News Release

San Francisco — Citing the importance of reading and literacy, Mayor Gavin Newsom today announced a new reading initiative, One City One Book: All San Francisco Reads. The selected book is Gus Lee’s moving 1991 novel China Boy, about a young Chinese boy named Kai Ting who attempts to make a life for himself in San Francisco’s Panhandle neighborhood during the 1950s.

“San Francisco prides itself on its strong literary and cultural traditions,” said the Mayor. “It is essential that we as a city continue to foster a climate that encourages reading, especially among our young people, the future leaders of tomorrow.”

In China Boy, the young Kai saves himself by learning how to box at the local YMCA, whose multi-ethnic instructors become both a surrogate family and a symbol of how a civic institution can improve the quality of people’s lives as it brings people of all backgrounds together.

While Lee’s poignant description of the homes in Kai’s poverty-stricken neighborhood recall books like Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes, his evocation of Kai – a boy desperate to know what his friends eat at home, ignorant of the fact that he is almost blind, and certain that he can feel his mother’s presence in the cold foam of the pacific surf – is utterly unique. Lee’s evocation of San Francisco, from the dense shopping districts of Chinatown to the soaring, whitewashed Central YMCA, turns the city into a character in and of itself.

One City One Book launches this June just in time for summer vacation reading. Now is the time for book groups and class room teachers to put China Boy on their reading list for early fall. Reading and discussion groups, author visits to schools and libraries, and public programs will take place in September and October. Current partners in the One City, One Book program include Mayor Newsom, the San Francisco Public Library, Friends of the San Francisco Public Library, the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association and the National Foundation for Jewish Culture.

“This is a wonderful program that has been highly successful in other cities, starting with All Seattle Reads in 1998,” said One City One Book co-chair Diane Frankel. That program has been so successful that many other cities have replicated it. Chicago’s One City One Book program began in 2001 and is now a biannual event. Other cities in California also have sponsored reading projects, including Los Angeles, Long Beach, Santa Barbara, Santa Monica, Silicon Valley, Stockton and many others.

In searching for a compelling title, the six-person selection committee for San Francisco’s first One City, One Book program searched for a book that met as many of the following criteria as possible: of high literary quality; reflective of universal issues facing San Franciscans; mirrors the diversity of San Francisco; connects to San Francisco either through the content or perhaps because the author is from San Francisco; available in key languages; currently in print and available in large quantities; appeals to adults and teens; available in paperback; capable of sparking provocative discussions; lent itself to engaging public programs around the book.

One City One Book is funded by Friends of the San Francisco Public Library, the Gerbode Foundation, the Maisin Foundation and other donors.

One City One Book discussion materials and Gus Lee’s China Boy will be available in libraries and bookstores in June 2005.
For more information, call 415 557-4277.