Book Festival Offers Passport to Reading

It was a book lover’s dream, conceived in a moment of literary euphoria.

Four years ago, parent Karen Bachrach, a self-professed bookworm, was sitting at The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, when she thought, “There is this great thing happening, . . . why don’t we create our own?”

So she did.

Working with several other parents and armed with grant money from the Los Angeles Annenberg Metropolitan Project and the Mattel Foundation, Bachrach created the Passport to Reading festival at Taft High School.

The free, one-evening event is designed for students and parents from Taft High School, Thoreau Continuation High School, Parkman Middle School, and Calvert Street, Serrania Avenue, Woodland Hills, Wilbur Avenue and Fullbright Avenue elementary schools, but is open to the public.

Modeled on The Times’ annual Festival of Books, held at UCLA, the first Passport to Reading had just eight authors. But so many people attended, every printed program was snapped up within 10 minutes and traffic backed up on the nearby Ventura Freeway caused a Sig Alert.

The fourth Passport to Reading festival Thursday will include 50 authors, storytellers, singers and poets from around the country. About 3,000 parents, children, teachers and book lovers are expected to attend.

Conceived as a way to motivate children to read, the program features professional and amateur authors and storytellers talking about their creative process and reading from their works.

Students can also get into the act by reading their stories and poems at an open microphone. Books will be sold and the writers will be on hand to sign them.

Guest authors this year include Kimberly Kirberger, who wrote, “Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul,” and Barbara Saltzman, who published a book written by her late son, “How the Jester Lost his Jingle.”

Several books from Passport authors have been distributed to elementary and middle school teachers to read to their students.

In the past, younger children were issued “passports” stamped for each session they attended. They turned in the passports to their English teachers for extra credit. But as the festival grew, the system became unwieldy. Elementary students now simply circle the sessions they attend on their programs before turning them in.

This year, to get more high school students involved, 10 books by guest authors were on recommended summer reading lists. A student who reads a book, attends the author’s session and correctly answers three to four questions on a short quiz presented by the writer will receive extra credit points in English class.

Teachers praise the Passport to Reading festival for inspiring children to read.

“I see kids excited about reading in a way that you don’t see on a daily basis--that you never see,” said Carol Morgan, a counselor at Parkman Middle School, who helped make a documentary about the reading event last year. “You see them in a session, and they are just amazed at the opportunity to speak to these people. How often do kids talk to authors? How often do they sit in a room with someone who has published their work?”

Arthur Berchin, who heads the English Department at Taft, said he hopes the program will help high school students recapture the joy of reading they experienced when they were younger.

“To watch those young students, they were captivated by what the author was saying about her book,” Berchin said about a session he attended last year. “She was showing the pictures she had included, how she had had them created, how the cover was designed, and you stop and say to yourself, ‘What happened along the line between when these students are young children and adolescents? What happened to make them lose that enthusiasm?’ ”

Passport to Reading, Thursday, 6-9 p.m., Taft High School, 5461 Winnetka Ave., Woodland Hills.