The Great Read Draws Thousands
to Columbia

By Elizabeth Devereaux -- Publishers Weekly, 10/15/2007 2:05:00 PM

You’d expect thousands of readers to throng the quad at New York City’s Columbia University on a beautiful October day, but you might not expect those readers to be under the age of eight. That’s just what occurred Sunday, however, as parents and small children flocked to Columbia, lured by the New York Times Great Children’s Read. The event featured two open-air stages, one with celebrity readings of  favorite children’s books and the other presenting a mix of bands and children’s authors and illustrators; book signings; plus a variety of interactive attractions from New York City museums, libraries and event sponsors Scholastic and DreamWorks. The red-and-white bull's-eye of Target, the event’s presenter and the operator of an on-site bookstore, bobbed up and down seemingly everywhere throughout the crowd, on the company’s free totes.

Just before noon, while children lined up for autographs from  American Girl author Lisa Yee (Good Luck, Ivy) and others, hundreds more were being led by parents toward either Mariska Hargitay of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, to a reading of Charlotte’s Web, or toward Mary Poppins, as numerous adults were overheard to call Julie Andrews Edwards, appearing with her daughter Emma Walton Hamilton to promote their book Thanks to You. Fielding questions from the audience, Edwards noted that she had just submitted her autobiography, written for adults, to Hyperion and couldn’t wait to get back to writing for children. Asked the inevitable Mary Poppins question—this one took the shape of, Did being Mary Poppins make you a better mother?—Edwards referred the question to her daughter, who replied that her mother used the ordinary magic of good mothering but conceded that the singing-in-the-shower factor at her home was definitely superior.

Other celebrity readings reflected the same droll wit that had put Law and Order’s Det. Olivia Benson on the case of the menaced piglet. Pat Kiernan, a local television newscaster, read Jon Scieszcka and Lane Smith’s The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs; New York City police commissioner Raymond Kelly read Dr. Seuss’s Green Eggs and Ham; and Stacy London, co-host of What Not to Wear, read from Sara Pennypacker’s Clementine (once the children seated near her stopped comparing their outfits with hers). “Okay,” London said agreeably, “It’s time to stop talking about accessories and read.”

Click here to read an interview with Stacy London.

Photo © 2007 Wellington Lee