​Real People Media Partners with Michigan Humanities
for the Great Michigan Read 2020
Extended into 2021 due to pandemic.

Residents in the Keweenaw (and the Charlevoix area) are invited to join in reading and discussing “What the Eyes Don’t See,” Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha’s riveting account of her discovery that Flint’s children were being poisoned by lead leaching into the city’s drinking water. The book is Michigan Humanities’ choice for the 2019-20 Great Michigan Read, and Real People Media, is partnering with Michigan Humanities to distribute free books as well as supporting educational materials through RPM's Keweenaw Storytelling Center located in downtown Calumet.

The Great Michigan Read aims to connect Michigan residents by deepening readers’ understanding of our state, our society, and our humanity. A statewide panel of teachers, librarians, community leaders and book lovers selects the Great Michigan Read every two years.

Shelly Hendrick Kasprzycki, Michigan Humanities president and CEO, says she hopes “What the Eyes Don’t See” will encourage Michigan citizens statewide to read, discuss and learn from the book, and that it will increase opportunities for civil discourse on topics ranging from water quality and access to environmental injustice and the intersection of humanities and science.

“Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha’s willingness to fight for children and tirelessly advocate for change in and beyond Michigan will have readers cheering as she follows the science and her young patients’ experiences to uncover one of the state’s worst public health catastrophes,” Kasprzycki said.​

Hanna-Attisha is the founder and director of the Michigan State University and Hurley Children’s Hospital Pediatric Public Health Initiative, an innovative and model public health program in Flint. Currently an associate professor of pediatrics and human development at the MSU College of Human Medicine, she has been named one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World for her role in uncovering the Flint water crisis and leading recovery efforts. She was one of the first to question if lead was leaching from the city’s water pipes after an emergency manager switched the city’s water supply to the Flint River in 2014. She also is committed to increasing literacy in Flint and elsewhere.

Hanna-Attisha said she was honored to have “What the Eyes Don’t See” chosen for the 2019-20 Great Michigan Read, and said the concepts of place and history are critically important to her book.

“From the resistance of the Flint sit-down strikers to the reign of demagogue Charles Coughlin, Michigan’s DNA is full of history – some good and some bad and some shared and some hidden – which we must understand in order to address our present-day challenges,” she said. “Like so many Michiganders, my story is an immigrant story. It was critical to share this part of the story in this memoir because it informs how I see the world and the work that I am privileged to do.”

The Keweenaw Storytelling Center has free books, readers’ guides, teachers’ guides, bookmarks, and other supplemental materials to be shared with interested individuals, book clubs and other groups in our community. More information on how to get a free copy of “What the Eyes Don’t See” and participate in Great Michigan Read programming including a zoom dialogue with Dr Hanna-Attisha, visit Real People Media's website: www.realpeoplemedia.org.

The 2019-20 Great Michigan Read is presented by Michigan Humanities and supported by national, statewide, and local partners, including the National Endowment for the Humanities and The Meijer Foundation.

Upcoming Events

Thursday, April 29, 2021
6:00- 7:00pm EST
​(register by April 27)