By: Rachel Slaiman, President WNBA-NYC Chapter
From heavy rain, wind and hail that canceled this event in 2022, to refreshing air and sunshine in 2023, the Brooklyn Book Festival made a huge return in Borough Hall, Brooklyn, New York on October 1, 2023. The festival pays homage to independent and small publishing presses, authors, and literary organizations. The week-long celebration of virtual bookish events complements the Brooklyn Book Festival Marketplace day with panel discussion and children’s festival the day before the main event.
Members of the WNBA-NYC Chapter volunteered their time to discuss the organization with prospective members, book lovers, graphic novelists, a translator, poets, and writers from all walks of the literary world. Giveaways of bookmarks, post-its, magnets, donated books, flyers about Great Group Reads and Member Author Books, allowed for interesting conversations and promoted the organization.
The Jewish holiday, Sukkot, fell on October 1st and is the
“Festival of the Booths and Fall harvest.” Men (and women) in black
holding the distinctive “lulav” (palms with branches of greens) and “etrog” (lemon-like citrons) were waving blessings.
Our member volunteers gave their perspective about the day.
- Eileen Donovan: Great fun at book fair and met lots of interesting people; what a great experience.
- Hope Lawrence: Excellent opportunity to network with other organizations and even treat oneself to a new book or two!
- Roberta Slaiman: So many different types of people came to the booth: writers, readers, authors, or just the curious person wanting to know more. Hearing their story was very interesting, rewarding, and enjoyable.
- Laurel Stokes: I really enjoyed volunteering and learning about new organizations and advocating for literacy and celebrating reading.
Banned books have been in the news lately because of differing points of view on which books should be accessible to children and young adults. Arguably, it seems like many concepts that were not even mentioned some 5 to 10 years ago, are now being brought forward. Shelia Lewis, also a member volunteer, observed that it was special to see diversity and cultural identity being upheld across the expansive plaza in front of Brooklyn Borough Hall, and in a broad commitment to address issues such as banned books, different voices, freedom of speech, and the free circulation of books. Coupled with Lewis’ observation, volunteers also met the founder of unbancollies.org who is committed to promoting banned books and supporting the authors.
Many of us grew up reading titles that are now banned books. Of the different passersby that we met throughout the day, you can easily see that there is a book for everyone. Banning books does not allow another person to have a point of view. Seeing these books celebrated at the Festival is one of the many reasons we attend year after year.
