Plass Learning Resources Center caught the attention of everyone on Saturday morning Sept. 28. The yearly Kansas Book Festival (KBF) covered the yards and the rooms filled with authors, poets, vendors, music and most of all —books.
This year was the 13th annual Kansas Book Festival hosted by Washburn Library. From the KBF website, the festival brought a lineup of 50 authors, including NYTimes Bestsellers and winners of national book awards. Their presentations were done inside the library which occupied two floors; the rooms were where they talked about fiction, non-fiction, poetry and children’s fiction.
One of the early presentations was “There Are No Noncombatants,” which was led by authors Elizabeth Farnsworth and Theodore Wheeler. They covered historical fiction from their books “Last Light” written by Farnsworth and “The War Begins in Paris” written by Wheeler.
Wheeler set the scene for the movie and talked about the character dynamics in his book.
These one-hour presentations happened from 9 a.m.-4 p.m. While the presentations inside the library were happening, there were 40 outdoor tent exhibitions displayed outside the library. With the exhibitions, there were outdoor performances, food trucks and children’s activity tents.
One of the children’s activity tents was the Kansas Children’s Discovery Center. The non-profit organization’s center is currently undergoing a $10 million expansion, where it is going from a 15,000 to a 30,000-square-foot interior.
Marty Hiller, director of Community Engagement at Kansas Children’s Discovery Center, was responsible for some of its programs, both on and off-site. The activity tent had roll engineer ramps for kids to play with, as well as bubble machines and bubble wands for giveaways.
“A lot of why we are here today is for outreach for our children’s museum but also to facilitate that need for children’s activities at this book festival,” Hiller said. “I know some other things that are going to be happening here at the activity tent including some children’s storytelling. I also know that the folks from Mulvane Art Museum are going to be getting involved after we wrap up.”
Aside from the Kansas Children’s Discovery Center was a table from Delta Kappa Gamma where they raffled tickets off for a quilt. Carrie Deghand, fourth-grade teacher at Berryton Elementary, and Gwen Elliott, a retired school social worker, stood at the table as representatives for the raffle tickets.
Elliott described where the donations from the raffles go and one of the things she kept on coming back to was Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASSA)
“So CASSA, our volunteers, are volunteers who follow a child’s case through the court system and try to think about the interest of the child,” Elliott said. “We also give $300 grants at a time which we probably do five times a year. We also donate a lot of money to community education.”
The KBF lasted until 4 p.m. with people coming in and going out throughout the day. This provided an opportunity for authors and poets as well as for organizations working for a good cause to reach the community. It also supported local and family-owned food vendors as a part of the event.
Edited by Morgan Albrecht and Eden Conrad
