How Tucson became home to one of the largest gatherings in children's literature

Someday, no doubt, someone will write a book about the Tucson Festival of Books. When that day comes, here is a suggestion for Chapter 1:

Use big, picture-book type … short, easy-to-read sentences … some bright, colorful drawings … and begin where every festival begins: with the annual Storybook Parade.

This year’s Tucson Festival of Books will be March 9-10 at the University of Arizona, and the first event on Day 1 will again be the parade, a loud, joyful procession of kids who will wind their way through the festival grounds to the Children, Teens and Young Adult area surrounding the College of Education.

The festival cannot begin until the children get there, and why would it?

Tucson has become one of the largest, most significant gatherings in all of children’s literature.

Just ask Adam Rex, a picture-book author and illustrator who will be appearing in his 14th hometown book festival.

“When you see the list of authors who are coming, you know this is a big, big deal,” Rex said. “R.L. Stine? Kate DiCamillo? These people are as big as they come in children’s literature. But we’ll have dozens of other great authors, too, and kids will be right in the middle of it all. I don’t think it’s just bias that makes me say I like our festival the best of all the ones I do.”

Stine will introduce his new Goosebumps series, “House of Shivers.” DiCamillo will launch her latest bestseller, “Ferris,” which will release four days before the festival begins.

Bob Odenkirk and his daughter, Erin, will be here with “Zilot & Other Important Rhymes.”

Rap star Vashti Harrison was a finalist for the 2023 National Book Award in Young People’s Literature with “Big.”

LeUyen Pham and Gene Luen Yang created the award-winning graphic novel, “Lunar New Year Love Story.”

Rebecca Bach-Lauritsen and Anna Margrethe Kjaergaard, who authored “Out of the Blue,” are coming from Denmark.

“Every year I try to pop in and see someone I’ve read or read about, and every year my list gets longer,” said Rex. “There’s just no way I can see everybody I want to see.”

By the end of book festival weekend, there will be kids saying that, too.

The Children, Teens and Young Adult program will feature 68 authors in more than 100 sessions, games and activities.

Around them will be a constant swirl of chattering children who may bump into author Lori Alexander when flying around one corner and a costumed Clifford the Big Red Dog rounding the next. That, Rex said, is what sets Tucson apart.

“At a lot of book events, I’ll look out into the audience, and the only people I’ll see are adults; librarians, teachers, parents … I won’t see any children at all. Here in Tucson, I’ll see lots of kids. Sooner or later, I’ll probably be sitting on a quilt, reading with them.”

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Book festival weekend will include author carousels where children and teens meet seven or eight authors during a single session.

There will be Story Blankets where authors read to small children sitting on quilts.

There will be studio sessions for young illustrators and opportunities for young adults to discuss books about young adults.

Interestingly, these were somewhat new when UA Professor Kathy Short agreed to organize the children’s program for the first book festival in 2009.

“Back then,” she recalls, “we went to conferences where adults would talk with other adults about books for children. The first time I went to a book festival, in Los Angeles, the authors were all onstage in a large hall, trying to entertain the audience.”

Short, who still manages the Children, Teens and Young Adult area today, wanted Tucson to feel more like Tucson.

“We wanted authors who would interact with kids,” she said. “Our goal was to make children into readers. When you’ve met the author and talked to them, when you’ve heard them read their book, you never read them the same way again. So that’s where we wanted to start.”

For the second year of the festival, the headliner was Joy Harjo. For the fourth event, it was Stine. By 2015, publishers were lining up to send their own top authors to Tucson.

The program has been growing ever since, with sessions now offered for teachers, artists and emerging authors of books for children.

“We have so many audiences now you never know who you might see,” Short said.

Still, at its heart, the festival is kids’ stuff, and authors such as Rex can’t wait.

“For me, the book festival is this shining star I look to every year, a time to catch up with all the friends I see once a year … in Tucson. I hope it’s that way for readers, too. It’s their chance to connect with this weird stranger who means so much to them because they happen to love the stories he writes. It will be great to see them all again.”

FOOTNOTES

If you and your own kids would like to be part of this year’s Storybook Parade, come to the UA Bookstore before 9 a.m. on Saturday, March 9. Mariachi and an assortment of costumed characters from the pages of children’s literature will begin the procession at 9.

The University of Arizona will formally celebrate Kathy Short’s appointment as a regents professor on Wednesday, Feb. 28. Now in her 35th year with the College of Education, Short is director of the World of Words Center there. She also heads the widely acclaimed Children and Young Adults area at the Tucson Festival of Books. The Arizona Board of Regents confirmed Short’s appointment last spring.

Poet Matthew Zapruder will read from his latest collection, “Story of a Poem,” Thursday, Feb. 29, at the UA Poetry Center, 1508 E. Helen Street. The program will begin at 7 p.m.