Where the stories never end
Phones are down and the books are open
Library club member purchases a pencil from the Swag Shop. The club attended the North Texas Teen Book Festival last Saturday.
April 9, 2019
The place where fiction can become reality, and imagination is free to roam. A place where the stories are no longer just stories, but an escape from reality. With the opportunity to discover stories from around the world with issues to relate to.
The library club attended the North Texas Teen Book Festival in Irving, Texas, this past Saturday. At the festival, students had the opportunity to learn about new books and authors while interacting with other students with different opinions.
“The majority of the time it is usually sports that gets the most attention,” sophomore Ana Zepeda said. “Being able to be recognized as a bookworm or as a person who really, really likes literature means a lot. We can all get together and experience new things and expand our knowledge about books and literature.”
The festival gives teens who enjoy reading a place to fit in and meet other teens who may share the same interests as them. The festival acts as an acceptance place for the teens who enjoy reading.
“There were lots of ages, way more than what I was thinking,” senior Cole Platt said. “Obviously there were lots of young adult books but there were kids, [and people ranging] probably from 12 to 60 there and it was just a really big diverse crowd that was really cool to see. They even had a section for Spanish books which I thought was really awesome.”
While the name of the festival has an appeal to teens, there are is a very broad age range of people that attend the festival, as well as different races. The books also encourage diversity and acceptance by having books about different types of teens from different parts of the world with similar issues.
“I feel like [the festival] just brings people together, reading is such a solitary thing sometimes for a lot or people,” author Christine Riccio said. “When you have a friend in real life who reads that you can talk to, it makes everything so much more enjoyable and you can find those friends at conventions like this.”
The festival is a great way to meet new people who share the same interests. It encourages teens to get out of their comfort zone and explore new things with new people that share their love for books.
“It is like a trip to books a million, but at the same time it is ten times bigger because some of the authors of the books are there in person and you also get to meet them and maybe get their autograph or be face to face, one on one asking them questions or giving them your opinion about their book,” Zepeda said. “Overall it was a great experience because getting to know so many people of so many fandoms in one place is complete chaos but in a positive way because you get a taste of a little bit of everything.”
