At the end of many rainy days there appears a rainbow, and at the end of some rainbows a pot of gold, which is located just to the right of the U.S. Capitol at the Library’s Thomas Jefferson Building in this photo taken late Saturday afternoon, Sept. 27, at the 2008 National Book Festival.
- Gail Fineberg
The misty, squishy morning did nothing to dampen the enthusiasm of book lovers who showed up early to grab book bags and the best pavilion seats—then join a swelling crowd to hear and see their favorite authors at the eighth National Book Festival on Saturday, Sept. 27.
“What an awesome experience. It’s very cool to meet all these famous people. The number of people walking around with books is just awesome. I’ll come every year!” said Emily Mason, a pre-kindergarten teacher who had just moved to College Park, Md., from Rochester, N.Y.
Earlier, as joggers splashed through puddles while passing by the Himalayan-like white pavilions on the nearly empty National Mall, 600 Library staffers and Junior League volunteers in vibrant teal-blue festival T-shirts fanned out to their duty posts. They set out book bags the color of their shirts and piles of programs, uncrated stacks of bottled water, and found golf carts to be loaded with VIPs and security staff.
The first of many long lines of the day formed shortly after 8 a.m. to go through security into the Children’s pavilion for a presentation by First Lady Laura Bush and her daughter Jenna Bush Hager, who were to discuss and read their new children’s book, “Read All About It.”
The Librarian of Congress, James H. Billington, welcomed them and opened the festival. “The National Book Festival is a joyous celebration of reading and an inspiration for new generations of creativity,” the Librarian said. “We are grateful to Mrs. Bush for making this a signature event in the nation’s capital for the last eight years. Her love of reading has inspired millions to enjoy the Library of Congress in Washington and online and to use their own hometown libraries everywhere.”
After their talk, Mrs. Bush and her co-author signed books in the secured area for an hour. The crowd of autograph seekers in their line had the unintended effect of deterring some visitors who wanted to see a presentation by artist Jan Brett, a children’s book author who had also created this year’s festival poster.
Despite that short-lived problem and the increasing temperature and humidity, spirits ran high all day, even through a 4 p.m. downpour that drove festivalgoers into all available pavilion space. Which wasn’t much.
Starting a few minutes before the festival opened at 10 a.m., the crowds started to swell, reaching the estimated 120,000 hoped for and filling nearly every pavilion to overflowing.
Left: Jan Brett autographs a poster that she designed for the festival. She also demonstrated her drawing ability in the Children’s pavilion and talked about the African animals that inspire her. - Jane Sargus Right: Sir Salman Rushdie and Marie Arana team up for a lively series of questions and answers during his 2008 National Book Festival appearance. She asked him if he considers himself to be a pioneer of post-colonial literature, and he replied, “I’d say post-globalization as well,” adding that he tries to paint his stories on a big canvas. - Nancy Alfaro
People stood five deep around the edges of the Fiction and Mystery pavilion to hear Sir Salman Rushdie, knighted this year by Queen Elizabeth for his service to literature and declared the best-ever winner of the Booker Prize. Amid cries from the audience of “Down in front,” Rushdie—obviously impressed by the size of the crowd—was heard to mutter, “It’s Woodstock.”
When Marie Arana, editor of Washington Post Book World, introduced him, she said she hoped the National Book Festival—which the Post has helped sponsor all eight years—would continue even though Laura Bush, who conceived the idea in 2001, would be no longer be the hostess. The crowd roared its approval, as did every other pavilion audience who heard the same hope voiced throughout the day.
To nurture that possibility, the Library has reserved space on the National Mall for the 2009 National Book Festival. Fundraising will be a key issue. “I hope they’ll continue the book festival after the Bushes leave office. It’s a very important event, like the Chautauqua of the 19th century,” said Beverly Spencer of Rockville, Md., who was attending for the third time.
Left: Veteran journalist and biographer Walter Isaacson enthralls his History and Biography audience with stories about Albert Einstein, whose biography “Einstein: His Life and Universe” he wrote for publication this year. - Barry Wheeler Center: Author-journalist-musician James McBride visits with fans after his discussion of his new book set on the Eastern Shore, “Song Yet Sung,” about “the web of relationships that existed in slavery.” - Nancy Alfaro Right: Neil Gaiman, introduced as “the most versatile writer of our time,” reads from “The Graveyard Book” which took him 23 years to write. - Susie Neel
With more than 70 authors and illustrators to hear from, both serious readers and celebrity-seekers found their marks. Hundreds of children and teens were there.
“I’ve been coming to this festival every year for eight years, and this is as good as it gets,” said a history buff, who by the end of the day had heard eight authors—Rushdie, Gordon Wood, Tony Horowitz, Kimberly Dozier, David Maraniss, Walter Isaacson, Michael Dobbs and Rick Atkinson.
Left: “Favorite Book” mural signed by reading fans at the festival. - Matt Raymond Right: “The spirit of American women is very special,” said Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas. She discussed her latest book, “Leading Ladies: American Trailblazers” (2007), which she said she wrote as a follow-up to “American Heroines: The Spirited Women Who Shaped Our Country” (2004) to include women in the military and in science. - Barry Wheeler
Sheldon Krebs, who with a group of State Department colleagues was standing near the History and Biography pavilion, said the festival is “one of the best events going on in Washington, D.C. It’s a don’t-miss event.”
“There’s almost too much going on at the same time. I’d like to see it all,” said his associate Rob Laing, in D.C. temporarily to study Persian.
Soaking up the words of fiction writers Rushdie, Philippa Gregory, Gwendolyn Brooks and others was Ron Starr of Bethesda, Md., a semi-retired pediatric orthodontist. “Everywhere I go I read,” he said. “I can whip off 10 chapters in the mornings while waiting for the anesthetic to numb my patients.”
Left: Authors captivate the History and Biography pavilion audience. - Barry Wheeler Right: Bullseye the Target pooch is top dog in the Let’s Read America II pavilion. - Susie Neel
Former NFL running back Tiki Barber, whose side-lining football injury gave him time to collaborate with his brother on picture books for kids, packed them in, as did book-writing basketball stars Chris Duhon, Bob Lanier and Ivory Latta, cake-baker Warren Brown, financial writer Michelle Singletary and singer Dionne Warwick.
Warwick and Barber both spoke of discovering the joy of authorship in the midst of otherwise rich lives.
“I love to sing, I love to talk and I found out I love to write,” said Warwick to an admiring Children’s pavilion crowd, many of whom grew up with her music. Others learned about her from her “quasi-autobiographical” book “Say A Little Prayer.”
Warwick said her publisher had advised her to “write what you know.” So she did just that. Her picture book tells the story of Little D, growing up on Sterling Street in East Orange, N.J., who discovers her talent for singing. With a message of “If you think it, you can do it,” the book encourages children to find their talent and embrace it.
“If you believe in yourself, you will always be successful,” Tiki Barber’s mother always told him. He passes her wisdom along to kids in the Children’s pavilion. - Michaela McNichol
Like Warwick, Barber began writing for children to inspire them. And he writes what he knows. Barber’s most recent work “Go Long!” joins “Game Day” and “Teammates.” “If you believe in yourself you will always be successful,” Barber added, quoting his mother, who raised him and his identical twin brother, Ronde, to set and achieve their goals.
Barber’s favorite is the first book he and his brother wrote. “By My Brother’s Side” underscores the bond between the brothers that was both strained and strengthened by a sports injury.
“Your book inspired me to be nicer to my brother,” said a young fan in the audience. “You made my day,” beamed Barber.
The Pavilion of the States and Let’s Read America pavilions were always busy with activities to amuse and educate children, such as the ever-popular maps of the states that kept them moving from table to table to get their maps stamped for each state. Waves of people throughout the day washed into the Library of Congress pavilion, with its displays of the Library’s interactive technology, online exhibitions, demonstrations of the new World Digital Library, preservation tips and the beloved graffiti wall.
Although hundreds of book titles of every kind ended up on five crammed, bedsheet-size writing surfaces, some who approached just couldn’t decide on one favorite among hundreds of beloved books, so they handed back the marker, turned around and left, said staffer Oxana Horodecka.
Early in the day, the Library of Congress Experience table was full to capacity as book enthusiasts explored the personalized myLOC.gov site and the digitalized exhibitions “Creating the United States,” “Thomas Jefferson’s Library” and “Exploring the Early Americas.” Closing the festival was a message of peace, hope and faith from a survivor of the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
“Life is a joy today. Every day I live it as a gift,” said Immaculée Ilibagiza, who received a standing ovation from the History and Biography pavilion audience even before she spoke.
Left: Reading in front of an audience with WNBA star Ivory Latta was a big deal for Garrett Hiltz of Falls Church, Va. He said it was one of the best moments of his life.
- Michaela McNichol Right: The story of Rwandan survivor Immaculée Ilibagiza touches the hearts of the Librarian and Mrs. Billington. - Susan Harper
Ilibagiza told her story. While she was home on a holiday visit from Rwanda’s National University, her family became worried that Hutu violence would erupt against their tribal group, the Tutsis, as the result of the death of Rwanda’s president, a Hutu.
Ilibagiza’s father insisted that she seek shelter in the home of a family friend, a Hutu pastor. She took refuge with at least seven other Tutsi women in the pastor’s 3-foot-by-4-foot bathroom, in which they hid, mostly hungry and continually terrified, for 91 days.
The women could not speak; they could not move; they could not flush the toilet unless the other toilet in the house was being flushed, lest someone suspect they were there.
Armed with machetes, Hutu marauders, some of them people she had known, searched the house several times for Tutsis. One day, sensing that her killer was but a few inches away, she experienced a crisis of faith. But she listened to an inner voice that suggested she pray: “If You are there, please don’t let the killers find the door to the bathroom.”
A Hutu had his hand on the doorknob to the bathroom, but suddenly he turned to the pastor and said, “You know what? We trust you,” and left the house.
After reading a Bible she requested from the pastor, she came to believe that “the people who are hunting us, they don’t get it. And you, hating them, is not going to change anything.”
Smuggled by the pastor to safety in a French refugee camp, Ilibagiza learned that her family had been killed. But she found the compassion to visit the man who killed them, and forgave him.
Eventually Ilibagiza arrived in the United States, went to work for the United Nations and began writing her first book, “Left to Tell: Discovering God Amid the Rwandan Holocaust,” which has been translated into 19 languages. She said she has heard from many readers who have followed its message to forgive. That, she said, is “thrilling.” This year she published “Led by Faith: Rising from the Ashes of the Rwandan Genocide.”
