king court case which was a key early moment in the civil rights movement. find these titles this coming week wherever books are sold and watch for these authors to appear in the near future on book tv. >> julie wong is one with us courtesy of joyce and ed conlon. julie juan is a graduate of the yale law school. formerly a commercial litigator she is not managing partner of gottlieb and when, a firm dedicated to advocating for education in civil rights. her writing has appeared in major publications such as the new york times and washington post. she lives in brooklyn with her husband and their two rescue dogs, salty and pepper. get a warm savanna welcome to

chan julie long. [applause] >> in the episode of seinfeld titled library,, a library investigation officer named lieutenant bookman visits jerry's apartment. the visit occurs because according to library records, ch jerry has had henry miller's tropic of cancer doubt since 1971 . but according to jerry he returned at that same year. when he learns of the dilemma th kramer is terrified. do you know much that comes to? that's a nickel a day for 20 years. it's going tobe $50,000 . but when jerry corrects them it doesn't work like that, kramer gives voice to a fear that would havesent chills through my body as a child . well if it's a dime a day it's $100,000.

when lieutenant bookman arrives on the scene he delivers perhaps the best monologue of the series and i'm going to try to do it justice. let me tell you something, funny boy. you know that little stamp? the one that says new york public library? that may not mean anything to you but it means a lot to me. sure sure, go ahead, laugh if you want to. i've seen your type before. flashy, making a scene, flaunting convention. ei know what you're thinking. what's this guy making such a big stink about all library books a? let me give you a hint. maybe we can live without libraries, people like you and me. maybe . sure, we're too old to change the world but what about that kid sitting down, opening a book right now in a branch at the local library and finding drawings of peepee's and

weewee's on cat in the hat. if you think this is about overdue fines and missing books you better think again . okay. at this point, i know what you're thinking. what is she doing? why is she starting with this ? when will she stop? well, i'm afraid to tell you i will never stop quoting seinfeld. as a jewish new yorker who grew up in the 90s and actually legally required to open every speech with a reference to seinfeldi don't make the rules . but the reality is it's beautiful, special days like this when so many of us get to get together and celebrate the written word that the

truth of bookman's monologue comes to me. he might have been comically overzealous about whose job he had to live up to his name after all . but he also gotsomething very right . books are so much more than words on paper. for a lonely child they may well be her home. her refuge. her pipeline toa brighter future . i know this because i was that child. when i moved to america from china in 1994, everything i had ever known disappeared overnight. for the first time in my life i found myself a racial minority in a land where i didn't speak the language on continents where i knew no one but my parents. my parents professors and in china were thrown into 14 hour shifts of physical labor

at the sweatshop where we made pennies per article of clothing . at the sushi plant where my mother's skin turned purple from unrelentingexposure to ice water . learning that i was nearly quote unquote illegal i walked the other day whenever i saw anyone in uniform . or custodian. the first english word i learned was the slur for chinese. the word into my brain with the certain knowledge that my race was repugnant. by memory of our first days in america still comes to me in a fog of fear, loneliness and hunger. i still remember the confusion that enveloped me as i wondered how the chinese could call this land literally translatedbeautiful country . but albert einstein once said

the only thing you absolutely have to know is the location of the library. and we call that managing is for a reason. when i found the branch a block away from my elementary school, the fog and confusion estimated. and my world opened up again. i was no longer alone. however i cannot restore my life in china, give me back my family and friends but it did supply me companions. clifford the big red dog, the very hungry caterpillar. the berenstein bears. amelia adelia soon the babysitters club and sweet valley high. thanks to the library i was no longer living alone with my parents. in a single room sharing bathroom and kitchen with a rotation of immigrant families. instead, i was sitting in

claudia nykeisha's bedroom in stony brook connecticut munchingoreos , hanging out with my friends mand feeling babysitting calls just like any other american kid. fans of the babysitters club may recall that claudia love to hide junk food in hollow books. that reminded me of home f. growing up in a persecuted dissident family during china's cultural revolution my father hit his favorite english books, many of them banned under the floorboards of his often ransacked and rated home. he would later become an english literature professor but quickly found that even in his classrooms, he was not free to teach a student the critical thought and social commentary that he so admired in the words of mark twain and charles dickens.

he often told me returning frustrated from days of sensor teaching with stacks of his favorite books under his arm narrative is power. and nothing matters more than the stories we tell. that message perhaps is more important now than ever before. every time i heard this in china i thought i knew what you meant. but i did not really feel it, believe it or live it until i arrived in america. and discovered the safety of books. as i taught myself english on volume after volume learning about the parts of america otherwise inaccessible to me, i learned that i was not too different from the kids in books so often per trade. so as i write in a beautiful country, from there there was no saving me. i lived and breathed books.

you see, i think bookman may have understated the importance of books. he failed to say that books save lives. that books offer er companionship for the lonely. a roadmap for the lost. a refuge for the persecuted. in the darkness of undocumented life, our number one priority was blending in. my father told me early and he told me often if i could learn to speak english perfectly, just like a native speaker then i could possibly say that i had been born here. thoughtful and legitimate american. and arouse no suspicion about my immigration status. if i could blend in and ask as if i knew exactly what christmas was and what los

angeles looked like, i would fit in just like another american kid. that information, that access to safety and the longing was freely available to me in one place and one place alone. in my work now as an educational lawyer i see the sanctuary that books offer to the children, the rest of our society seems to have forgotten. for the children who have no adult supervision after school , no means of traveling around the world, no one telling them they are loved, they are safe, they are worthy , every single volume offers the voice, the hope and the guidance they need to dare to chart a different path to dream of a bigger dream. for themselves. and for those children, they

offer a home in the presence and in the future. this is even more true for children h, other children that that it once was for me because i was fortunate to have landed in a large city where i could walk from library to library even bookstore to bookstore and avail myself of all the public resources for free. i have countless books at my disposal. i chose for myself the stories i wanted to read. and yet, even in that freedom , i felt at times lost. reflections of my life came only in slivers. and claudius asian american but suburban households, in the diary of anne frank whose identity meant that she too had to grow up in hiding. through the eyes of jonas, training under the giver.

seeing all i was invisible to others. those slivers of recognition were even more precious because they were rare. and under their scant light i felt seen. i hoped that a signal i might even beworthy . riif america could love those characters perhaps i too could be love. perhaps i was not so different after all. had i grown up in a different part of the united states or in a different time, those glimmers may not have become available to me. and it's worth returning at this point to my father's sage words. narrative is power. and nothing matters more than the story we tell. just days ago, the american library association reported that this past fall, saw an unprecedented 330challenges to their books .

in november i was fortunate to speak at the library and convention where i was shocked to learn that the act of providing equal access to books and resources has become more politicized and exhausting than ever. the movement to ban books is not just happening in our classrooms. it's happening in our libraries, across our nation and our discourse. i'm sure you all remember a time in your childhood when your parents were godlike. 200 feet tall.all-knowing, all encompassing. as long as they were around, you were safe. for me, that smokescreen faded early. when i landed at jfk airport, at age 7 i saw my parents shrink down to mere mortal size.

overnight, they were reduced to fallible beings who were justas confused and afraid and lost as i was . but for me, library books and their characters never lost that holy quality. indeed, over the years as i learned to fear all authority figures under the threat of discovery and those deportation i somehow never feared librarians. for they were the hopes to my best friends. the only beings with whom it was safe to be my true self. ) included charlotte and wilbur to this day remain my northstar for friendship . julia of old matilda who still keep me company at times when i feel singularly odd. and when i feel that i haalone have endured the stress of moving an abrupt and difficult conditions i need to think of mrs. frisbie and

the rats of nim. it was through the library that i learned for the first time about the work of thurgood marshall and ruth baker ginsberg and it was then and there s some 25 years ago that i resolved to become a lawyer just like them and change the stories are countries chose to tell in its courtroom, in its lawsand its books . neither that day nor that conviction left me. for the treasures tof the books that i discovered are etched into my being. my heart still mourns little and an old man from where the red fern grows. it still delights in the silliness of the wayside school and still steals itself with the feminism of a wrinkle in time. but most of all the honor of having found books that reflected me at the time when

i needed them gave me a sense that perhaps all despite all messaging i was not singularly unwanted. that perhaps i wasjust as dworthy as the next child . to this day whenever i feel scared and lost there are few things morecomforting than the sight and smell of books . and because you are here at the book festival at 9 am on a saturday i suspect you can relate. so now that you know a little bit about me, i think it may be safe for me to share a confession. you see, i'm actually not that different from jerry. sometime over the winter in the fifth grade in 1997 or 1998, i too had a missing overdue book. as i checked out a new batch

of books one afternoon, the librarian said there was a problem. i appeared to have a book out that wasquickly accruing fines . i said i remembered returning it the week before but the system had no record of it. when i heard this all but sank into the ground. what would happen? would i not be allowed to buy books anymore? when i get me and my parents thrown into prison with debt from the overdue fees? when i get to read in prison? as i went home and indeed no longer have the book weather because i have lost it or because i returned it without record , what would happen ?s with the libraries have other copies or what i forever deprived the otherchildren of that branch of that volume ? what had idone ?

the fear was particularly weighty because the book in question had been number 82 er in the babysitters club series. don't worry, you might not have the numbers memorized like i do but that just means you're a normal person. number 82 in the bsc series was called jesse and the troublemaker. it primarily followed jessica ramsey's frustrations with one sitting charge, daniel roberts. both of these characters meant the absolute world to me. jesse was the only black member of the babysitters club and it felt like her family was the only black family in town. like claudia the only asian member jesse hit onthings like prejudice and ignorance that were all too common in my life . meanwhile danielle was achild with leukemia . and while i was fortunate enough not to have and toward

anything like what danielle went through i had a sick mother and we were terrified of all attention from doctor and hospitals or otherwise. in jesse's and daniel's s experiences d, apart and then together i found in a book reflections of my reality and now i had gone and misplaced that book. so no other child who was struggling with similar issues could find the comfort that i did. and to me was the absolute worst consequence. in the end of course my librarian was far more lenient thankramer would have suggested .there would be no $100,000 charge for me. she said they would flag the book in the system and giveit

six months to reemerge . i promised i would return home and look thoroughly just in case i had forgotten it somewhere and seeing the tears in my eyes she choked back a laugh and said don't worry dear, italways turns up . and of course she was right. i had not been at home but a few months later when i inquired about the book at checkout and i always did. it's absence had become something like a new pet i could not stop thinking about . release portal for me as i was told that yes, the book had been found. the book had been found. the flag had been removed from my account and the overdue charges that had been growing if not in the system and certainly in my brain were wiped clean . but that experience stayed

with me. because even in a branch for books. even in a series with endless volumes, even for a child who was always reading five books at once, every individual book matters. because of what it portrayed. because of the message it shared . because of the heart is uniquely positioned to touch. and that was the idea that motivated me to write my book . the belief that my story and my life igmight matter to just one person. perhaps i could signal to an immigrant child still living in hunger that she too deserved to be unshelved. perhaps i might dare to hope for my book to one day connect with just one person out there. to tell them that they are worthy of being seen. and it isn't that after all

why so many of us here today are drawn to read? to write? to community in the power of storytelling? what happens to the fabric of our society. our empathy, our connection, our communities when we remove one book, then another and another like a row of dominoes, they collapse on each other. and where the children, teenagers and adults go then to feel less lonely, less the draft. so as you walk around on this book festival in beautiful savannah today, i hope you will take a moment to soak it all in. what an immense privilege and joy it is to be immersed in so many stories. so many perspectives.

so many ideas. you don't have to agree with them all but you are free to hear them all . and this is our country 's greatest, is most beautiful. this is kind of day that shows us how very fortunate we are to live in these united states. how empowered we are by words that change the world and how we might go forward and share all the stories you are fortunate to hear. today's events indeed are not unlike one big sprawling library . and it was jorge luis who said i've always imagined that paradise will be a kind of library. well, as you walk around paradise today i hope you might think about all of the ways you can preserve and

share a piece of this paradise with your community and the people all around you in the weeks and months to come. you have the power to rally for change whether that's by donating or volunteering at your library or calling upon your elected officials. to fight for more public resources. and i end as i am legally required to open with that seinfeld quote. maybe we can live without libraries i, people like you and me. maybe. sure, we're too old to change the world. but what about that kid sitting down, opening a book right now. you can be a voice, the champion helps remind her that her story to is what makes america beautiful.

thank you so much. [applause] >> i'm very happy to take questions if you could come to the light in the middle of the room and keep your feet apart. i was told to say one question per person. if no one asks anything i'm tone deaf. just warning you, not a threat. >> thank you so much for coming today. you mentioned nowthat you work as an education lawyer .

did your love of reading influence that decision to go into that field ? >> absolutely. and i'm fortunate enough to be a lawyer and have seen inside our legal system and our judicial system and as i practiced over the years, it became very apparent to me that the route to systemic change, to foundational change, to progress is in our educationsystem . it's through availing all children of more resources of the power of literacy and interviewing them with that love early and often. so it was all of the, my experiences in my childhood as well as experiences in practicing law that pointed me to the direction of education law and seeing that was probablythe greatest public good i can contribute to .

>> your first barnes and in noble gift card got wasted on the workbook and dictionary so if you were to get $50 to barnes andnoble today what would you spend it on ? >> i would have to spend it on, i don't know how much they go tfor now but at least 5 to 10 of the babysitters club series. they all recently been recast e as graphic novels which i haven't been able to expose myself to because i didn't want toruin, tarnish the original experience i had with them for words but i would be very curious to read those as well . thank you. i wish i could get that certificate back. >> my question was i was saddened when i was reading your book that the parallels to grown translation by her

immigrant experience was 25 oyears probably previous to yours and i'm just curious as to what you see as immigrants experiences now. i think you said 94 where use of said 24 years later how are the immigrants experiences for people now traveling from china? >> jean crocs book is great, i'm honored to be compared to her. i mean, the sad truth is that i don't see a huge change. i see advances in the way that we talk about immigrants and resources that we make available to new immigrants, but soft and of what i see on the ground in chinatown or even walking around new york city , much of the same conditions. the problem with the american dream is that things may have materially changed for me as i'm walking from my fancy home to my fancy law office on the way there i still see

young immigrant children going through the trash with their parents s. still seeing and their eyes some of the same things and fears i myself rattled with decades ago and in those moments i so want to pick up that child and say it will be okay. you are seeing and there are people out there fighting for you. but i'm afraid that would terrify the child more. and so it's all i can do to keep pushing for that change but often in those moments the survivors guilt follows me and swallows me up and it feels like there's not enough i can do every day to take away some of the reality that that child still faces. >> my book club read your book and you were curious as to why you ended it when you did but there's a whole lot more life .

so just a question. >> i always wanted this book to focus on those five years. i know it's odd to say of a memoir i really didn't think of my book as being about me or my life. i wanted it to be a celebration and a tribute to new immigrants, to children. that very special and almost universal time in our childhood where we go out in the world and we don't understand what is going on and we're soincredibly open and vulnerable and we learn to become guarded . and we learn the things that can save us and the things that are dangerous to us. i wanted to hone in into those precious years is when you peel back all the adulthood layers, it's that little child inside all of us that drives so many of our decisions and the way we

engage with each other and interact with the world and when i looked, that stuff in your old childhood is very much me. and probably the most practical reason is i'm only 34 and i don't trust myself to have the wisdom yet to have enough important things to say about the later years a lot of people have asked me that question so now i'm thinking about possibly a follow-up l. >> loved your talk, thank you very much. i grew up in a very small rural community and we had book mobiles but when i fbecame of school age my primary means of having a book was the school library. and that was really for me for most of until i went to law school to but i'm just

curious what your feeling is because you are aneducation lawyer as well . the fact for the last two years so many children have not been able to be ca physically in school with perhaps access to the school library which is the only place they can get books now that they're going back we can't predict what might happen next year or the year after so your thoughts on that because the school libraries are so important. >> pandemic magnified social economic divides. when covid-19 was announced, i relied on those free meals. and once you're not required to be there every day it's made no longer be feasible or it may no longer feel safe to go out to get that meal. so what happens to those children who don't have food at home and don't have books at home, who don't even have internet access. wand what i have seen on

engaging with community librarians including my childhood branch is that these librarians are working on having ipads and computers where children can be able to access pdf resources and books online. they're sending out virtual resources every day and making sure that families are tuned to them. the librarians have really become the front lines of the pandemic for that underserved community but even so in my work at my firm, i've seen a lot of developmental delays and as we know one year of missed education, two years of missed education as rebel effects across the child's future. so it is everything that we are focusing on to minimize the delay and minimize those gaps and discrepancies but it's a valid concern and i would just say that making

those public resources as widely available as possible even for those who may not a necessarily have internet access . have access to electronic devices should be a first and foremost goal of our government and other agencies and libraries and community members like you. >> thank you. >> okay. >> i'm curious. i'm only about halfway through your book but i'm curious with all the context you had as a child the good and bad, have you ever run into any of those people as a grown-up? >> you mean the teachers?

>> the teachers, the other students, the little girl that you wanted to translate for you. any of those influences. you have so many aspen adult if you have ever run into any of them again. >> i was fortunate to have found a tightknit community as you say of folks, bad but also very good people and support and i am leaving from here to go straight to the airport because my best friend from the third grade, he lain in the book is getting married tomorrow and i'm officiating so i'm very excited. i've neverofficiated before so hope i don't mess it up . the book also brought me back to ps 124 where i went to elementary school and spoke to a lot of the teachers there including my second s grade teacher was still teaching their as well as some of my former classmates who are now teachers and they also had some choice words to say about the teacher i

described as mister king. i've gotten a lot of reader emails the moaning teachers like him but teaching is our job so i don't drudge him at all. i'm not connected with him but most special perhaps is my third grade teacher. the principal at ps 124 put us in touch and i sent her photos of the charlotte's web copy that she gave me when i was eight years old. she could not believe that i had kept it all these years. but then, she sends me copies of cards that i gave her just often full of gibberish that she kept for 28 years. 30 years. and i did not remember. i guess i remember a little bit if you've read my book how much of a snarky sneaky kid iwas . but in one of the cards, i

was purportedly apologizing for what i had gotten in trouble with which was speaking chinese and i said it wasn't my fault, my friend was the one who did it and it was followed by a rental. what do you call a witch on a beach? i think i copiedit from somewhere . to think she thought that line of random rambling was special enough to keep. it made me cry instantaneously. it's just so very special and she now has children of her own and we are planning to meet up in brooklyn when everything gets a little bit less hectic. but this book has brought about so many developments and connections i could not have even fathomed and i just feel like the luckiest person in the world and the most special has been connecting with readers. everyone like you with whom the book has resonated more than i could have thought because it really does prove my initial hypothesis was

writing beautiful country. when you peel back all the labels we are really not different at all. thank you so much. [applause] >> during a recent program mark clifford talked about china's control over hong kong when he overshadows what china has planned for the world. >> the broader question why does this matter to the rest of the world. i think china's willingness to destroy a place like hong kong, what threat did hong kong close to china? what did hong kong do? >> what military threat or what threat was hong kong going to become independent ? they were worried after 1989 about hong kong's spirit

of liberty and freedom with spirit into the mainland and that clearly wasn't happening but anytime there's any kind of demonstration the guys in beijing seem to see color revolution.they were seared by the collapse of the soviet union, arab spring. some of the things that have happened in central asia so they just have to black down any kind of uprising but i think the bigger point is what china did in hong kong is the kind of thing it's trying to do in lithuania today. it's trying to do with australia and that it's done with the philippines. country after country that steps out of line as far as china is concerned and of course we can talk about taiwan is going to be hit hard and the chinese are seemingly picking quarrels to use their language with a variety of places and adjust i think using a degree of coercion and trying to limit the ability of those of us in the free world or open society