Friday, April 24, 1998
New events spice of life at book fair
BOOKS: Additions add flair to past favorites, seek to unite
community
By Michelle Zubiate
Daily Bruin Contributor
They put us to bed as little children and stimulate our minds as
adults. They haunt us in our dorm rooms and call to us in our
sleep. They’ve held both power to destroy and the power to educate
over generations. This weekend the Los Angeles community comes
together once again on campus to celebrate them.
This year’s festival will hold many of the same events of years
past but changes have been made for increased creativity and fun.
The festival originated as both a celebration and almost out of a
necessity to bring increased literary awareness to Los Angeles.
Los Angeles Times’ Gloria Lopez explains, "It was an idea from
our two festival co-chairs (Lisa Cleri Reale and Narda Zacchino)
who thought Los Angeles needed a festival. It’s been very
successful."
It’s hard to miss the hustle and bustle of booth set-up outside
of Royce and Powell as the campus braces itself for almost 300
exhibitor stations. At these booths people can attend free poetry
readings all weekend and meet their favorite authors. The lineup of
authors attending stretches from Ray Bradbury ("Farenheit 451") and
R.L. Stine (the "Goosebump" series) to Octavia Butler ("Kindred"),
to name a few.
As in past years, the festival includes over 80 panels within
the UCLA classrooms that range on a variety of subjects from "How
To Write Your First Novel" to "Animals ‘R’ Us." And like every year
the tickets to these events sell almost instantly as people rush to
hear well-knowns like actor Charlton Heston discuss Hemingway and
author Angela Davis discuss African American literature.
But even more exciting are all the new additions to the festival
this year. UCLA’s Spanish and Portuguese department joins in with a
marathon reading of Cervantes’ classic, "Don Quixote." Every year a
small group of professors specializing in Cervantes’ works organize
a symposium on the Saturday closest to the anniversary of
Cervantes’ death in April. Last year, organizers suggested a public
reading organized to celebrate Cervantes’ literature. UCLA’s
Cervantes specialist Professor Carroll Johnson then took on the
task of bringing it to this year’s book festival.
"Students and professors will read for 10 minutes at a time all
Saturday long in whatever language they would like to read it in,"
Johnson says. "’Don Quixote’ is the second most translated book in
the world. Only the Bible is translated into more languages. We
thought it would be a neat cultural icon of the diversity of Los
Angeles."
The council general of Spain is scheduled to put in a reading at
11 a.m. on Saturday.
The festival focuses this year on literary awareness among the
young and old of the community. Therefore, the festival seeks to
attract children as well as adults through their children’s area
and Target Stage. Author, singer and songwriter Jose-Luis Orozco
("Diez Deditos and Other Play Rhymes and Action Songs From Latin
America") will perform on the Target Stage both days of the event.
Actor Edward James Olmos ("Stand and Deliver," "Selena") and
Captain Kangaroo both reside as two additional guests.
Also in accordance with the theme of educating children, the
International Printing Museum will bring their traveling Benjamin
Franklin colonial print shop. The exhibit will include a working
period press from around 1750 that displays techniques in both
printing and book binding. A frequent display in children’s
outreach programs, it tells the 5,000 year history of books from
clay tablets to Guttenberg’s invention of the printing press up
colonial America.
"We expect to interact with lots of people," says Mark Barbour
of the International Printing Museum. "We want to get people
interested and intrigued about the subject and the structure of
books. We also want to let people know about the outreach program
that is available to go to schools in order to supplement the work
that schools are doing in literacy, reading and history."
Recently, the museum has lost its home due to a freeway
expansion over the property. While they wait for a new venue, these
programs keep the museum involved with the community.
Keeping in mind what’s important, the Los Angeles Times and all
their sponsors enter the events for this weekend with optimism for
success.
"It’s a cultural event to make people aware of literacy," Lopez
says.
BOOK FAIR: For more information on the Los Angeles Times
Festival of Books, call 1-800-LATIMES, ext. 7BOOK.