Reading Club: Teenage Literature | The “Laurus” Case and other stories

In April, the SNFCC Reading Club is dedicated to the memory of Filippos Tsimpoglou, Director General of the National Library of Greece (NLG).

In April, the SNFCC Teenagers’ Reading Club continues its meetings, facilitated by comic book artist and translator Thanasis Petrou as facilitator. Books of his include: Giannoulis Halepas. The Myth of Modern Greek Sculpture (on a script by Dimitris Vanellis, Patakis Publishers, 2019); Gra-Grou (on a script by Tassos Zafiriadis and Yannis Palavos, Ikaros Publishers); At the Battle of Marathon (Patakis Publishers, 2015).

The book we will be reading together this month is The “Laurus” Case and other stories by Laurie Kezas. 30 Book Club members, aged 12 to 16, take a cue from this delightful mystery novel and engage in conversation, creating and discovering new worlds through the book's pages.

The author, Laurie Kezas, will participate online in the Reading Club.

Don't worry if you haven't been able to read the entire book, or if you’ve missed our previous meeting. Each month, the Reading Club facilitator, Thanasis Petrou, will be giving us a new cue, announcing the book that we will all be reading together over the weeks to follow. At the end of the month, the group of people who have read the book (or at least half of it) will be meeting to exchange thoughts, impressions, feelings and concerns, triggered by what we have just read, whether we liked it a lot or not so much.

The plot

Frangiskos Dellatolas has left Athens to settle down, with his wife Carmela and their two children, Rosa and Manthos, in the village Loutra of Tinos. 
Frangiskos opens up a funeral parlor, but business is slow because the inhabitants of the village, albeit quite old, are still very healthy.
The village Loutra is home to two Catholic monasteries, one for monks of the Jesuit order, and one for nuns of the order of Saint Ursula. 
The monastery of the Ursulines is huge, bigger than the entire village, but only three nuns live there now, and no novitiate.
Rosa is fascinated by the sinuous and towering old buildings of the nunnery, with its cells and dormitories, the painting studio, the libraries, the theater, the refectory, the music rooms, the classrooms, and the state-of-the-art equipment at its School, which can provide her an education from the future.
However, the nunnery’s existence is threatened by the ambitious plans of the cunning mayor and a contractor who wish to collaborate with a corporation to level the site and build a power plant in its place.
A tangle of tales, myths, miracles, intrigue and xenophobia will transpire in Tinos, the island of the Virgin Mary that gave birth to great artists, and young Rosa will try to find the end of the thread.

The author
Laurie Kezas was born in Montreal in 1969. She was a journalist for the daily newspaper To Vima for 25 years. She served as a Member of the Committee for the Greek State Awards for Adult and Children’s Literature. She made her writing debut in the genre of children’s literature in 2010 with her book Tis zois ta gyrismata [Life's twists and turns] (Agyra Publications). Other books by Kezas include: Kalytera kroumbalo! [Better a bump!] (Papadopoulos Publishing, 2011); S’ anoigo se kleino [I open you I close you] (Metaichmio Publications, 2018); Jour fixe (Potamos Publishers, 2018); and more. She now lives permanently in Montreal with her family.

A few words about the Reading Club facilitator:

Thanasis Petrou was born in 1971 in Thessaloniki. He studied French Literature in Thessaloniki and Paris, and holds a postgraduate degree in Sociolinguistics. In 2002, he won the first prize in the comic book competition (“New Talents” category) organized by “9” magazine of Eleftherotypia newspaper in collaboration with the AKTO School of Art & Design. From 2002 to 2005, he studied on a scholarship at the Sketch, Comic Book & Cartoon department of AKTO. He has worked as a French teacher, a translator, an illustrator, a musician. From 2005 to 2011, he worked with "9" magazine of Eleftherotypia newspaper. Since 2012, he has been teaching at AKTO. From 2008 to 2022, 16 comic books of his have been published by various publishers, both on scripts of his own and on scripts by other authors (Dimitris Vanellis, Katerina Servi, Pavlos Methenitis, Tassos Zafiriadis, Yannis Palavos et al.). His latest book is: “1923: Hostile Homeland” (Ikaros Books, 2022).

Sunday 30/04
13.00-14.30

ΖΟΟΜ
 

For children aged 12 to 16

Free admission with online pre-registration

Preregistration starts on 03/04 at 12.00

To participate in the Reading Club, it is necessary for those who hold a position to have read the book of the month. (It is also useful to have it with them).

Laurie Kezas The “Laurus” Case and other stories is published by Potamos Publishers.

As part of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center's collaboration with the National Library of Greece, the book for the Reading Club has been chosen by NLG staff members.