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2006 National Book Festival
The Library of Congress Celebrates the Joys of Reading and Lifelong Literacy
OFFICIAL NATIONAL BOOK FESTIVAL PRESS RELEASE
Library of Congress Announces Award-Winning Authors Participate In Sixth Annual National Book Festival Celebrating the Joys of Reading and Lifelong Literacy
Library of Congress and Laura Bush Invite Book Lovers of All
Ages to the National Mall on Saturday, Sept. 30
The 2006 National Book Festival, organized and sponsored by the Library of Congress and hosted by Mrs. Laura Bush, will be held from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 30, on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., between 7th and 14th streets (rain or shine). The festival is free and open to the public.
�Each year, tens of thousands book lovers attend this national event to meet their favorite authors and celebrate lifelong literacy, which we are also highlighting in a partnership with the Ad Council� said Librarian of Congress James H. Billington. �Now in its sixth year, the National Book Festival presents a wonderful opportunity to see firsthand how reading changes lives and how our country, its citizens and its libraries promote reading in imaginative and inspiring ways."
�The National Book Festival is a great way for families and friends to share in the joys of reading and discover the works of some of America�s most-loved authors,� Mrs. Bush said. �Readers of all ages can listen to and meet their favorite writers and enjoy a day on the National Mall.�
At the 2006 National Book Festival, more than 70 well-known authors, illustrators and poets will discuss their work in various pavilions, including �Children,� �Teens & Children,� �Fiction & Fantasy,� �Mysteries & Thrillers,� �History & Biography,� �Home & Family� and �Poetry.� Festival goers can have books signed by their favorite authors, and children can meet ever-popular storybook and television characters, such as Arthur The Aardvark, Maya and Clifford the Big Red Dog, who will appear on the festival grounds throughout the day.
Participating authors include best-selling novelists Khaled Hosseini, author of the �Kite Runner� and Geraldine Brooks, winner of the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for her book �March�; novelist and essayist Joan Didion; historians John Hope Franklin and Doris Kearns Goodwin; biographer Taylor Branch (�Martin Luther King�); Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin, winners of the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for their biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer; authors of books for children and teens, including Andrew Clements, Stephenie Meyer, Richard Peck, and Louis Sachar; award-winning illustrators Bryan Collier, Betsy Lewin and Mark Teague; Donald Hall, the recently named 14th Poet Laureate of the United States; and poet Dana Gioia, the director the National Endowment for the Arts; best-selling mystery and thriller authors, including Michael Connelly, Lisa Scottoline, Kathy Reichs and Alexander McCall Smith; science fiction award-winner Spider Robinson; and Elmer Kelton, author of more than 40 novels and voted �the best Western author of all time� by the Western Writers of America.
Popular personalities in the �Home & Family� pavilion include television celebrity chefs and authors G. Garvin and Marcus Samuelsson; CNBC economics and investments commentator Jim Cramer and popular linguistics expert Deborah Tannen, whose new best-seller is titled �You�re Wearing That? Understanding Mothers and Daughters in Conversation.�
Beyond meeting their favorite authors, festival visitors will have the opportunity to learn about the reading programs and resources in libraries across the country. The �Pavilion of the States� will highlight the book, reading, literacy and library promotion activities of all 50 states, the District of Columbia and several American trusts and territories. Representatives from every state and territory will welcome families and children interested in that state's writers and reading programs. In addition, the �Let�s Read America� pavilion will feature reading promotion activities developed by select festival sponsors.
The Library of Congress Pavilion will feature a variety of interactive family-centered activities about the importance of lifelong literacy, cultural preservation, and preserving digital culture. Computers will be available for children and adults to explore the Library�s acclaimed Web site at www.loc.gov. The Library�s myriad online resources contain examples of American creativity in all forms such as music, poetry, films, photographs, maps, and sound recordings. The Library�s new National Audiovisual Conservation Center will introduce the latest technologies in film and audio preservation. The Veterans History Project will also feature a teacher and her students who use VHP material in the classroom. Two students will interview Ezra Hill, a Tuskegee Airman. VHP historian Tom Weiner will interview Darlene Iskra, the first woman to command a ship in the U.S. Navy and serve during the Persian Gulf War.
In the �Teens and Children� pavilion, the national student winners of the Letters About Literature contest will read their personal letters to authors who inspired them. Sponsored by the Library�s Center for the Book with support from distinguished benefactor Target, Letters About Literature invites young readers in grades 4-12 to write personal letters to authors, past or present, who have changed their views of the world or of themselves. Each year, winners are selected at the state and national levels. As the project�s corporate sponsor, Target awards the six national winners and their parents with a trip to the National Book Festival in Washington, to share their winning letters with a national audience.
�It is inspiring to see the number of young people whose lives have been positively affected by a particular author or book,� said Laysha Ward, vice president, community relations, Target. �Through its comprehensive support of early childhood reading, including the Letters About Literature program and the National Book Festival, Target is able to helping to instill a love of reading in kids as the foundation for reading early in life and further the goals of lifelong learning literacy.�
In addition to planning a range of activities for this year�s festival on the National Mall, the Library is offering a variety of ways for people around the country to participate in the event online. New this year will be downloadable podcasts of interviews with popular participating authors. The Library will also present same-day webcasts of selected authors� presentations from the �Teens & Children,� �Mysteries & Thrillers� and �Fiction & Fantasy� pavilions. Both the webcasts and the podcasts will be available on the Library�s Web site at www.loc.gov/bookfest.
During the week leading up to the festival, washingtonpost.com will host a series of online chats with authors appearing at the National Book Festival. These text-based discussions can be viewed daily, starting on Monday, Sept. 25, on the site at www.washingtonpost.com. The schedule of chats and authors� names will be posted on the site and the Library�s site at www.loc.gov/bookfest. Participants can submit questions in advance or during the live discussion. Authors� responses will post while the program is airing or at a later date on washingtonpost.com�s online discussion archive.
In addition to live webcasts, the Library will again collaborate with Book TV on C-SPAN2 to televise the National Book Festival �History & Biography� pavilion events live on Sept. 30. The C-SPAN2 Book TV Bus, a mobile Book TV studio with a multimedia demonstration center for the public, will also be on the National Mall. Festival coverage will be streamed live on C-SPAN�s website www.booktv.org.
The artist for this year�s festival is award-winning Russian illustrator Gennady Spirin, whose lush contemporary technique brings a rich, imaginative depiction to the 2006 National Book Festival poster. Spirin combines a modern aesthetic with the great traditions of the Renaissance. He has illustrated 30 storybooks for children and has won four gold medals from the Society of Illustrators. Four of his books, including �The Sea King�s Daughter� (1997), were named the best illustrated book of the year by The New York Times. Posters featuring the illustration painting will be available free of charge at the festival.
The 2006 National Book Festival is made possible with generous support from Distinguished Benefactor Target; Charter Sponsors AT&T, The Amend Group and The Washington Post; Patrons AARP, the James Madison Council and the National Endowment for the Arts; and a myriad of contributors. The Junior League of Washington will again contribute hundreds of volunteers to help with the National Book Festival.
A preliminary list of participating authors, illustrators and poets follows. For more information about them and the festival, visit www.loc.gov/bookfest.
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2006 NATIONAL BOOK FESTIVAL AUTHORS BY PAVILION as of July 12, 2006
CHILDREN
Bryan Collier
Tony DiTerlizzi
Betsy Lewin
John McCutcheon
Sheila P. Moses
Kadir Nelson
Mark Teague
Judith Viorst
Mo Willems
NBA/WNBA
TEENS & CHILDREN
Andrew Clements
Judith Ortiz Cofer
Sharon Draper
Stephenie Meyer
Richard Peck
Sharon Robinson
Louis Sachar
Terry Trueman
Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez
Letters About Literature
FICTION & FANTASY
Marie Arana
Geraldine Brooks
Christopher Buckley
Julia Glass
Khaled Hosseini
Elmer Kelton &
Lucia St. Clair Robson
Sharyn McCrumb
Alice McDermott
Spider Robinson & Jeanne Robinson
MYSTERIES & THRILLERS
Harlan Coben
Michael Connelly
Vince Flynn
Brad Meltzer
George Pelecanos
Kathy Reichs
Lisa Scottoline
Daniel Silva
Alexander McCall Smith
Scott Turow
HISTORY & BIOGRAPHY
Kai Bird & Martin Sherwin
Taylor Branch
Douglas Brinkley
Andrew Carroll
Bruce Feiler
John Hope Franklin
Doris Kearns Goodwin
Nathaniel Philbrick
Robert Remini
HOME & FAMILY
William Alexander
Kevin Clash
Jim Cramer
G. Garvin
John Grogan
James Reston Jr.
Marcus Samuelsson
Alexandra Stoddard
Deborah Tannen
Rosalind Wiseman
POETRY
Dana Gioia
Donald Hall (Poet Laureate)
Poetry Out Loud
The following African-American writers and artists are expected to attend:
Tony DiTerlizzi - DiTerlizzi was a successful fantasy artist before he fulfilled a childhood dream of writing and illustrating books for children. His spooky picture book The Spider and the Fly (2002) was a Caldecott Honor Medal winner and New York Times best-seller, and The Spiderwick Chronicles series (Simon & Schuster, 2003-2004), co-created with Holly Black, is based on an idea he had in the works for 20 years. His latest book is G Is for One Gzonk! An Alpha-Number-Bet Book (Simon & Schuster, 2006).
Kadir Nelson - Nelson began his career in illustration by creating the storyboards for Steven Spielberg�s film �Amistad.� Since that time he has become a much-sought-after artist, illustrating many celebrated picture books, including the Coretta Scott King Honor Book Thunder Rose, the best-seller Salt in His Shoes and Ellington Was Not a Street, for which he received the 2005 Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award. His latest book illustrations are for the NAACP Image Award-nominated Please, Puppy, Please (Simon & Schuster, 2005) by Spike Lee and Tonya Lewis.
Sharon Draper - A professional educator as well as an accomplished writer of stories that teenagers love to read, Draper has been honored as the National Teacher of the Year and is a popular conference speaker, addressing educational and literary groups both nationally and internationally. She is the recipient of the Coretta Scott King Award for the best-seller Forged by Fire (1998) and a Coretta Scott King Honor for The Battle of Jericho (2004). Her most recent book is Ziggy and the Black Dinosaurs: The Space Mission Adventure (Simon & Schuster, 2006).
Sharon Robinson - Sharon Robinson, daughter of legendary baseball hero Jackie Robinson, is the author of several books for young readers, including Promises to Keep: How Jackie Robinson Changed America (2004) and her newest book, Safe at Home (Scholastic, 2006), a novel. As an educational consultant for Major League Baseball, she oversees school and community-based education programs such as Breaking Barriers, In Sport, In Life, a national character education program designed to empower students with strategies to help them face obstacles in their lives. The program has reached more than 9 million children across the United States, Puerto Rico and Canada.
John Hope Franklin - John Hope Franklin, Duke University professor of history emeritus, is the author and editor of 17 books, including the best-selling From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans. As the first distinguished visiting scholar at the Library of Congress under the John W. Kluge Endowment, he completed his autobiography, Mirror to America (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005). For his academic achievements, his interventions with American racism and his numerous acts of public service, Professor Franklin has been the recipient of many honors, including the Jefferson Medal, the Charles Frankel Prize, the NAACP�s Spingarn Medal and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Kevin Clash - A puppeteer best known for his portrayal of the character Elmo on the children's television show �Sesame Street," Clash is co-executive producer of �Elmo�s World� and has won several Emmy awards for Outstanding Performer in a Children's Series (1990, 2005 and 2006) and for his work as co-executive producer of an Outstanding Pre-School Children�s Series (2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005). His recent book is My Life as a Furry Red Monster (Random House, 2006).
G. Garvin - After study in Europe and heading up the kitchens of several major restaurants across the country, he went on to build his own successful restaurant in Los Angeles, which in less than a year earned top honors from both the Los Angeles Times and Los Angeles magazine. He is host of TV One's original series �Turn Up the Heat with G. Garvin� and was highly ranked among TV chefs by Southwest Airlines� Spirit magazine in its January 2006 issue. His cookbook is Turn Up the Heat with G. Garvin (Meredith, 2006).