’ve cooked up some writing prompts for you all to launch us into the weekend.

• Write a paragraph from the perspective of Langston’s Daddy. How do you think he feels about their situation and everything involved in it? His thoughts on Langston? Alabama? Chicago?

• Let’s write about the discussion question from earlier: write a few sentences about your first experience with the library. What did you think? What do you remember feeling? Seeing? Smelling? What book(s) did you check out? If you were to go to a library tomorrow, how would your book choices differ from back then?

• Write about a day in the life of one of the bullies: Lymon or Clem. Lymon is clearly the leader of the bullies. Clem, however, seems to stand back most of the time. Whoever you choose, consider how they act in the book when you write your paragraph.

• Create a new neighbor for Langston on Wabash. Be creative! Where is this person from? If not from Chicago, how’d they end up there? What do they look and act like? How would they interact with Langston? Include the answers to these questions and as much more as you’d like in your writing.

• What would a chapter of your life look like? Write a paragraph (or more) that would belong in a chapter about your life. Include the basics: where you live, what your favorite things to do are, where you go to school, etc. But feel free to be creative, maybe don’t reveal your name like Langston, or add in some imaginary elements.

That’s it for today’s Friday Reconnect. We are so happy to have you reading along with us, and we can’t wait to finish up this wonderful novel next week. Stay safe, be kind, and have a great weekend!