SAN ANTONIO – Around 1,000 students braved cold temperatures on Saturday to meet some of their favorite authors and find like-minded friends who want to read.
LibraryPalooza returned to Brandeis High School and featured five different authors.
“I always look forward to LibraryPalooza every year, it’s just such an awesome opportunity,” said high school senior Abigail Nicolella. “I really love how reading lets you experience so many different worlds. You get to learn about things that you wouldn’t encounter in your life normally, and I think that’s just a really special experience”.
Nicolella said she has noticed many of her classmates don’t like reading — something she said could be attributed to an increase in technology over the years.
High school senior Helen Lan said if you asked her librarians, they would say she checks out five books at a time.
“You know, a lot of people say that they don’t like reading, but there’s a book for everybody, so I don’t understand how that works,” Lan said.
Organizers behind LibraryPalooza said they want to take the perceptions of loneliness away from reading by introducing students to like-minded peers and showing them that reading can be fun.
One of this year’s featured writers, Lamar Giles, said San Antonio is one of his favorite places to travel to.
Giles said no authors ever visited him and his classmates when they were in school.
“I didn’t even really grasp that writers were real people ... So being on the other side of it, I loved being able to walk into a room as a regular person and say, ‘I write books for a living,’” he said.
Giles said events like LibraryPalooza let readers see authors are regular people, too.
“It really makes a huge amount of difference that they can see you and trust you,” Giles said. “Otherwise, you’re just a name on the side of a spine.”
Organizers said they’re already looking for new authors to come to next year’s LibraryPalooza.
Read also:
