LeVar Burton: National Book Festival 2021

[Music] sponsored by the james madison council good evening marguerite deangelis book bright april had a huge impact on me as a child when i checked it out from the public library it was the first time i saw myself in a book it started my journey to open the world of books to everyone good evening i'm librarian of congress carla hayden and welcome to the 2021 library of congress national book festival opening night celebration it's wonderful to see so many of you who are joining us live tonight from across the nation we wish we could do this in person but as the nation continues to grapple with the covert 19 pandemic we want to continue to be safe we have a great event for you tonight the talented writer actor literacy advocate and quiz master lavar burton will be joining us shortly for a conversation so please get your questions ready for him also we have a very special guest tonight the theme for this year's book festival is open a book open the world and we have an amazing lineup of more than 100 diverse authors for this 10-day festival there's an author for everyone children teens and adults we have michael j fox chain ray lee isabel wilkinson jason reynolds bill gates diane van furstenberg trisha yearwood and many more also this year the festival is on multiple platforms so starting today you can create your own festival experience you can watch live virtual events like this one watch videos on demand listen to podcasts from npr attend a ticketed in-person event and watch the special pbs broadcast open a book open to work here's a preview hi everybody i'm levar burton and this is open of book open the world the library of congress national book festival when i try and create a word work of fiction one of my big aims is to create an entire world and i think that kind of fictional world and how we see characters express their thoughts and feelings that for me is opening up the world i believe that narrative nonfiction is the closest that many of us will ever get to being another person and that sense of empathy is good for anybody but it's also particularly important i think for writers because that's one of our most important tools is the capacity for empathy i think there's many places that i met for the very first time through a book for me books were a way of learning about the world and experiencing things i had never experienced before books have always just shown me just how big and how small the world is a good book can take you on a journey and after the last year we are all ready to plot a new course and books can be an amazing conference an addiction to reading has been a key secret of my success it was literature that opened up so many pathways so many possibilities for me i read books so i could discover new worlds in those books i had books that i don't know i don't even think of like like this room i don't think i had any books in but i have like 50 60 books in this room it's enlarging your horizons books everything it gives me more of a complex understanding of humanity which i think is the power of stories that we are able to see ourselves in all manner of different character and that i think is what i enjoy from a great book join me as some of our nation's leading literary voices bring us a sense of renewal discuss their newest work and open up a whole new world of possibilities [Music] to start your book festival journey visit the library of congress website at llc.gov bookfest none of this would be possible without the generous support from our donors we couldn't do this festival without them our festival co-chair david m rubenstein the james madison council the washington post the institute of museum and library services national endowment for the arts national endowment for the humanities npr the new republic capital group joseph and landors the library of congress federal credit union and tim and diane naughton we appreciate all of you now please welcome the co-chair of the national book festival mr david m rubenstein who will be announcing the winners of the 2021 literacy awards and introduce a very special guest david thank you dr hayden it is a pleasure to join you and our virtual audience from around the nation it is my honor to serve once again as co-chair of the national book festival the festival is not only a celebration of books and reading but also of literacy itself life in these demanding times can be very difficult for those who have never learned to read here at the library of congress it is an important part of our mission to combat illiteracy and promote a culture of reading since 2013 i have supported the library of congress literacy awards to honor the outstanding work in the field of literacy and to inspire organizations to continue working for this noble cause the awards recognize the need for the international community to unite in achieving universal literacy here are the top winners of the 2021 library of congress literacy awards the winner of the 2021 international prize is the luminous fund of boston massachusetts the luminous fund provides transformative education programs to thousands of out-of-school children helping them to catch up to grade level reintegrate into local schools and prepare for life-long learning the winner of the 2021 american prize is the parents as teachers national center of saint louis missouri parents as teachers build strong communities thriving families and children who are healthy safe and ready to learn by matching parents and caregivers with trained professionals who make regular personal home visits during a child's earliest years in life from prenatal through kindergarten and finally the top prize the 2021 david m rubinstein prize goes to dolly parton's imagination library of pigeon forge tennessee the imagination library is an initiative of the dollywood foundation founded by dolly parton in 1988. imagination library is dedicated to improving the lives of children through inspiring a love of reading by providing free of charge books to families through local community partnerships in 2018 dolly parton was here at the library of congress to dedicate the 100 millionth book from imagination library to the loc collection to date dolly's library has given away more than 165 million books worldwide so it is my honor to welcome global superstar songwriter and philanthropist the one and only dolly parton everyone this is dolly and i am so honored to accept the library of congress literacy awards david m rubenstein prize that has been awarded to my imagination library isn't that great they say that great minds think alike well i guess great libraries think alike as well seriously though this award means a lot to me because i started this program in honor of my daddy who never learned to read and write and i know that he is smiling from above on this one we've really dreamed big and i am so happy that the imagination library has inspired millions of families to read together and help lay the foundation for success in schools and beyond but we're not done yet so with our team and over two thousand community partners in five countries who have helped us gift more than 170 million books to children and families i am thrilled to share this wonderful award you keep reading and keep dreaming and remember that i will always love you thank you dolly we love you too for your support of literacy and reading is such an inspiration and congratulations to all three 2021 library of congress literacy award winners and the 14 best practice honorees you can get more information about the awards by visiting loc.gov now before i introduce our special guest tonight we have an announcement for you for the past two years you know we have missed an in-person national book festival so i'm excited to announce that we have scheduled a date for the 2022 national book festival back at the washington convention center here in d.c it will be labor day weekend 2022 we're excited to see your smiling faces again and if you don't live in the dc area don't worry we will continue to make this a virtual festival so everyone across the country can enjoy this literary event we can't wait to see you both in person and online so mark your calendar labor day weekend 2022. now to our special guest he has been part of our lives for decades we read with him on reading rainbow watched him in roots one of the most viewed miniseries of all time explored the galaxy with him in star trek the next generation and more recently watched him host america's favorite quiz show jeopardy and now he's the host of the national book festival pbs special open a world open the book in fact it's open a book open the world so joining us from los angeles please welcome the multi-talented mr levar burton good afternoon dr hayden how are you thank you so much indeed well thank you [Music] yes open a book i got so excited i twisted it because for me you could imagine and you with your what book i have to start by asking you was there a particular book that opened the world to you you know dr hidden um when i was um a kid the book i read that really delivered the experience of reading to me was captain's courageous richard kipling and i remember upon finishing the book i i i closed i closed it and i was met with this profound sense of sadness um i didn't recognize it then i i do now as a as a minor depression and i was depressed because i was leaving the world that i had become so attached to and characters that i had really grown close to in a very short period of time so today when i'm reading a particularly good piece of fiction i consciously slow down the last chapter or two to sort of forestall that inevitable sense of sadness that will descend and and take hold when the tale is particularly engrossing and engaging you are a true reader we can see some of the books behind you what started you on this path of loving reading and being such a person who just gets into books and and and the whole world of reading my identity as a reader dr hayden was forged by my mother irma gene christian e-r-m-a-g-e-n whenever i have the opportunity to speak my mother's name in public i do i consider that i am the man that i am because she was the woman that she was my mom was a an english teacher by profession um her second career was in social work and i grew up in a house where reading was um how do you say it um mandatory i like to say that in irma jean's house you either read a book or you got hit in the head with one but you were going to have an experience with the written word wow and so was that part of you becoming such a advocate for literacy from reading rainbow to your own book club now you were really on the forefront my my mother not only read to us when we were kids i have two sisters um she read in front of us and so it was that all-important modeling that really cemented the behavior i grew up knowing that reading was as essential to the human being as is breathing right and and and so um it it it really has uh in large measures shaped my life and my career roots based on the pulitzer prize-winning novel um star trek those those allegorical scripts that gene roddenberry wrote on the original series and that tradition continued with the next generation they say in my business it all begins on the page if it ain't on the page it ain't on the stage right so um literature and the written word are critically important to to what i do to storytelling and and the way i do what it is i do and so as a librarian i have to ask too about the role of libraries because you you had to feed all of that level reading so did libraries play any part absolutely i grew up in sacramento california we call it river city and during the summers um i grew up in south sacramento which didn't have its own branch library um it does now but the bookmobile was the lifeline for me during those summers when i was a kid growing up in santa town um the arrival of the bookmobile in the neighborhood was was caused for celebration at least in my household it was i spent an awful lot of time during the summers on on my bed reading um radio am radio tuned to to san francisco giants baseball game and just disappearing into worlds that i could not imagine um it was i missed those days tremendously when i had infinite amount of time to read simply for pleasure so the bookmobile was sort of like the ice cream truck when you could tell it was coming huh as good as as good as goodness in my opinion it was feeding things now you now you still i mentioned uh your your book club you you have a book club where you select the books i've been told i do i select every every thing we read in the levar burton book club on fable um i hand pick we began um this journey uh back in may with go tell it on the mountain by james baldwin um our second selection was parable of the solar by octavia butler i'm a huge fan of speculative fiction she is uh is the beginning and the end of canon for me um we followed that up but we went back to baldwin with the the fire this time a volume of essays and poems that were edited by the great jasmine ward and we just announced um this week we are on deacon king kong james mcbride that's our fourth selection in the levar burton book club you can join us at uh fable dot co slash levar that's how you find me i've never had a book club before um but this company has developed a technology that gives me a presence in the the virtual world right there along with the the readers in the club and i'm having a great time so uh come on over and join us fable dot co slash lavar now you mentioned baldwin james baldwin twice so i take it you're a pretty big james baldwin fan i am indeed he is the alpha and and the omega where letters are concerned um the man was not only a brilliant writer um he was a brilliant thinker and when baldwin wrote those many years ago decades now um it is astonishing to me that he was speaking directly to me at least that's how it feels when i read him speaks directly to me about the world in which i live in this now moment and and so to have a a voice that is as clear and as prophetic as is his um that is couched in such beautiful lyrical prose his thoughts and ideas continue to inspire me and and millions around the world he really he really is um singular in my view he occupies a a place in the pantheon all all that is all his own and you mentioned one of my favorites octavia butler and what is so different in one way but also very compelling from her own particular area of interest and expertise speculative fiction imagining the future she too has been eerily prescient in her predictions about the world that we live in right now um and i think that is in fact part of the the glory of of literature and having a relationship with the written word to be able to enhance our own understanding and reflections of our world in addition to stimulating and exercising our imagination muscle i think that the the imagination is the superpower of human beings and it is through our engagement with literature mostly fictional literature that we really exercise that imagination muscle um i i say one of the reasons that i continue to read to the generation of adults now who grew up on reading rainbow through my book club and and my podcast lavar burton reeves i i i feel a responsibility to help this next generation develop their imaginations because the problems that my generation is leaving them are married and i think chief among the tools that they will rely upon to solve these very complex problems going forward is their imagination and um and so a healthy relationship with an imaginatory imaginary world and with our imaginative cells i think is is critical to the human being to the successful being to really reach your full potential in life unless you are literate in at least one language because if you can read right then you have the opportunity to be a learner for life and that's what we try to do on reading rainbow take a child who could read and turn them into a reader for life that's where the opportunity to be become a lifelong learner really exists in in that realm of of being a reader identifying self-identified as a reader now back to the podcast though with your podcast you select short stories so yes ma'am what's the strategy with that what's the deal there yeah well um i i i have i have a lot of help um with with the podcast and finding the right story um it is a it is a podcast that features short fiction so in every episode i i read a different piece of short fiction that i've hand-picked uh there is a process that we go through my producer julia marie smith i say on every episode in the credits she's the best in the business and we have a research assistant um akisha lewis and they source uh the stories and they give the first pass they they read them first those that they feel are candidates they funnel to me and i read them and make the final determination i know you're a true reader but how do you find the time i know during this past year books probably meant a lot to you during the pandemic but you read a lot absolutely yeah um well it's a habit right um right now most of my in fact for the last several years we're in uh i'm recording i've begun recording episodes for the tenth season of lavar burn reads we have over 100 episodes of of content of of short stories and i introduce the book and the author and then read the story and then i do a little post script at the end talk a bit about what or how the author or the author's story impacted me um i love it reading aloud is one of my favorite ways of storytelling taking an author's words and interpreting them for an audience um i just i love it doing all the voices and and you know playing the different characters um it really is joyful noise for me now you also mentioned in terms of roots and that's a book that was made into into another medium do you find that that's a difficult thing to do or do you enjoy seeing books being made into films or i enjoy it when they're done well um they're not always done well those adaptations um but when when they're done right um i believe that they really can enhance the audience's appreciation of the story and and and storytelling in general um i think roots was incredibly well done um both the original and the revisiting um of of the story um and i i was i was one of the executive producers on on the retelling of roots because i felt it important to keep this story alive in american culture the original mini-series aired back in 1977 45 years ago and so there's a whole generation of americans who had not seen the original who i believe really do need to have that as a part of their understanding of what it means to be an american and so when that uh transition from book to film is not successful what would you say or how would you characterize failure failure is a failure but failure can also be a very powerful teacher and really informative um you know i've i've seen some adaptations and i think well that was just a bad idea from the beginning and i don't know why they didn't see that um but then again you know books and movies uh like most things subjective are a matter of taste um and and so not everyone feels the same way about everything and that's the beauty of living in a world of infinite variety like we do so did books and reading help you during this past year and a half they did tremendously dr hayden at the beginning of the pandemic um i made a decision a choice to to try and contribute to the moment by reading um over the internet and so i did for a couple of months i did three sessions a week on monday mornings i would read books to children on wednesday afternoons i read why selections mostly from my friend jason reynolds and on friday nights i read two adults i read short stories to adults and so that just in in a time when um you know we were locked down and and at home um it felt like something that i could do to contribute um to the moment that we were all sharing in common i had to give a little shout out to jason reynolds because he's the library of congress's ambassador for young people's literature and he's been so active just like you during this time so that partnership with youtube i'm sure was very very strong and there are so many one of my heroes who that yes he who also found books comforting and provided context for a lot of the issues just general issues that were going on dave's did that did you go to baldwin for some of that baldwin was a real bomb certainly during the the the protests and demonstrations for um for peace and and justice um in america baldwin he spoke directly about this moment and it is amazing to me that um some of the dynamics that that baldwin wrote about and spoke about so eloquently um are unchanged um virtually unchanged uh all of these years later and it really is indicative of the the need and necessity for america to finally turn and face ourselves face the the real story not the the fictionalized version of who we are as a nation but just tell the truth about who we are and how we got here so that you know we might be able to look one another in the eye from a place of of of honesty and only then i believe is reconciliation a possibility for this nation we have to be honest about who we are as a nation the choices that we've made to get to where we are um you got to take the good and the bad together um and and when we do that i i believe that we will be much better off and much stronger as a nation when we can own up to all of our history not just the history that makes us feel good about ourselves and another author you uh selected for your book james mcbride weaves history and fiction and his musical background comes in yeah the man is so remarkably talented it it makes me want to slap him he's that good at so many things i think that that my introduction to to to james mcbride was through the color of water which is sort of an autobiography autobiographical um look at his life and the thing that really jumps out to me about james's writing is the deep sense of humanity um that he infuses all of his characters with and the stories that he writes and that that humanity springs directly from him he is one of the most present um empathetic compassionate people i've ever met and and those qualities just drip off the page of his novels and you have inspired so many young people with reading rainbow and you mentioned them earlier what message would you say would you give to them now um well the to the the generation of adults now who grew up on the show um i i'm still there as a part of your lives introducing you to new authors through either the book club or the podcast and still engaged in a relationship with you around good books and and and new authors um to succeeding generations the i think the the song said it all um butterfly in the sky you can go twice as high take a look it's in a book uh the reading rainbow um the idea that you can pick up a book and travel anywhere in the universe or beyond in your imagination is a pretty powerful um statement to make and before we open it up to the audience i'd just like to ask you what another message you might want to give because there's been a lot of talk about jeopardy lately and i just wondered if you would just like to tell use this opportunity to tell your fans and thank them for the support that they've shown you thank you dr head i really appreciate that yeah i have been overwhelmed by the support from uh from the people from folks out there um they saw that i i sort of i put myself out there um i i wanted the gig i said that i wanted the gig and i went for it it didn't work out that way um but you know when one door closes they say another one opens or a window at least becomes a jar so opportunities that are in front of me right now would never have been possible had i got that job i do believe i'm one of those people who believes everything happens for a reason and and in its own time and timing and oftentimes it's the fullness of time that that reveals you know the true purpose for events as they unfold in our lives and i just try and be patient and and um wait for that which is to be to reveal itself and in this case i didn't have to wait very long i'm i'm really excited about the opportunities that we're looking at right now well i'm sure we're all excited too and we want to know as soon as you can let us know oh keep us posted um now we have some questions coming in and i'm going to just start with the question from john and john wants to know and this i think i want to hear your answer about this too when reading a new book that you are unsure about how much do you read before deciding you can't continue you know it's funny because we live in a world where it is possible to get plenty of information before you open the book and and start with chapter one so it is i can't remember the last book i began that didn't come to my attention as a recommendation from somebody who i know and trust or something that i've read about the book or the author that piqued my interest so um it's been very few times i think i've only ever started one novel in my life and not finished it and that was way back in the day when i was in school um norman naylor's armies of the night i just for some reason couldn't get good and get into it i you know what i should actually probably give that book another opportunity and and see if i don't feel differently about it all of these years later like brussels sprouts give it another shot yeah he was a celebrated author just at the time it just didn't it didn't seem to have anything to offer me and and that's the other thing about books there is a gift in every book in every novel and there there is something um that we take away that that is a gift from from the story from the author and i look forward to those you know those gifts those gems those presents um in my life yes because there's book guilt that so many of us grew up with if you have to finish it so we have a question now from melinda who wants to know and she says i love that you've also used your talents as the narrator and can you tell us either about your experience narrating or your personal experience with audio books they're very popular that's a great question i i personally i love audio literature and for me if i'm if i've listened to a book i really do consider that i've i've read it the thing about audio literature um to me is like i said that opportunity to really perform a story using the clues that the author gives in the text it's just fun to connect those dots and and from a few phrases of description create a character or set a scene um bring the correct emotional note to the moment um and we live in a society where we are multitasking we're doing several things at the same time reading a book forces me to stop and be completely present but i find that i can i can still enjoy a story when it's being told to me and who doesn't like being read to i spend a lot of time reading the folks i i am no different i like to be read too as well and audio books give you a lot of freedom to do those other things but still hear the story still be engaged in the story that's right now a question from michelle that relates to where i am right now says when you visited the library of congress for your reading rainbow episode you got to see some pretty cool behind the scenes places so do you have any fun memories of that day i do indeed um the map's room um seeing ancient documents that um you know that delivered information that shaped the decisions that that people made maps are a really incredible document and and full of stories and it was just really exciting to be able to be that close to documents that were so rare that they're only pulled out on special occasions and you have to wear you know special gloves in order to handle them um in fact i didn't touch anything uh on on the day um but it was just it was thrilling to to to just be that close to documents that old that were as important as they were in the moments of their creation i mean they were really critical to as i say things that that happened historical moments were based on those maps kind of crazy and you were looking at the real thing that's why the gloves the real thing now there's the question from beatrice lavar you have a you have had a huge impact on my love of reading just wondering what's next for you in addition to your new book club anything on the horizon um yes um you know one of the ways i i love being a storyteller is as the director of television and film and um for the past several years i've been in the directing rotation on a show called ncis new orleans starring my old friend scott bakula and that show was cancelled uh last year but the the producing and writing staff has moved over to another cbs show called ncis hawaii and in about 15-16 days time i'll be heading over there for my first directing assignment on this new season of ncis the first season of ncis hawaii great because john has a question he wants to know are there any books you've read that you'd like to see yourself playing a character in a film version wow mm-hmm well you know you know i think um like everybody when when i read novels um if there's if there's room for it i certainly imagine myself as the hero as the protagonist but there are there there are a couple um there's a book by walter tevith um that i would really like to make into a film um and the lead role is is one that um i think i would really enjoy playing uh the the the role is that of um an artificial intelligence a very sophisticated a.i um who is actually in charge of the the world as it has survived in in this novel in the time frame of this novel um and when we meet this character he is in the process of uh trying to end his existence um the wise and the wherefore i i won't spoil for you um but he's unsuccessful in in that attempt and um the story becomes a sort of a love story a triangle between uh this character and two other characters phenomenal story whilst having a man who who wrote um the hustler and and that film adaptation starring paul newman jackie gleason riptorn one of the best book adaptations into a motion picture that that ever was made i think the the hustler and then the follow-up the color of money where paul newman played the same character fast eddie felton um both great great films from the source material a book wow now i know people are going to start looking at the movie and the book the hustler they're going to do it i hope so i hope so it's it's it's a phenomenal phenomenal ride um walter tevis um he passed on some years ago but he left behind a body of work that is substantial and in my estimation formidable really enjoyed his work an awful lot well robert who is one of your biggest fans said i am one of so very many people who grew up watching you on reading rainbow and being encouraged to read from an early age what would you tell me today at 42 i hope you're still reading robert um and and if you aren't why not i think that you know so many of us because we live in such a fast-paced universe we we feel like we don't have time to read that that's something that we can sacrifice when in fact i think it's quite the opposite i think that time spent in the imaginative space is really critical to human beings and and our overall mental health that's one of the things that i love about being on the fable platform um this company and and its founder administry warrior their research reveals that reading at least you know an hour a day um or not even just spending some time in the activity of reading is good for our mental health and um boy i think we could all use um you know some we could all step up our mental health games these days we are all under an awful lot of stress and reading for pleasure for enjoyment if you prioritize it if you make it a part of your self-care routine you will derive the benefits from that you know as i say a relationship with the written word and your imagination i really love how you characterize reading as part of self-care and that's something that we should consider it as it's not a luxury or anything it's really taking care of yourself to expand your mind it is from non it's it's not it's not optional like i said it was never optional in irma jean's house and and and it's not optional in in in my house either you've got to read i mean i don't hit just folks with books but um my threats are a little bit more subtle but you do you do need to read in in this house you absolutely do and did you and that's how you encouraged your own children the cattle prod wasn't necessary for for ward or for mika they both love it um i was able to read uh a lot to michaela when she was when she was a kid we read goodnight moon to her every night um i read harry potter with her my wife stephanie read lemony snicket with her um we've watched jeopardy every night as a family um and we had um just so much fun as she was growing up trying to guess the the the answers to the question and um you know it was just it's amazing to have seen her go from not knowing anything and just guessing to actually you know knowing uh knowing the answers um so they say that you know i like to say that all media is education right all tv is educational the question is what are we teaching and for me um that show really was a high mark of um and and really reflected my love of curiosity and um and information and facts i mean for a half an hour every night america everyone could agree on the facts as they were presented on jeopardy there was no arguing them there was no such thing as alternative facts when when you're talking about the answers on jeopardy they are truth and and that truth is immutable so there's i think for at least for me there was a certain comfort um that came from watching that show night after night when alex was alive and bringing so many people together looking at the same thing and trying to answer the questions for something too and so your friends john wants to know have you ever read any of the star trek novels that feature giordi la forge as a character i have not maybe that's who he wants to be yeah well that's that's the character that i played on on the show and i know there are so many titles out there um um but i gotta tell you john there are episodes of next generation that i have not seen we shot 179 of them no matter depending upon how you count and there are almost 100 that i haven't seen yet um when we were making the show was just impossible to keep up with watching it and i just stopped trying knowing that for the rest of my life i'd be able to tune in every day practically somewhere on the dial and and catch an episode of star trek so um that's what i'm doing now i'm i'm enjoying watching watching them pop up i did a lot of directing on on voyager and deep space nine and enterprise and when those episodes pop up they're you know there was such an amazing period in my life and the storytelling that was done um on those shows was of a really high caliber and when you think about it for most of the time we started next generation and then we were followed by voyager and then there were two star trek shows on simultaneously for for the next couple of decades because then it was voyager and deep space nine and then d space nine and enterprise um were on concurrently so in those ep those series were 26 episodes this season we shot 10 months of the year 12 to 14 hours a day 5 days a week for 10 months of the year that kind of it was a factory a high quality factory for storytelling the likes of which we will never see again that was a pretty phenomenal output of really high quality storytelling that went on on the paramount lot for years and years under the direction of rick berman the executive producers and based on books which is something now laverne more advice because she says my family enjoyed you tremendously on reading rainbow please provide some tips to encourage a child who is not an avid reader parents ask me all the time how can i get my child to read more and i generally ask them two questions number one does your child see you reading it is that very important modeling that i think really needs to be a part of of the equation part of the solution to the problem of getting our children to read more the second question i ask is what is your child passionate about because it's our passions that drive our reading appetite i've said for years if your child loves superheroes then buy your kid a comic book because i don't care what the gateway drug is to reading right comic books are legitimate storytelling so we need to go and meet our kids where they are before we can take them where we want them to go discover what your child is passionate about and then find reading material on that subject or idea i'm so uh glad that you endorsed allowing young people to read comic books as that gateway because that has proven in so many instances to be that hook and graphic novels and and everything so to be able to hear you say use that that's very good comic books had a really important part of my childhood i'm an army brat so we lived overseas and when we were posted to germany um when i was in the third in the fourth grade every saturday um we would go around to the different apartment blocks on base and trade comic books because a comic book you hadn't read was a new comic book to you um and you know this was the 60s and um everything had to be shipped over right so um we we were behind in terms of what was new and happening um in popular culture all the television at that time was in german so i we ended up listening to the radio for entertainment and reading and um and so my my childhood was was full of books and comic books was certainly a large large part of that for me well i'm also pleased to hear you say that because the library of congress as you probably know has the largest comic book collection people might not realize that in the country so we're i think that definitely when i come my next visit i want to take a look at the the comic book facts i want to see what y'all got good we have it we have it and that would be awesome and people are really interested in the podcast too wants to know specifically now how do you choose which stories you feature because there's so many good ones you mentioned in funnel but how do you make that selection okay my criteria is really simple when i get excited when i begin to get excited about wanting to share that story wanting to read it aloud when i begin imagining what the characters sound like when i really begin to immerse myself from the point of view of performance in the story i i know it's a pretty good candidate um that that's always an indicator for me when i get excited about wanting to read it aloud um that's a sure sign for me that that the story is the contender and that's that that's what you say okay this is one i want to pick because there are so many this is one on one yeah yeah well this has been a very hard year and john sent in one of our last questions and it really speaks to i think what we all want to know what books have you found to offer direction forward and an uplifting mindset [Music] i'm going to mention um a couple um when talking about favorite favorite literature for kids i always cite um amazing grace by mary hoffman i also love derek munson's book enemy pie those are two terrific stories that that have a lot of value um cover to cover um we talked earlier about jason reynolds for the y.a set he's just brilliant he gets he gets teenagers um he hasn't forgotten what it feels like to live in that skin he's brilliant um [Music] i'm going to mention a book the road less traveled you mentioned uh something that helped me along my journey this is nonfiction but the road less traveled m scott peck um md um it was a book that i read at a pivotal time in my life when i was really looking for um answers about how to be the most effective human being i could be and i i got an awful lot from from that book the road less traveled by dr m scott peck i'm definitely getting it so thank you navarro for your support of the festival and most importantly your devotion to books and reading you've inspired us all and we love spending time with you and we look forward to seeing you in washington dc soon we'll bring out the good silver all the comic books you want and of course we look forward to labor day weekend 2022 where we can gather again as as well as virtually and celebrate the great literary tradition that our nation is known for and on behalf of the library of congress thank you for joining us tonight the national book festival is now off and running so go to llc.gov slash book fest to start your literary journey have a great evening and take care peace and blessings everybody [Music] you

Channel: Library of Congress

Views: 360

Rating: 4.6799998 out of 5

Keywords: Library of Congress

Id: GdBxJHd-ZYc

Length: 55min 53sec (3353 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 21 2021