Today, David Rubenstein was one of many well-deserved that received the Presidential medal of Freedom. His name might be VERY familiar if you have ever been to the Library of Congress National Book Festival.

Looking at the Opening Ceremony of the National Book Festival, 2024, WOW.

Did you know National Book Festival selections and titles are available on SORA?!

Doris Kearns Goodman, author of An Unfinished Love Story – interviewed in that link by David Rubenstein- was marvelous. Her opening story about her husband and his legacy through what she wrote (I will not spoil it for you) – is a story about how magical literacy is or can be.

When Sandra Cisneros came onto the stage, again, WOW. Here is the 40th Anniversary of this magical book – but what is most powerful in these times is her comment- “The good outnumber the bad.” – and her stories she gives us at this opening ceremony is what we can carry with ourselves every day. This is pretty powerful too- Sandra Cisneros is among 11 recipients of the Poetry Foundation’s 2022 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize.

A name dropped on stage also is a very important name – Clay Smith – and his role at the Library of Congress is pretty beyond a value for his contributions that therefore come out of the Library of Congress.

A Confident Cook by Tamaron Hall – I was unfamiliar with her and her show. In hearing her talk so passionately, how much literacy, librarians, books, had such an impact on her, as well as the value of the Library of Congress was easy to relate to if you have attended the Library of Congress National Book Festival.

Gene Luen Yang (the 5th National Ambassador for Young People) and Meg Medina as the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature is a HUGE deal. Her platform has been to engage readers from ALL backgrounds in reading- She loved the fact that she knew people how to talk to each other about books, different from school assignments, etc.. This point was poignant as she applied to one minute, like an infomercial, what the book is etc.. Her idea to hold office hours to hear these stories, I LOVED.

With his platform of Books Build Us Up his three things he asked of readers- 1)Choose a book of someone that does not look like you, 2) Choose a topic you do not know about, 3)Choose a book that is published in a format that you would not usually never read. I love this challenge, and Gene Luen Yang is quite humorous.

In closing out the Opening Ceremony, Max Greenfield was THE PERFECT closer to this opening ceremony. Make sure you pay attention to the impersonations of his children when it came to reading and loved his humor of the fact that his books seemed to be about NOT reading, lol. His book Good Night Thoughts – I loved the portion he chose to read. Even more, love his word, implausible.

It is easy to see the formidable future could be viewed as implausible to be successful but what is often not figured in is the energy we can counter that implausibility. That is the power of literacy, represented in various formats, and I must ask – Who is more capable than we are? These speakers all challenged us to that ability.