The Big Read was created to address the national decline in literary reading as documented in the NEA’s 2004 landmark survey, Reading At Risk and is a partnership among the NEA, the Institute of Museum and Library Services and Arts Midwest encouraging communities to read and discuss a single book. The book selected for Lucas County is Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird.

The author of a biography about Harper Lee, who wrote To Kill a Mockingbird, will speak at six local venues Tuesday and Wednesday. Charles Shields interviewed 600 people over four years to gather material about the media-shy Lee for his 2006 book, Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee. A former English teacher, Shields taught Lee's famous novel, which won the 1961 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, for years.

Tuesday, Shields will speak at Robinson Junior High School at 10 a.m.; the Maumee branch of the Toledo-Lucas County Public Library at 2 p.m., and at the Kent branch in Toledo at 7 p.m. Wednesday, he'll lead discussions at Sylvania Southview High School at 10 a.m.; in the West Toledo branch library at 2 p.m., and at Owens Community College's Center for Fine and Performing Arts Theatre at 7 p.m.

Shields' appearance is part of The Big Read in Lucas County, which kicks off tomorrow at 6 p.m. in the Main Library's McMaster Center with P.J. O'Rourke, political humorist.