BY LUIS ANGEL PEREZ MARTINEZ
The Brooklyn Book Festival hosted its annual Children’s Day outside Borough Hall on Saturday, September 20, bringing families, young readers, and authors together for a day of art, imagination, and storytelling.
The all-day event featured several activity booths, meet-and-greets, and two stages where authors read from their books and discussed their creative process. The celebration was part of the Brooklyn Book Festival (BKBF), a non-profit organization that showcases and highlights different genres and authors.
The event drew a large, enthusiastic crowd, with parents and children engaging in activities and exploring the wide range of books on display. This is intended to attract a new generation of readers who are excited about learning, as well as to help them understand who is behind the books they may be interested in reading about.
“I think that kids often get books in their hands and they don’t realize that there is a person who created them, that there’s an illustrator and there’s a writer…Those kids who are doing those activities can grow up to be writers or illustrators and that’s part of what we want to see them do today,” said Liz Koch, the Producer and President of the BKBF.
Families had the opportunity to meet authors through a meet-and-greet event, featuring book signings and conversations. Interactive activities surrounded the festival, including coloring tables, typewriter demonstrations, and Pictionary with authors. Some booths also offered games such as prize wheels alongside book sales.
Children’s Day focused specifically on books for young readers, covering themes such as learning new languages, comics, folktales, religion, current issues, and imagination. Among the many featured works was an upcoming book by Millie Von Platen, centered on Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani’s walks through New York City. The book, which celebrates the people and places that shape NYC, is set to be released on October 28.
Various companies, including Brooklyn Law School, the Asian American Writers Workshop, New York University, Brooklyn Public Library and others, sponsored it.
Authors may need to find a way to make kids interested in reading their books, such as a case for the book series “Gordon and Li Li”.
Gordon and Li Li are two pandas who are cousins, teaching each other about their languages, as Gordon is from Brooklyn, NY, and Li Li is from Beijing, China. Gordon knows English, but Lilly is teaching Gordon Mandarin. This is by the author Michelle Wong, whose goal is to teach her kids Mandarin the way that she learned, as she didn’t grow up with her culture or language. She got the idea from her parents, whose names are Gordan and Li Li, and uses it as a sign of respect.
The way she has made kids more interested in her books is by making the characters look cute with their panda look, as well as using those characters to sell pushi versions of both Gordon and Li Li.
She has been a part of the BKBF for five years and is very glad she is a part of helping children learn more about different languages.
Referring to the Festival, Wong said, “I love what they do. I love how they support kids and make it really fun, and encourage kids to want to learn. It’s really about engaging kids with reading when they’re young because that’s when they absorb everything, and they’re just excited to learn about exploring new topics, learning languages. They’re sponges, so it’s a perfect time.”