Big Book: Pages for Peace is the project started by a group of middle school students devoted to the idea that kids CAN make a difference in helping to create a more peaceful world. To prove their point, our after-school writers’ club at Groton-Dunstable Middle School in Groton, MA worked for 12 years to build the biggest book in the world on peace, with each page of the Big Book measuring an incredible 12 feet tall by 10 feet wide.
We began by writing letters asking people around the world to send us their messages of peace. Over time we received thousands of letters, poems, and pieces of artwork and we began to compile them all into the Big Book. That is when we knew that this project had the potential to inspire people worldwide. The book is over 1000 pages long and includes thousands of pieces of content sent in to our students. We hope that by sharing the messages of peace from within the Big Book we can help to change the world one page at a time.
In October of 2004, eight fifth-grade students joined a Groton-Dunstable Regional Middle School after-school club. They wanted to make a book filled with student literary offerings that would be accepted into the Guinness World Book of Records. Teacher/adviser Betsy Sawyer attended a Jimmy Cliff concert and brought back a powerful message to her students from the activist reggae musician, “It’s up to us to teach the children about peace” she described the singer as saying. Cliff also asked his audience, “What have you done to promote peace lately?”
The after-school students decided the topic of their book should be PEACE and The Bookmakers and Dreamers Club was born. As they began their research, they reached out to everyone they could think of to ask for advice on how to achieve peace. They sent letters to thousands of people around the world asking for their opinions about peace:
1. What is peace?
2. Will there ever be world peace?
3. Where do you see the world in 20 years?
4. What have YOU done to help create a more peaceful world?
5. What can kids do to help create a more peaceful world?
As the kid’s campaign expanded with each year of incoming fifth-graders, the letters poured in. These optimistic students decided that their book should be 10 feet by 12 feet and would be a volume that was not only large in size but larger in stature by making its contents meaningful.
Click through a slideshow about the project below!
To date, the club has received more than 3,500 letters from peace activists, teachers, politicians, veterans, and students all over the world. Nobel Laureates such as Nelson Mandela, President Jimmy Carter, and the Dalai Lama have contributed, along with Dr. Helen Caldicott, Mother Teresa, Maya Angelou, Senator Ted Kennedy, and Pete Seeger. In a moving tribute at the Big Book’s 2014 debut at the JFK Library in Boston, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon added his message to The Big Book: Pages for Peace. On March 20th, 2016, in a much-anticipated event, the Big Book was proudly displayed at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City during the International Day of Happiness celebration.
The original peace club members have now graduated from college while another 500 students from Groton-Dunstable Middle School have participated in the continuation of the club’s peace studies over the years.
To learn more about the details of our project, click to read either of the in-depth articles covering our project below:
Childhood Education Journal & Childhood Explorer magazine
Betsy Sawyer, the founder of the Pages for Peace project, succumbed to leukemia on April 3, 2016. Her vision, and that of the kids in the Bookmakers & Dreamers Club, lives on. The Board of the Pages for Peace Foundation is committed to this vision. Betsy believed in thinking big and teaching peace as part of the curriculum for young students.
Now that the Big Book has been built, the students, teachers, supporters, and the Board are all committed to sharing its messages of peace with the world. You can Help us continue her decade-long legacy to educate and inspire children worldwide with the Big Book’s message of peace by supporting the Project she helped create.
- 2010 Children’s Courage of Conscience Award from The Peace Abbey
The Peace Abbey is dedicated to creating innovative models for society that empower individuals on the paths of nonviolence, peacemaking, and cruelty-free living. Previous recipients of the Courage of Conscience Award also include Humanitarian Mother Teresa, Musician Pete Seeger, Civil Rights activist Rosa Parks, Spiritual Leader of Tibet the Dalai Lama, and many others.
- 2010 Nashoba Valley Chamber of Commerce Service and Leadership Award
- 2011 Educator of the Year, Celebration of Excellence
- 2015 Joel D. Miller Award for Teaching, Fitchburg State University Alumni
- 2016 Massachusetts State House Resolution honoring Betsy Sawyer & the Big Book
- 2016 Kathleen Roberts Creative Leadership Award, MA Teachers Association
- 2016 Town of Groton Proclamation for “Betsy Sawyer Day”, September 21, 2016