As an attentive audience discovered Sunday, the library isn’t only a place to borrow or read books.

It’s also a place where books come alive.

The Cranston Public Library’s central branch hosted Living Literature, a husband and wife duo who bring novels to life by performing them to audiences across Southern New England.

Barry Press and Anne Scurria stood at the front of the library’s community room and dramatized several works of holiday literature as part of their “Holiday Sampler.” The pieces included Not Only The Eskimos by Lisel Mueller, Twas the Night Before Christmas for Teachers by Joyce Luke, My Ex-Husband and the Fish Dinner by Joan Acocella, Papa Panov’s Special Christmas by Leo Tolstoy, and Christmas Day in the Morning by Pearl S. Buck, to name a few.

The stories and performances were both heartwarming and humorous, evoking laughs from the audience during story transitions and during the storytelling. Two of the more heartfelt stories, Papa Panov’s Special Christmas and Christmas Day in the Morning, tugged at the heartstrings as both pieces demonstrated the meaning of love and generosity during the Christmas season.

“It’s one of the holidays where people want to be read to,” said Press, the artistic director for the organization.

According to Press, Living Literature started 22 years ago in January of 1996. Aside from doing holiday programs, the couple work with Reading Across Rhode Island and have done so for the past 10 years. For the program’s 2019 book selection, they will participate in reading What The Eyes Don’t See by Mona Hanna-Attisha, a book about the author’s account of the Flint water crisis. Press said that last year they read The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. Press also said that they tend to choose books that have a “social conscience.”

For more information about Living Literature and their work, please visit www.livingliterature.org or their Facebook page at www.facebook.com/livinglit.