Mayra Cuevas, Ismée Williams and Alex Villasante organized, with the help of some volunteers, the first edition of the Latinx Kidlit Book Festival in 2020. The idea for the event emerged from the lack of opportunities to connect writers and readers during quarantine. 

Cuevas came up with the idea of a book festival that centered on Latinx book creators for kids, as there was nothing like that at the time. 

The three founders had met at Las Musas cooperative — for Latinx writers and illustrators of children literature who identity on the feminine spectrum, including nonbinary individuals — from where they already had a network of volunteers that they could count on for organizing the festival.  

This year’s Virtual Latinx Kids Book Festival will be held on Thursday, Oct. 13th, and Friday, Oct. 14th. With a variety of different panels throughout the day, the event will be streamed live on the festival’s YouTube channel. Sessions can be safely streamed into the classroom and shared with students using an educator's account. Classrooms can also engage with festival authors and illustrators using the live-chat option. 

Al Día News spoke with Williams, festival’s co-founder and board of directors member, about this year's event. Besides being a pediatric cardiologist and a mother of three girls, she is also a children’s book author with two young adult novels published. 

Her most recent work is called This Train Is Being Held: a New York City subway romance that deals with mental health, police brutality and colorism within the Latinx community. She is now working as an editor and contributor to a young adult anthology called Boundless, which centers on the multiracial and multicultural experience. The book is expected to be published in June 2023. 

Williams highlighted her personal reasons for joining the festival’s organization team, which was her desire to help students and educators during the pandemic — as no one had any idea how the 2020-2021 school year would be. As it was a disaster for many students and a challenge for educators across the country; Williams said the festival was an opportunity to create something joyful and a reason for educators, writers, illustrators and students to get together. 

Celebrating the stories and giving students the opportunity to meet authors and illustrators were some of the main goals of the festival. Making students feel important and validated, as well as giving educators and librarians free content that is accessible and relevant for the classroom were part of the plan. 

Williams also mentioned the importance Latinx books have in society, as they are made for everyone — especially in the globalized world live. One of the festival’s main purposes is to expose students from all backgrounds to the beauty of the Latinx heritage stories. 

“The books are good for Latinx children to see themselves represented, but it’s important for all students to be exposed to stories from different cultures,” she added. “Stories are a good way to increase empathy and understanding.” 

Regarding the festival, Williams said that the authors and illustrators don’t need to have best-sellers' works to attend the event, as the mission of the non-profit is to uplift the creative voice of all Latinx kids literature book creators — including the beginners. 

Dedicated to hearing the voices of the audience, the book festival organization makes sure to incorporate previously sent questions from the students for the authors and illustrators into the discussion panels. Topics such as how to handle writer's block or how to use inspiration from your own life in a story are a few examples of questions answered. 

With content from pre-k to 12th grade, the book festival tries to come up with something new each year. In 2021, there was a career panel with individuals who weren’t authors or illustrators, but were very important to the book publishing industry — such as agents and editors. With this initiative, the organizers wanted to target those students who love to read, but don’t think of themselves as writers or illustrators. The panel wanted to present to them alternatives in this career.  

This year, two new ideas are being incorporated into the festival’s schedule: a book club panel discussion format with a group of students and the author Meg Medina, and an illustration panel where illustrators will create a picture book from students’ drawings. 

Besides that, Williams mentioned the extremely popular festival’s illustrator draw off. Three  illustrators, along with the help of a moderator who takes prompts from the live audience, create designs based on students’ ideas. Two of those are in Spanish, which are good for language learning programs as they are visual, Williams said.   

With schools joining from all over the country, all the content will be recorded and published on the festival’s youtube after. However, Williams makes sure to remind everyone about the good part of joining it live, which is the possibility of engaging with the authors throughout the live chat. 

To learn more about the festival and its panels, click here.