Monday, July 13, 2009

Latina Book Club enjoying reading

Enjoy a summer read with Las Comadres & Friends National Latino Book Club
Teresa Carbajal Ravet, Examiner, July 12, 2009

Las Comadres Para las Americas is a national Latina network of women that was born in Austin of a desire to build knowledge and community among all Latinas. Nora de Hoyos Comstock, founder and president of Las Comadres, took an informal Latino gathering of women and made it a national organization that advocates community education and involvement. Historically comadres have been Hispanas helping Hispanas, sharing news, sharing secrets, and simply sharing, as well as midwives and godmothers supporting women and their children in their everyday life.

The vision for Las Comadres is to empower women to be actively engaged in the growing Latino/Hispanic communities through online and face to face networks. By connecting women everywhere through community building and networking, culture, learning, and technology Las Comadres’ mission to empower Latinas is reaching international success.

One of its supportive initiatives is the Las Comadres & Friends National Latino Book Club. Reading with Las Comadres is a book club with membership open to anyone interested in reading works written by Latina and Latino authors in the English language. Comadres and friends are encourage to be a part of a local reading group to gather and discuss “high quality literature by and for the Latino community” and all of its friends. Latinas, Latinos, and friends meet once a month to offer diverse perspectives on the month’s book selection. In Austin there are two such clubs, one in North Austin and another in South Austin, that meet during the third week of the month.

The Las Comadres & Friends book club of North Austin meets on the third Tuesday of the month at 7 PM at Borders bookstore in The Domain. Contact Nora de Hoyos Comstock or the North Austin book club coordinator, Cynthia Ramos, to join in the discussion. The South Austin book club meets on the third Thursday of the month at 7 PM at the Borders in the Westgate Marketplace. Contact Nora de Hoys Comstock or the South Austin book club coordinator, Teresa Carbajal Ravet, to join in the discussion. Explore the 2009 book selections and their consequent author teleconference to enjoy a cultural and bilingual literary experience.

June’s book selection was Rogelia’s House of Magic by Jamie Martinez Wood published by Delacorte Press. Tune in to Austin Latino Neighborhood Examiner’s book review coming up soon and get a foretaste of the enchanting perceptions emerging at the book club gatherings! For the month of July the book selection of Dark Dude by Oscar Hijuelos, published by Atheneum, will prove to be an award winning read!

Enjoy!

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