The start of the Library of Congress 2023 Book Festival featured the most welcome appearance of Carla Hayden – who everytime I see, I think of this amazing event thanks to her devotion of the largest Book Festival in the country. This event kicked of Friday night with some heart-stopping statistics presented by co-chair David Rubenstein:

44% of Americans did not use a single book last year

The U.S. is 150th in the world, in literacy.

130 million individuals cannot read a book to their children.

21% of all adults are functional illiterate, not able to read past the 4th grade level.

85% individuals in juvenile delinquency are functional illiterate.

2/3 of those in prison are functional illiterate.

Mr. Rubenstein noted that the Library of Congress is not called the “National Tweeting Festival”, for a reason, this gives a chance, in being free, to expose people to literacy, a book, an author to inspire them to want to go back and read a book to their children. The torch of literacy to be passed is a worthy one and is often a role of the school librarian that many fail to recognize, in a time now where book bans and challenges take more importance that a certified librarian being present and able to facilitate literacy.

It was noteworthy that Laura Bush, in lieu of the 250th anniversary of the United States, asked if there was a Book Festival in Washington D.C., as she knew of hers in her home state of Texas. (Ironically, I was a recipient of the Barbara Bush initiative to recruit more librarians, and the rest is history!) At the time there was not, and it was interesting that the next year there WAS one, the first being right on the mall – and the humor here came from the grass. Over time, the National Park Service were concerned that the grass was not growing due to the #’s of people attending the festival, not giving the grass a chance to go, so being asked to leave turned out to be a blessing, as the Book Festival ended at the Conference Center and thanks to Carla Hayden – the Book Festival is an amazing event.

Out of the amazing authors made up of Angeline Boulley, David Grann, R.K. Russell, Beverly Gage, and Luis Alberto Urrea, one story stood out the most for this moment in time, as sometimes some stories, characters do, and that for me this night was Angeline Boulley, author of the Firestarter’s Daughter. Coming off an amazing Eastern shore discovery of Indigenous voices, the amazing indigenous voice Boulley started- has spread. She is published in 22 other countries, and said a very profound statement, she writes to represent indigenous voices, and edits to protect her culture. Stating that it is so vital to have stories for us (indigenous voices), not just by indigenous voices.

It still amazes me how many events , topics, themes appear within close proximity of each other, that often seems too coincidental. It is up to us to make the connections of those somewhat separate, but connected topics and synthesize meaning from them. It is even more important to have the ability to recognize that school librarians have the ability to connect somewhat unrelated topics, and show how they indeed, are related and connected to each other. We need more to realize this!