we are just so happy to be here and very much appreciate you. [applause]

the world has changed. today fast reliable internet connection is something no one can live without so wow is there for customers with speed, reliability, value and choice. now more than ever it starts with great internet. >> along with these television companies supporting c-span2 as a public service. >> a graduate of yale law school and swarthmore college the commercial litigator she's managing a firm dedicated to advocating for education her writing has appeared in major publications such as "the new york times" and the "washington post." she lives in brooklyn with her

husband and lives with her dogs salty and pepper. please they warm welcome. [applause] in the episode of "seinfeld" a library investigation officer named lieutenant bookman visits jerry's apartment. according to library records, jerry m had henry miller's cancr checked out since 1971 but he returned it the same year. when he learned the dilemma do you know how much that comes to it's going to be $50,000. but when jerry corrects him it doesn't work like that.

kramer gives voice to a fear that would have sent chills through my body as i a child whn lieutenant bookman arrives at the scene, she delivers perhaps the best monologue of the series. that may not mean anything to you but it means a lot to me. i've seen your type before. flashing, making a scene. i know what you're thinking. what is he making a big stink about library books or let me give you a hand maybe we can live without people like you and me. maybe. we are too old to change the

world but what about that kid to sitting down opening a book right now in a branch at the local library and finding drawings on the cat in the hat doesn't he deserve better? if you think this is about overdue signs and missing books, you better think again. at this point, i know what you're thinking what is she doing?en why is she starting with this and when will she stop? i'm afraid touo tell you i will never stop quoting "seinfeld." as a jewish new yorker that grew up in the '90s i'm legally required to open every speech. i don't make the rules. the reality is it's beautiful,

special days like this when so many of us get together to celebrate the written word that to the truth of the monologue comes to main. he might have been comically overzealous about his job. he also got something very right.e the books are so much more than words on paper. for the lonely child or they may well be your home, refuge, pipeline to a brighter future. i know this because i was that child. in 1994, everything i've 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 a continent where i m knew nothing but my

parents. professor and china were thrown into labor at the sweatshop where we make pennies for hearticles of clothing. my mother's skin turned purple to ice water learning i walked on the other way whenever i saw someone in uniform. copy or custodian. the first english word i learned was a slur for chinese. a word that etched into my brain a certain knowledge that my race was repugnant. the memory of our first days in america come to me. i still remember the confusion that enveloped me as i wandered how the chinese could call this

land literally translated beautiful country. about albert einstein once said the only thing you absolutely have to know is the location of the library and we call that for a reason. the confusion dissipated and my world opened up again. the library couldn't restore my life giving back my family and friends, but it did supply a new companions. clifford the big red dog, the very hungary caterpillar, the bernstein bears, and soon the babysitters club and sweet valley high.

i was no longer living alone with my parents in a single room sharing a bathroom and kitchen with a rotation of immigrant families. instead i was sitting in stony brook connecticut hanging out with my friends and fielding babysitting calls just like any other american kid. friends may recall claudia loved to hide junk food in books that reminded me of home. growing up in a persecuted family during the cultural revolution, my father had his favorite book many of them banned under the floorboards of his often ransacked home. he a would later become an englh literature professor but quickly found that even in his classrooms he wasn't free to

teach his students the critical fault and social commentary that he so admired in the words of markai twain and he often told e returning frustrated from days of teaching with narratives with this power and nothing matters more than the stories we tell. it is more important now than ever before. every time i heard this in china, i thought i knew what he meant but i didn't really feel it, believe it or live it until i arrived in america and discover the safety of books.

i wasn't too different than the kids the books often portrayed and so as i write in beautiful country there was no saving me. i lived and breathed books. he may have understated the importance of books. he failed to say that the books save lives but offer companionship for the lonely, a roadmap for the lost and for the persecuted and the darkness of undocumentedur life. the number one priority was blending in. if i could learn to speak english perfectly just like a native speaker then i could say i have been born here a full and legitimate american intervals no

suspicion about my integration status. that information that acts as a safety and belonging that is 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 her society seems to have forgotten. for the children that have no adult supervision after school, no means of traveling around the world, no one telling them they are loved and saved and worthy every single volume offers this voice the hope and the guidance

they need to charge a different path to dream bigger dream for themselves and for those children they offer a home in the present and in the future. this is even more true for 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 and bookstore 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 that at times lost reflections of my life came only in slivers and the asian asian-american but suburban households and the diary of anne frank whose identity meant that

she had to grow up and hiding and through the eyes of jonas, training seeing all that was invisible to others. it's even more precious because they areer rare and i felt seen. i hope that they signaled i might even be worthy. if america can love those characters, perhaps i could be loved. perhaps i wasn't 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 words narrative is power and nothing matters more than the stories we

tell. the american library association this path found in unprecedented 330 challenges to their books. in november i was fortunate to speak at a library convention where i was shocked to learn the act of providing equal access to books and resources has become more politicized and exhausting than ever. the movement to ban books isn't just happening in our classrooms. it's happening in libraries across the nation and discourse. i am sure you 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 are safe.

for me that a smoke screen faded early. when i landed at jfk airport at age seven i saw my parents shrink down to mere mortal size. overnight they were reduced just as confused and afraid and lost as i was. they included charlotte and wilbur and remained my northstar's for friendship. at the times i feel singularly

odd. i just need to think of the rats of nam. 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 there some 25 years ago that i resolved to become a lawyer just like them and change the stories of our country chose to tell him its courtrooms and walls and books. for the treasures of the books that i discovered are etched into my being. myit heart still mourns and stil delights insi the silliness of e school and feels it's self with

a feminism of wrinkle of time. but most of all, the honor of having found books that reflected me at a time that i needed them gave me a sense that perhaps all messaging, i wasn't a 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 comfortingly in the sight and smell of books. it may be safe for me to share a confession. you see i'm actually not that different. sometime in the winter and fifth

grade in 97 and 98 i had a missing overdo book. as i checked out a new batch of books one afternoon, the library librarian said that there was a problem. i appeared to have a book out but was quickly accruing fines. i said i remembered returning at the week before, but the system had no record of it. what i get to read in prison? would i be, worst of all if i went home and indeed no longer whhad the book whether because i lost it or i returned it without record, what would happen, but i

forever deprived the other children of that volume? what had i done? the book in question had the number ed two in the babysitters clubub series it primarily followed the frustrations and adventures with one charge daniel roberts. it meant the absolute world to be. jesse was the only black member of the babysitters club and it felt like her familyly was the only black family in town like claudia the only asian member jesse hit up on things like prejudice 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 attention from doctors, hospitals or otherwise. and p jesse and daniel's danielsexperiences apart and thn together i found in a book reflections of my reality and now i had gone and misplaced that a book so no other child struggling with similar issues would find the comfort provided and that to me was the absolute worst consequence. in the end was more lenient than kramer suggested.

there would be no hundred thousand dollars charge for me. she said that they would give it six months to reemerge. i promised i would return home and looked thoroughly just in case i'd forgotten it somewhere and seeing i the tears in my ey, she said don't worry, dear, it always turnsur up. and of course, she was right. i hadn't the book had been found

if not in the system then certainly in my brain were wiped clean. i was free. about that experience stayed with me because even in a branch with books even in the series with endless volumes it's uniquely positioned to touch and that was the idea that motivated me to write my book. the belief that my story and my life might matter to just one person. perhaps i could signal to anld immigrant child that she still deserved. i might hope to one day connect

with just one person out there, to tell them that they are worthy of being seen and isn't that m after all why so many ofs are drawn to read and write. the fabric of our society, empathy, connection, community and within one book or another like a row of dominoes we collapsed on each other. as you walk around on this book festival of beautiful susanna today i hope that you will take a moment to soak it in what can

mn's privilege and a 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. this is the kind of day that shows how very fortunate f we ae to live in these united states, how and powered we are by words to change the world and how we might go forward and share all the stories we are fortunate to hear. not unlike one.

as you think about all the ways that you can preserve and share a piece of this paradise with your community and the people all around you and the weeks and months to come. you have the power to rally for change whether it's by donating or volunteering at your library or calling upon your elected officials for more public resources. and i. and as i am legally required to open with a "seinfeld" quote. maybe we can live without libraries. people like you and me. maybe. sure, we are 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 but has hermine heard that story is what makes america beautiful? thank you so much. [applause] i'm very happy to take questions if you can come to the microphone in the middle of the room and keep t 6 feet apart. was told to say one question per person. >> if no one asks anything i'm going to have to sing and im tone deaf. just warning you.

>> thank you so much for coming today. you mentioned you were given education lawyer. did yourio love of reading influence that decision to go into that field? >> absolutely. i am fortunate enough to be a lawyer and have seen the inside of the legal system and judicial system, and as i have practiced over the years, it became very apparent the route to systemic onchange, foundational change, progress is in our education system and to availing more resources of the power of literacy. all of the experiences and in my adult hood practicing law pointed me to the direction of

the educational law and seeing that that was probably the greatest public good that i could contribute to. >> your first barnes and noble gift card if you were to get $50 for barnes and noble today, what would you spend it on? >> i don't know how much they go for now, but at least five to ten of the babysitters series. thank you. i wish i could get that certificate back.

parallels i believe the experience was 25 years probably previous to yours and i'm curious as to what you see is immigrants experiences now and how are they experienced this now. >> thank you for asking that question. the sad truth is 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 so often what i see on the ground in chinatown or just walking around new york city is much of the same conditions.

things may have materially changed 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 pain and fears thatys i am myself grapple with decades ago and i want to pick up that child into say it's okay you are seen and there are people out there fighting for you but i'm afraid that would terrify the child more. soso to keep pushing for that change but there's that survivor's guilt that follows

me. my book club read your book and we were curious why you ended it when you did. there's a whole lot more life. i always wanted the book to focus on those five years. i know it's odd to say of a memoir. i wanted it to be a celebration and tribute 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 are so incredibly open and vulnerable and we learn to become guarded and learn the things that can savei us into things that are dangerous to us. i wanted to hone in on those

because when you peel back all of the layers it is that child inside of all of us that drags so many of the decisions and the way that we engage with each other andit interact with the world and when i looked that a 7-year-old child is very much me. probably the most practical reason is that i am only 34 and i don't trust myself to have the wisdom get to have enough important things to say about the later years now i'm thinking about a follow-on. i loved your talk. thank you very much. i grew up in a very small community and when i became of school age, my primary means of having a book was the school

library and i went to law school but just curious what your feeling is because you are in education lawyer as well and the last two years so many children have p not been able to be in a school l with perhaps access to the school library which is the only place that they can get books. now we can't predict what might happen next year or the year after, so your thoughts on that? the children get meals in the school and once you are not required to be there every day it may no longer be feasible or feel safe to go out and get that

meal so what happens to the children that don't have food or books at home or don't even have internet access. what i've seen engaging with community librarians including my childhood branch is that these librarians are working on having ipads w and computers whe children can access pdf resources and books online and sending out virtual resources everyin day to make sure familis are attuned to them. theme librarians have become the front lines of the pandemic for that but even so i've seen a lot of developmental delays and one year or two years of his education has ripple effects across the child's future and so it is everything that we are focusing on to minimize those

delays and gaps and discrepancies but it's a valid concern and i would say that making those public resources that's widely available as possible even for those who may not have internet access and access to electronic devices should be the first and foremost goal. >> i am only about halfway through your book butth i'm curious withd all the context u had as a child, the good and the

bad, have you run into any of those people as a grown-up flex. >> the teachers, other students, just any of those influences, and you had so many. i am leaving from here to go straight to the airport because my best friend from third grade is getting married tomorrow and i am officiating, so i'm very excited. i've never officiated before so i hope i don't mess up. the b book also brought me back where i write with elementary school and i spoke to a lot of

the teachers there including my second grade teacher as well as my former classmates who are now teachers and they also have choice words to say about the teacher that i described. i have gotten a lot of reader e-mails. teaching is a hard job so i'm not connected with him but most special perhaps is my thirdhi grade teacher. she couldn't believe that i had kept it all of these years but then she sent me copies of cards that i gave her.

i guess i remembered a little rt if you read my book how much of a sneaky kid i was, but in one of the cards i was apologizing for what i had gotten in trouble withne which was speaking chinee and i said my friends were the one who did it and it was followed by a riddle which is what do you call a witch on the beach and i think i copied it from somewhere. to think thatt, she thought of that line of random ramblings was special enough to keep instantaneously and she now has children of her own and we are planning to meet up in brooklyn when everything gets a little less hectic. i feel like the luckiest person in the world and the most special connecting with readers.

when you peel back all the labels we are really not different at all. >> thank you so much. [applause]

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