In Helena, Montana, reading is a beloved shared tradition. And it starts at the library.
“We have people who come to the library in the summer and say, ‘When are the books going to be available?’” says Suzanne Schwichtenberg, Adult Services Librarian at Lewis & Clark Library. “It’s so fun.”
The books in question are the annual selection for the NEA Big Read. Lewis & Clark has participated in 18 of the Big Read’s 20 years, becoming a beacon of innovative programming and community engagement, all centered on books.
Schwichtenberg credits former director Judy Hart with kickstarting the library’s involvement in 2007. “Judy worked tirelessly to bring the community together with the library, and [the Big Read] was a gigantic opportunity to do so,” she says.
More than 1,800 Big Read grants have gone out since its inception in 2006. Lewis & Clark has been awarded 18 of them, making them one of the Big Read’s most successful applicants. The reason?
“Partnership, partnership, partnership,” says Schwichtenberg. Connecting with local schools and organizations has generated a track record of powerful events, community bonding, and excited readers.
“For To Kill a Mockingbird, we worked with 4H and the fairgrounds and had a target-shooting session,” remembers Schwichtenberg. “It was so cool because we got to work with kids who may not come into the library, but now they had a book.”
Lewis & Clark spends more than half of its grant each year on putting books in people’s hands—for free, and for keeps. The rest it puts towards author visits, book talks, writing workshops, and age-appropriate events for kids and families: for Lab Girl in 2019, the library made 300 dirt cakes of pudding, cookie crumbles, and gummy worms that kids (and adults) could enjoy—but only after listening to a USDA soil conservationist’s presentation.
The 2025-26 selection—Fuzz by Mary Roach—was a great fit for Montana because “it’s about wildlife-human interactions, and we have that daily,” says Schwichtenberg. The library invited professors from the University of Montana to speak about cohabitation between humans and wildlife. They also hosted a short film festival about the conservation efforts of American Prairie at the historic Myrna Loy Center for the Arts.
Of the many, many events Lewis & Clark has offered, Schwichtenberg says author visits are often the most memorable.
“They give this powerful personal connection of meeting someone who is creative, who gives you permission to be creative and think about things that may not have been in your life before,” she says.
At an event with author Tim O’Brien, Schwichtenberg recalls a soldier sharing that The Things They Carried sparked a powerful conversation with his father, a Vietnam War veteran, about their deployments. O’Brien later told Schwichtenberg that such stories make everything worth it.
Schwichtenberg agrees.
“Reading is so important to our democracy and our sense of self and relationship with other people,” she says. “To be part of this and to experience the power of reading and how it just opens people to each other in unexpected ways . . . it’s life-altering.”
The NEA Big Read offers grants of up to $20,000 to help bring communities together around the shared activity of reading and discussing the same book. This program is an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) in partnership with Arts Midwest.