of fandom. that is not just promoted by journalists and also by the autocrats that need this part of the menu that they use to retain and stay in power once the full program online anytime at booktv.org. just search moises chaim for the rent revenge of power. >> the up-to-date with the tvspodcast about books . with current nonfiction book releases plus the seller lists as well as industry news and trends through insider interviews. find about books on c-span now, our free mobile app or wherever you get your podcast . >> qian wang is with us courtesy of joyce and ed common. qian wang is a graduate of yale law school, formally a

commercial litigator she's managing partner of gottlieb and wang, a firm dedicated to advocating for education and civil rights . her writing has appeared in major publications such as new york times and washington post . she lives in brooklyn with her husband and her tworescue dogs . please get a warm savanna welcome to qian wang. [applause] >> in the episode of seinfeld title library,, a library investigations officer named lieutenant buchman visits jerry's apartment t. at the visit occurs because according to library records, jerry and henry miller's tropic of cancer .since 1971. but according to jerry, he

returned that same year. when he learns of the dilemma , kramer is terrified. do you know how much that comes to? that's a nickel a day for 20 years. it's going to be $50,000. but when jerry corrects him e it doesn't work like that, kramer gives voice to a fear that would have sent chills through my bodyas a child . if it's a dime a day it's $100,000. when lieutenant buchman arrives on the scene, he delivers perhaps the best monologue of the series and i'm going to try to do it justice. well, let me tell you something funny boy. you know that littlestamp, the one that says new york public library ? that may not mean anything to you but it means a lot to me.

sure, go ahead. laugh if you want to. i've seen yourtype before. flashy, making a scene, flaunting convention . i know what you're thinking. once this guy making such ma big stink about old library books? let me give you a hint, junior. maybe we can livewithout libraries, people like me . maybe. sure, we're told to change the world but what about that kid sitting down, opening a book right now in a branch of the local library and finding drawings of pp's and we we on the cat and the hat and the five chinese brothers? doesn't he deserve better? if you think this is about overdue fines and missing books, you'dbetter 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 the jewish new yorker who grew up in the 90s, i actually legally required to open every speech with a reference to seinfeld. i don't make the rules. 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 buchman's monologue comes to me. he might have been comically overzealous about his job. he had to live up to hisname, after all but he also got something 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 to a 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 all racial minority in a land where i didn't speak the language on a continent where i knew no one but my parents. my parents professors in china were thrown into 14 hour shifts of physical labor at the sweatshop where we made panicpennies for article of clothing . at the sushi plant where my mother's skin turned purple from exposure to ice water, learning that i was newly quote unquote illegal i walked the otherway whenever i saw anyone in uniform . , or custodian. the first english word i learned was a slur for chinese.

a word that into my brain a certain knowledge that my race was repugnant. the memory of our first days in america still come 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 translated, beautiful country. but albert einstein once said the only thing you absolutely have to know is the location of the library and we call that man a genius for a reason. when i found the branch a block away from my elementary school one day, the fog and confusion dissipated and my world opened up again. i was no longer alone. but the library could not restore my life in china, give me back my family and

friends but it did supply new companions. clifford the big red dog, the very hungry caterpillar, the berenstein bears, amelia bedelia and sue and, 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's bedroom in stony brook connecticut, munching oreos hanging out with my friends and feeling babysitting calls just like any other americankid . fans of the babysitters club may recall that claudia loved to hide junk food in hollow books. that reminded me of home i. growing up in a persecuted

dissident family during china's cultural revolution n, my father hid his favorite english books, many of them banned under the floorboards of hisoften 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 his students the critical thought and social commentary he so admired in the words of mark twain d. he often told me returning frustrated from days of teaching with staff stacks of his favorite book 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 he 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 parts of america otherwise inaccessible to me, i learned that i was not too different from the kids the books so often portrayed and so as i write in beautiful country, from there there was no saving me. i lived and breathed books. you see, i actually think buchman may have understated the importance of books. he failed to say that books save lives, that books offer companionship for the lonely, a roadmap for the lost. 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 can learn to speak english perfectly, just like a native speaker than i could plausibly say that i had been born here, a full and legitimate american and arouse no suspicion about my immigration status. if i could blending and act as if i knew what christmas was and what losangeles looked like , then i would fit in just like another american kid. that information, that access to safety and belonging was freely available to me in one place and one place alone. in my work now as an education 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, afno 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 charge a different path, to dream bigger dream for themselves. and for those children, books offer a home in the present and in the future. this is even more true for children, other children than 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 books or to bookstore and avail myself of all the public resources for free. i had 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 claudia's asian american but suburban households and the diary of anne frank whose identity meant she too had to grow up in hiding and through the eyes of jonas training under the giver. seeing all that was invisible to others.those glimmers of recognition were even more precious because they were rare. and under their skin like i felt seen. i hope that they signaled i might even you were the. if america could love those characters perhaps i too se could be loved. perhaps i was not 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 stories we tell. just days ago, the american library association reported that this past fall saw an unprecedented 330 challenges to their books. in november, i was fortunate tto speak at the library convention where i was shocked to learn that the act of providing equal access to books and resources have 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 ourdiscourse .

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 a. 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 bms cure just as 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 authority figures under the threat of discovery and this

deportation i somehow never feared librarians. for they were the hope to my best friends, the only beings with whom it was safe to be my true self. those friends included charlotte and wilbur who to this day remain my northstar for friendship. julie of the walls and matilda who is still keep me company at times when i feel singularly odd . and when i feel that i alone have endured the stress of moving an abrupt and difficult conditions i just 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 bader ginsburg. and it was then and there some 25 years ago that i result result to become a lawyer just like them and change the stories our country chose to tell. and it's courtrooms, and its loss wsand its books. neither that day nor the conviction has left me.

for the treasures of the books that i discovered are edged into my being. my heart still mourns little andan old dan somewhere where the red fern grows . the whites and 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 a time when i needed them gave me a sense that perhaps despite all messaging i was not singularly unwanted. that perhaps i was just as worthy as the next child. to this day whenever i feel scared and lost there are few things more comforting than the sight and smell of books. and because you are here at the book festival at 9 am on 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 and the fifth grade in 1997 or 1998, i too had a missing overdue book. as i check out a new batch of books one afternoon, the library and said there was a problem. i appeared to have a book out that was quickly accruing finds. i said i remember returning it the week before but the system had no record ecof it. when i heard this i almost sank into the ground. what would happen? would i not be allowed to borrowbooks anymore ? get me and my parents thrown into prison from the overdue fees?when i get to read in

prison? would i, worst of all, as i went home and indeed adno longer have the book with her because i have lost it or because i returned itwithout record , what would happen? did the library have other ar copies or what i forever deprive the other children of that branch of that volume? what had i done? the fear was particularly weighty because the book in question had been number 82 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 in the troublemaker. it primarily followed hezekiah ramsey's frustrations and adventures 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. alike claudia, the only asian member jesse hit on things like pressure and ignorance that were all too common in my life. meanwhile danielle was a child with leukemia. and while i was fortunate enough not to have endured anything like what danielle went through, i had a sick mother and we were terrified of all attention from doctor doctors, hospitals or otherwise . in jesse's and daniel's experiences 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 wasstruggling with similar issues could find the comfort that i did . and that to me was the absolute worst consequence. in the end of course, my as library and was far more lenient than kramer wouldhave suggested . there would be no $100,000 charge ,0for me. she said that they would flag the book in the system and give it six months to reemerge. i promised i would return home and look thoroughly usjust in case i really had forgotten it somewhere and seeing the tears in my eyes she choked back a laughand said don't worry dear , it's always 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,

its absence had become something like a new pet i could not stop thinking about . relief poured over me as i was told that yes, the book had been found. the book had been found. the flag had been removed ha from my account and the overdue charges that have been growing if not in the system and certainly in my brain were wiped clean. i was free. but that experience stayed with me. because even in a branch full of books, even in a series with endless volumes, even for a child who was always reading five books at once, every individual book mattered. because of what it portrayed. because of the message it shared. because of the hearts it 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 that matter to just one person. perhaps i could signal to an immigrant child still living in hunger that she too deserved to be onunshelved . 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 ofbeing seen . and isn't that after all why so many of us here today are drawn to read? to write, to commune inthe power of storytelling ? but what happens to the fabric of our society? our empathy, our connection, our communitieswhen we remove one book , then another and then another? like a row of dominoes, they

collapse on each other. and where will children, teens and adults go then to feelless 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 at its s greatest, at its most beautiful. this is the kind of day that shows us how very fortunate we are to live in these united states. how empowered we are by words that changed the world. and how we might go forward and share all the stories we

are fortunate to hear. today's event in the are not unlike one big sprawling library. and it was jorge luis borges who said i always imagined paradise will be like a kind of library. well, as you walk around paradise today i hope you might think about all 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 and as i am legally required to open with that seinfeld quote.

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. you can be the voice, the champion that helps remind her that her story to is what makes america beautiful. thank you so much. [applause] now i'm very happy to take questions. if you could come to the mic in the middle of the room and keep six feet apart.

i was told to say one question per person to. if no one asks anything i'm going to have to sing and i'm tone deaf. just warning you, not a threat. >> thank you so much for coming today. you mentioned now that you work as an education lawyer. did your love of reading influence that decision to go into that tfield ? >> absolutely. and i'm fortunate enough to be a lawyer and have seen inside our legal system and our judicial system and as i practice over the years, it became very apparent to me that the route to systemic change, to foundational change, to progress is in our educationsystem .

availing all children 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, involve my experiences in my adulthood practicing law that tepointed me to the direction of educational law and seeing that was probably the greatest public good i could contribute to . >> high. your first barnes and noble gift card kind of got wasted on a workbook and a dictionary so if you wereto get $50 to barnes and noble today what would you spend it on ? >> i would have to spend it on, i don't know how much they go for now . but at least 5 to 10 of the babysitters club series. the recently been recast as graphic novels which i haven't been able to expose

myself to because i didn't want to tarnish the original experience i had with them through words but i would be very curious to read those as well . >> i wish i could go get that certificate back. >> my question was i was saddened when i was reading your book that the parallels to ronin translation but jean locklin i believe her experience was 25 years probably previous to yours. i'm just curious as to what you see as immigrants experiences now. i think you said 94, 28 years later, how are the immigrants experiences for people now coming from china? >> thank you for asking the question and jean fox's book sums it all and i'm a good friend of mine so i'm honored to be compared to her . 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 the new immigrants , but so often of what i see on the ground in chinatown or even just walking around new york city is much of the same conditions. the problem with the american dream is that things may have materially changed for me but 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, still seeing in their eyes some of the same pains and fears that i myself grappled with decades ago and those moments i so want to pick up that child and say it'll be okay. you are seeing and there are people out there fighting for you but i'm afraid that would terrify the child more. so there is, it's all i can

do to just keep working and waking up every day and pushing for that change it often in those moments of survivors guilt follows me and swallows me up and it feels like there's not enough that i can do every day to take away some of the reality that that child still faces. >> my book club read your book and we were curious as to whyyou ended it when you did . >> there's a whole lot more life. just a question. >> i've always wanted this book to focus on those five years. i know it's odd to say of a memoir but i really didn't think of my book as being about me or my life. i wanted it to be a celebration and attribute 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 so incredibly open and vulnerable and we learn to become guarded and we learn the things that can save us the things that are dangerous to us. i wanted to hone in into those precious years because when you peel back all the adulthood layers, it's that little child inside of all of us that drives many of our decisions and the way we engage with each other and interact with the world and when i looked, i was, that seven-year-old child is very much me. probably the most practical reason is that 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 but a lot of people have asked me that question so now i'm thinking about possibly a

follow-up book. >> thank you very much. i grew up in a very small rural community and we had a bookmobile but when i became a school mage my primary means of having a book was the school library heand then that was really for me for most of you know, i went to law school too. so i'm just curious what your feeling is because you are an education lawyer as well. the fact that the last two years so many children have not been able to actually the physically in a school with perhaps access to the school library which is theonly 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. >> i mean, the pandemic

magnified social economic divides . when covid-19 was first announced my butt were the children who get meals in schools because i relied on those free meals and once you're not required to be there every day, it may no longer feel safe to go out and get that meal so what happens to those children who don't have books at home, don't even have internet access? and what i have seen from engaging with community librarians including my childhood grand chatham square is these librarians are working on having loaned out 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 attuned 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 miseducation, two years of miseducation as ripple effects across the child's future. so it is everything that we are focusing on to minimize those delays, 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 necessarily have internet access, have access to electronic devices should be up of first and foremost goal of our government and our agencies and librarians and community members like you. >>.

>> i'm curious, i'm only about halfway through your book but i'm curious with all the content you had as a child, the good and the bad. have you run into any of those people as a grown up? >> do you mean the teachers, everybody? >> the teachers, the little girls that you want to translate for you and adjust any of those influences. you have so many. that as an adult have you ever run into any of them? >> ori was fortunate to have found a very close knit, tightknit community as you say of bad but also very good people and support and actually i am leaving from

here to go tstraight to the airport because my best friend from the third grade and the book is getting married tomorrow and i'm officiating so i'm very excited. i've never officiated 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 i spoke to a lot of the teachers there including my second grade teacher who is still teaching there as well as my former classmates who are now teachers and they also yhad some choice words to say about the teacher i describe as mister kane . i've gotten a lot of reader emails the moaning teachers like him. but teaching is a hard job so i don't begrudge 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. and she could not believe that i have kept it all these years. but then, she sent 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 remembered a little bit kif you read my book how much of a snarky, sneaky kid i was but in one of the cards , i was purportedly apologizing for what i had gotten in trouble with each was speaking chinese and i said it wasn't my fault, my friend was the one who did it b . and then that was followed by a riddle. what you call a witch on a beach? i think i copied it from somewhere. and to think that she thought that 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're 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 that i could not have even found and i just feel like the luckiest person in the world and 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 and that's sad that when you peel back the labels were not all that different at all . >> thank you so much. [applause] >> tv every sunday features leading authors discussing

their latest nonfiction books . at 8 pm eastern huber biographer george nash details the life and legacy of the former president, his journey through politics and leadership during the great depression at 9 pm eastern tim miller msnbc analyst and author of why we didn't talk about his time in the republican party and weighs in on why many in the gop choose to support president trump. and join us on saturday, september 3 for the library of congress national book festival where for the past 21 years tv has provided live in depth uninterrupted coverage featuring hundreds of nonfiction authors and guests. watch book tv every sunday and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at booktv.org. >> recently on book tv, pulitzer prize-winning author alice walker spoke about her new nonfiction book gathering

blossoms under fireand her development as a writer and activist . >> what i was trying to sell my books on the street and getting nowhere and toni morrison was getting $200,000 you have to own what that feels like. that's why i left it in there that people can see that you're a human being. it hurts when you have so little and somebody else seems to have so much. what it makes a difference if but before that tony and i and june and other women had for this circle. where we decided no matter what happens, we would always be true to each other. that's what revolutionaries. it is really putting it all out there, understanding how it works but getting together beforehand or in the midst and saying you will not be played in this way. >> once the full program online anytime at book

tv.org. just watch alice walker were gatheringblossoms under fire . >> on sundays book tv brings the latest in nonfiction books and authors. the funding comes fromthese television companies and more. including comcast . >> comcast is partnering with 1000 community centers to create wi-fi enabled lists so students from low income families can get the tools they need to be ready for anything . >> comcast along with these television companies supports c-span2 as a public service . >> lidia candace and author of poetry fiction and nonfiction