Two prominent authors headline Hawaii’s only reading festival focused on young adults—but Celebrate Reading is not just for teens.
HONOLULU, HAWAII — Call it a book club on steroids. Hawaii’s Celebrate Reading Festival, the state’s only reading festival focused on young adults—with dramatic presentations, storytelling, performance poetry as well as a core of reading and writing sessions led by some of Hawaii’s most prominent authors, enters its 14th year this April with live discussions led by mainland authors Gene Luen Yang and Matt de la Peña.
Gene Luen Yang’s graphic stories (among them Gordon Yamamoto and the King of the Geeks, The Eternal Smile, and Prime Baby) have won him multiple awards and national acclaim: in 2006, Yang’s American Born Chinese became the first graphic novel to be nominated for the National Book Award, and the first to win the Printz Award from the American Library Association (ALA). Yang, a computer science teacher by day, lives in California with his family.
Matt de la Peña’s realistic YA novel Ball Don’t Lie has been made into a soon-to-be-released major motion picture starring Ludacris, Nick Cannon, and Rosanna Arquette. His third novel, We Were Here, was an ALA-YALSA Best Book for Young Adults. Mexican Whiteboy and I Will Save You also celebrate diversity. He teaches at NYU.
The publishing world has known for years that Young Adult (YA) fiction, the industry’s fastest-growing sector, is in fact being devoured by grownups. Recently, the New York Times took it public that YA fiction has won a massive adult readership, as witnessed by the perpetual crowning of its bestseller list by the likes of Twilight, Harry Potter, and Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games.
Likewise, this festival is not just for young readers. Celebrate Reading has always had a healthy share of adult attendees who come to discuss craft with some of Hawaii’s regionally and nationally published writers. This year’s roster of 23 writers includes bestselling fantasy author Kate Elliott, poet and historical novelist Juliet Kono, biographer Stuart Coleman, debut novelist Alexei Melnick, and playwright and fiction-writer Victoria Kneubuhl. Rounding out the program are storytelling by John Osorio, performance poetry by emcee Kealoha, and scenes for discussion from Hamlet.
Gene Luen Yang, Matt de la Peña and Lorna Hershinow are available for interview.
About Celebrate Reading:
Founded by current director Lorna Hershinow in 1998 to give Hawaii’s teen and college readers a forum for discussion of ideas about literature and writing craft in an age of declining arts funding and imperiled test scores, Celebrate Reading was developed to connect the generations through conversation. It has evolved into Hawaii’s premier annual festival for youth, serving not only young adult readers but community readers and writers. Our leading sponsors are the Hawaii Writing Project and the Hawaii Council for the Humanities. The festival has always attracted prominent guest authors, from Orson Scott Card (bestselling author of Ender’s Game) to Christopher Moore (Lamb, Fluke) and Markus Zusak (The Book Thief). Even more important to its mission is that it has attracted student participation from public schools around the state, including Kahuku High, Pearl City High, Kailua Intermediate, Farrington High, Kalakaua Intermediate and Castle High.
