DAMARISCOTTA - World Book Night has a simple concept. On April 23 every year, bookstores and literary champions from around the world assemble an army of "book givers," who give free books away to "light or nonreaders, especially people who may not have access to printed books for reasons of means or geography." The book givers receive 20 free paperback copies of one World Book Night title, not too many to carry, but enough to share with a good number of potential new readers.

One book store in Maine is taking up the cause on a local level.

"This is our third year doing the World Book Night giveaway," said Susan Porter, an employee of the Maine Coast Book Shop in Damariscotta. To spread the love of reading and books, this gets books into areas to give to people who don't necessarily go into book shops," she said. "The Bookseller's Association, The American Library Association, Barnes and Noble and a lot of publishers donate free books to us to give out to people. Then we ask people to sign up to be givers. This year we have nine people who've signed up."

One such giver is Jane Najim, a cochair for the Ecumenical Food Pantry in Damariscotta. This is her first year as a giver.

"They asked me to participate and I was thriiled because they're  an independent book store and I'm the type to browse on Amazon first then call Maine Coast Book Shop and ask them to order it for me." She picked up her box of 20 books this week and is preparing to give them out tomorrow night. All 20 books, as stipulated by World Book Night rules, have to be of one title and Jane had to choose from a special list of 20 titles on the World Book Night website.

"They give you three choices of titles you can pick from and I got my choice, which is Mudbound," said Najim. "It takes place after World War II in the Mississippi Delta. It's all about the treatment of black people by white people in that area, but specifically how poor white people treated black people. And it's also about black men who go off to war and were treated equally, but when they came back home they were the 'boy' once again."

Mudbound won Bellwether Prize for Fiction. This is the synopsis:

It is 1946, and city-bred Laura McAllan is trying to raise her children on her husband's Mississippi Delta farm—a place she finds foreign and frightening. In the midst of the family's struggles, two young men return from the war to work the land. Jamie McAllan, Laura's brother-in-law, is everything her husband is not—charming, handsome, and haunted by his memories of combat. Ronsel Jackson, eldest son of the black sharecroppers who live on the McAllan farm, has come home with the shine of a war hero. But no matter his bravery in defense of his country, he is still considered less than a man in the Jim Crow South. It is the unlikely friendship of these brothers-in-arms that drives this powerful novel to its inexorable conclusion.

"I loved it, it was a very provocative book," Najim said. Asked who she planned to give them away to, she said, "I'm going to give them to the people at our food pantry. We have a lot of readers who can't afford to buy books. It's going to be quite challenging for some of them to read and digest, but I think they're going to be glad to have read this book. I think it's going to be provactive and will challenge them. That's something we all could use."

On a micro level we can all be part of World Book Night and open someone's world a little more. On April 23, take a title from your own bookshelf and give it away to someone who a light or nonreader.

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com