Library of Congress National Book Festival

Today we went to the National Book Festival. It was on the lawn between the Capital and Washington Monument. It was great! We only went to the kids tents knowing anything else might be hard to keep the kids attention.
We were able to see all the characters from PBS. They had Polaroid cameras everywhere and would take photos of your family with the characters and then give them to you in little paper frames.
We saw the Magic School Bus and watched Ms. Frizzle read books. We sat down and read books and colored.
Target was one of the sponsors so they had Target water bottles everywhere. It was nice and nippy outside so we didn't really need them. CSPAN gave away blue bags to hold all of our free treasures. We got these cool PBS bags full of fun stuff for the kids.
I had checked out books from all the children visiting authors and illustrators from the library so that AK would be familiar with them. We were able to see and hear the illustrator Kadir Nelson. I am sure anyone would be familiar with his art. He has a new book about Michael Jordan coming out in January. He was inspiring to youth about becoming what you want to be.
After he was done there were three NBA/WNBA players who read books to the kids.
I was really inspired by the lines to have the authors sign your books. It had to have been an hour line. There were people almost camping out eating lunch in line to have their signature. I was so impressed with how many parents sat there with their teenagers to wait for that.
I hope the love of books are something my family will have.The one book I did find at the Scholastic corner was a series about Ella the Elephant. I am sure I am the last one to hear about these books. I loved them. If I thought Sally Jane would wear a hat for Halloween I would make her a Ella costume. But without the hat it is just a girl in a cute dress. Check out these books at your library.