Thousands of bookworms gathered at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center on Aug. 24 for the 24th annual Library of Congress National Book Festival.
Two-time Emmy Award-winning television host Tamron Hall served as a headliner for this year’s festival among other authors. She hosted a discussion for her new cookbook co-written with Lisa Steiling, “A Confident Cook.”
The three-story convention center was full of events: book reading sessions for children, author panels, book signings and so much more related to literary success.
The free event is a way to allow book lovers to gather and hear from some of their favorite authors. Attendees had an opportunity to purchase books from the 90-plus authors that were a part of the festival, as well as get them signed by the authors.
Baltimore native Monet Walker shared with the AFRO that she attended to see and hear from one of her favorite authors, Christopher Paolini, a sci-fi author.
“I try to go to any book conventions that I do hear of,” she said.
Walker said she believes such events keep the literary culture alive, and thanks social media for spreading the word.
“Book-Tok (a world wide book community on TikTok) is keeping a lot of these bookstores alive” she said. “I think the conventions are also keeping the bookstores and physical books alive.”
The compact schedule had a balance between reading events and STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) making it suitable and enjoyable for children. Several organizations such as Black Girls Code, Boolean Girl and NASA had offerings catering to children and young adults.
“I am an advocate for reading. If you can read, you can do math, you can do anything. So learning your alphabet, learning your letters, learning sentences, word structure is something I am a stickler for,” said Shamir Cole, who attended the festival with her nieces and daughter. “We push reading at home, and I feel like if you can take children to a carnival, you can take them to go learn something.”
Some families anticipate making the trip to the nation’s capital every year for the day-long festival as a way to bond and grow their love for reading.
“This is maybe our third year in a row attending,” said D.C. native John Pendleton, who attended the festival with his daughter Ava Pendleton. “My daughters inherited their love of books from their mother, so they are serious about books. Ava can go through books pretty quickly, so it gets too expensive if we don’t go to the library.”
“I just like absorbing knowledge from different books and reading about different topics,” said Ava Pendleton. “And I just like reading in general; it’s fun.”
Source: afro.com
