Kids could meet the faces behind some of their favorite books at the WOW! Children’s Museum Book Festival held Saturday in Lafayette.
The festival was a collaboration between the WOW! Children’s Museum and the Rocky Mountain Chapter of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. Saturday marked the museum’s first time putting on a book festival, as well as the first time the Rocky Mountain SCBWI chapter has held an event at a children’s museum.
The Rocky Mountain chapter, which includes Colorado and Wyoming, has a membership of 175 traditionally published authors and illustrators. Susan Wroble, regional advisor for the Rocky Mountain chapter, said events with multiple authors like Saturday’s usually take place at literary conferences, rather than at local museums like WOW!
“This is the first where there’s a lot of kids as opposed to teachers,” Wroble said. “The energy in this room has been absolutely incredible.”
At the festival, children and their parents could get books signed by the 24 authors and illustrators in attendance. Each guest also led an activity that kids could do at their table, such as making custom stickers or decorating rocks.
“I think it just makes books come alive even more when there are other things associated with them,” said Joanna Cagan, executive director of WOW! Children’s Museum.
Cagan called the book festival a “natural fit” for the museum.
“Year-round, we try to host different arts and cultural experiences for children,” Cagan said. “Partnering with artists of all kinds from around the region is really important. Those kinds of partnerships just make so much sense to us because it’s part of childhood play.”
Andrea Wang, a Centennial author, taught kids how to make origami tea cups after reading them her book, “Luli and the Language of Tea.”
“They get to walk away with something that they can actually use,” Wang said. “We’re all here for the kids. We all just love meeting them and talking to them.”
Boulder author Carolyn Combs thought the museum’s emphasis on science and discovery paired well with her book, “What’s This Tail Saying?” – a story about how animals communicate.
“For an author, just being able to interact with our audience is really special,” Combs said.
The event was also supported by The Red Queen Bookstore, located across the street from the museum. The local business provided copies of the guest authors’ books that festival attendees could purchase.
Kim Brown, community programs manager for WOW!, said she was delighted to see how many kids and their parents attended the festival from 1 to 4 p.m.
“We’re just so excited because we’re all a bunch of book nerds,” Brown said. “For us, this is just an ideal way to introduce something new to WOW! that we don’t usually have.”
