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brooklyn with her husband in there to rescue dogs salty and pepper. please give a warm savannah welcome to qian wang. >> in the episode of seinfeld titled library coppock, a library investigation officer named lieutenant bookman mrs. jerry's apartment. the visit occurs because according to library records19 gerry had had henry miller's tropic of cancer checked out since 1971. but according to gerry he returned at that same year. when he learned of the dilemma, cramer is terrified. you know how much that comes to? that is a nickel a day for 20 years. it is going to be $50000. but when gerry corrects him, at does not work like that, kramer gives a voice shoot a few that would have sent chills through my body as a child but if the dime a day it's $100,000. one lieutenant bookman arrives on the scene he delivers perhaps the best monologue of the series. i am going to try to do it justice. let me tell you something funny boy, you know that little stamp that once it says new york public library? while that may not mean anything to you, but it means a lot to me. sure, go ahead and laugh if you want too. i have seen your tight before, flashy, making the scene, flaunting convention. i know what you are thinking what is this guy making such a big stink about old library books? well, let me give you a hand to junior. maybe we can live without library's, 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 in a branch at the local library and finding drawings of pp's and we on the cat in the hat and the five chinese brother, doesn't he deserve better? look, if you think this is about overdue fines and missing books you better thinkok again. okay, at this point i know whath you are thinking. [laughter] what is she doing? [laughter] why is she starting with this? when does she stop? well, i am afraid to tell you i will never stop quoting seinfeld. [laughter] is a juice new yorker who grew up in the '90s, i am actually legally required to open every speech with a reference to seinfeld. i don't make the rules. but, the reality is, it is a beautiful special days like this when so many of us get to get to gather and celebrate the written word that the truth of bookman's monologue comes to me. he might have been comically overzealous about his job, he had to live up to his name 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 bebe 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 and 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 did not 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 physicale labor at the sweat shop or we made pennies per article of clothing. t at the sushi plant where my mother's skin turned purple from unrelenting exposure to ice water. learning that i was newly quote unquote illegal. i walked the other way when ever i saw anyone in uniform, or custodian. the first english word i learned was they slurped for chinese. a word that etched into my brain the certain knowledge that my race was repugnant. the 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 translated beautiful country. butts, albert einstein once said the only thing you absolutely have to know is the location of the library. we call that man a genius for a reason.nt 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. the library could not restore my life in china, give me back my family and friends that it did supply new companions, clifford the big red dog. the very hungary caterpillar, the bernstein bears, amelia adelia and 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 a bathroomot and kitchen with a rotation of immigrant families. instead i was sitting in claudia click key she's bedford and stony brook connecticut munching oreos, hanging out with my friends and fielding babysitting calls just like any other american kid. fans of the babysitters club may recall that claudia love to hide junk food and hollow books. that reminded me of home. growing up in a persecutedd dissident family during china's cultural revolution my father hid his favorite english books, many of them banned under the floorboards of is 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 teachri his students critical thought and social commentary that he so admired in the words of mark twain and charles dickens.so he often told me, returning frustrated from days of censored teaching with stacks of his favorite books under his arms narrative is a 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 felix, 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 i was not too different from the kids the book so oftend portrayed. and so, as i write in beautiful country, from there, there is no saving me. i lived and breathed books. you see i actually think bookman may have understated the importance of books. he felt the same book saves lives. oaoffers companionship for the roadmap for the last refuge for the persecuted. 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 and i could plausibly say i had been born here browse no suspicion about my immigration status if i could blend in and act as i knew exactly what christmas was and what los angeles 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 offered to the children the rest of our society seems to have forgotten for children of no adult supervision after school no means of traveling around the world, no one telling 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 a bigger dream for themselves. and for those children, books offer a home in the presence and in the future. this is even more true for children, other people than it once was for me because i was fortunate to have landed in a large city where i could walk from library to vibrate even bookstore to bookstore and avail myself of all of the public resources for free. i have countless books at my disposal. i chose for myself the stories i wanted to read. and yes, even and that freedom myself at times lost. reflections of my life came only in' slivers. claudia's agent america but suburban household and the diary of anne frank whose identity he mentioned that 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. most glamorous of a recognition or even more precious because they wereel rear-ended their scs eyes seeing i hope they signaled i might even be worthy. if america could love those characters, perhaps i too could be loved. 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 is 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 silent unprecedented 330 challenges to their books. in november i was fortunate to speak at a librarian convention were 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 bang in the books is not just happening in our classrooms. it is happening in our libraries, across our nation and discourse. i am sure you all remember a time in your childhood when your parents were godlike, 200 feet tall, all knowing, all a encompassing. as long as they were around you were safe. for me, that 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 to fallible beings who were just as confused, afraid, and lost as i was. but for me library books in their characters never lost that holy quality. indeed over the years as i learn to fear all authority figures under the threat of discovery and the deportation i somehow never feared librarians. for they were the host to my best friends. the only beings with whom it was safe to be my true self. those friends included charlotte and wilbur to the state remain my northstar for friendship. julie get the wolves and matilda who still keep me company at times when i feel singularly odd. and when i feel that i alone have endured the stress of moving abrupt and dismal conditions i just need to think of mrs. frisby and the rats of nam. it was through the library that i learned for the first time about the work of thurgood marshall25 and ruth bader ginsburg. and it was from there 25 years ago that i resolve bic to become a lawyer just like them and change the stories our country chose to tell and its courtrooms, as laws, in its books. neither that day, nor that conviction has left me. for the treasure of the books that i discovered her etched into my being. my heart still mourns little and from where the red fern grows. still delights in this silliness of the wayside school and still steals it self withim the feminm of a wrinkle in time. but most of all the honor of havingng found books that reflected me at a time when i needed them gave me a sense that perhaps despite all messaging i was not singularly unwanted. but perhaps i was just as worthy as the next child. to this day when ever i feel scared and loss there are a few things more comforting than the sight and smell of books. because you are here at a book festival and 9:00 a.m. on a saturday. [laughter] i suspect you can relate. so, now that you know a little bit about me i think it may be safe for me too share a confession. you see, actually not that different from gerry. sometime over the winter in the fifth grade in 1997 or 1998, i too had an hissing overdue books. as i checked out a new batch of books one afternoon, the library and said there was a problem. i appeared to have a book out thatat was quickly accruing fin. i said i remembered returning it the week before but the system had no record of it. when i heard this i all but sank ground. what would happen? what i not be able to borrow books anymore? when i get me and my parents thrown into prison for my debt for my overdue fees? would i get to read in prison? [laughter] worst of all, if i went home and indeed no longer have the book whether because i had lost it or because i had returned it without record, what would happen did the library have other copies or would i forever deprived 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 of memories like ideas, that just means you are a normal person. number 82 in the series was called jesse and the troublemaker. it primarily followed jessica at 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. like claudia the only asian members jesse hit up on things about prejudice, ignorance and 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 daniel went through, i had a sick mother and we were terrified of attention from dr. kagan hospitals or otherwise. in jesse and danielle's experiences, apart and then together i found in a book reflections of my reality and now i had gone and misplace that book. no other child who is struggling with similar issues could find the comfort that i did. nap me too was the absolute worst. in the end of course my librarian was far more lenient than kramer suggested. there would be no 100,000-dollar charge for me. he said they would flag the book in the system and give it six months to reemerge. i promised i would return home and look for related just case i really forgotten it somewhere. seeing the tears and my eyes she choked back a laugh and said do not worry dear, it always turns up. and of course she was right. it had not been at home but a few months later when i inquired about the book at check out and i always did its absence had been something like a new pet i could not stop thinking about. relief poured over me as iha was told that yes, the book had been found.m the book had been found. the flag had been removed from my account in the overdue charges that had been growing and not in the system, 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 the series with endless volumes even for a child who was always a reading books at once, every individual book mattered. because of what it portrayed, because of the message it shared. because it is uniquely positioned to touch. that was the idea that motivated me too write my book. the belief that my story in my life might matter to just onen person. perhaps i could signal to an emigrant child living in hunger she deserved to be on shout perhaps i might dare to hope for my book to one day connect with just one person out there. to tell them they are worthy of being seen. by so many of us here today are trying to read, to write to commune and the power of storytelling. but what happens to the fabric of our society? our empathy, our connection, our communities when we remove a one book, then another, then another. like a row of dominoes that collapsed on each other. where the children, teens and adults go then to feel less lonely, less adrift. so as you walk around on this book festival and beautiful savannah today hope you'll take a moment to soak it all end. what an immense privilege and joy it is to be immersed in it for so many stories, so many perspectives, so many ideas. you do not have to agree with them all but you are free to hear them all. this is our country at its greatest, at its most beautiful. it's kindd of day that shows us how very fortunate we are to live in these united states. how empowered we are and how we might go forward and share all of the stories we are fortunate to hear. today's events indeed are not unlike one big sprawling vibrate. sait was jorge who said i have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of vibrate. 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 is by donating or volunteering at your library or calling upon your elected officials for more public resources. and a i end this i am legally required to open with that seinfeld quote. [laughter] maybe we can livees 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 that helps remind her, that her story to is what makes america beautiful. thank you so much. [applause] [applause] x very happy to take questions if you could come to the mic in the middle of the room and keep 6 feet apart. i wasas told to say one question per person two. if no one asks anything i'm going to have to sing and i am tone deaf. [laughter] just warning you, not a threat. >> hi, thank you so much for coming today. you mentioned now that you work in education du jour love of reading influence the decision to go into that field? what's absolutely. i am fortunate enough to be a lawyer and haven't seen inside our legal system and our judicial system. as i practiced over the years, the systemic change to foundational in our education system is to availing all children of more resources of the power of literacy and viewing them without love early and often. so, it was all of my experiences in my childhood as well as the experiences in my adulthood of practicing law that pointed me to the directions educational and sing that was the greatest public good i could contribute to, thank you. >> hi. your first barnes & noble gift card kind of got wasted on a workbook and a dictionary. if you are to get $50 to barnes & noble today what would you spend it on? i would have to spend it on, don't how much the go for now, elite five to ten of the babysitters club series. they recently been recast as graphic novels i've not been out to expose myself to i didn't want to tarnish the original expense i had their words but be very curious to read those as well.is thank you, i wish i could go get that certificate back. [laughter] x good morning. my question i was saddened when i was reading your book the parallels by gina thinker immigrant experience was 25 years probably previous to yours but now i'm just curious as to what you see as immigrant experiences now? i think he said 94 for you for like 28 years later, how are the immigrant experiences for people now coming from china? >> thank you for asking that question. and book is somehow she's a good friend of mine 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 we talk about immigrants and resources that we make available to new immigrants. but so often of what i see on the ground in chinatown or even just walking around new york city is much the same conditions. the problem with the american dream is things may have materially change for me but as i am walking for my fancy home to my fancy law office, on the way there i still see young immigrant children going for the trash for their parents will sing and their eyes some of the same pains and fears i myself grappled with decades ago. and in those moments i so want to pick up that child and say it will be okay you are seen there are people out there fighting for you. but i am afraid that would terrify the child more. it's all i can do to just keep working waking up every day and pushing for that change. often and those moments a survivor's guilt follows me and swallows me up. it feels like there is 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 we are curious as to why you ended when you did there is a whole lot more life. so, i always wanted this book to focus on those five years. i know it is 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. two children that very special almost universal time in our childhood where we go out in the world and we don't understand what is going on we are so incredibly open and vulnerable. we learn to become l guarded. we learn the things that can save us and the things that are dangerous to us. i really want to hone into those precious years. when you peel back all the adulthood layer sets up a little child inside all of us to drive so many of our decisions on the way we engage with each other and interact with the world.is when i looked that 7-year-old child is very much me. and probably the most practical reason is i am 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 of asking a question and so now i am thinking about possibly a follow-up book. >> loved your talk thank you very much. so i grew up in a very small rural community. we had a bookmobile but when i became school age my primary means of having a book was the school library. that was really for me, i went to law school two. i am just curious what your feeling as you are an education lawyer as well the fact the last two years so many children have not been able to physically be in a school with perhaps access to the school library which is the only place they can get books. now they are going back we cannot predict what might happen next or the year after. your thoughts on that? the school libraries are so important. >> magnified social economic divides. when covid 19 must first announce my first thought were the children who gets meals in school because i relied on those free meals. and once you are not required to be there every day it may no longer be feasible or may no longer feel safe to go out and get that meal so what happens to those children who don't have food at home? who don't have books att home? we do not have internet access. but i have seen from engaging with community librarians including my childhood branch adam square is these librarians are working on having loan out ipads and computers were children can be able to access resources on books online they are sending out virtual resources every day and making sure 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 have seen a lot of dental developmental delays but as we know when your next education two years ofat missed education has ripple effects across the child's future. it is everything we are focusing on to minimize those delays and minimize those gaps and discrepancies. valid concern and i would just say making those public resources as widely available as possible even for those who may not have internet access have elected after trust electronic devices should be a first and foremost goal of our government and our agencies and libraries and community members likeke you. >> thank you, thank you. okay. >> i am curious i'm only about halfway through your book. i am curious while the context you has a child good and bad. you have any those people as you've grown up? >> you mean the teachers everybody? >> the teachers the other student the little girl that didn't want to translate for you any of those influence you had so many have you ever run into any of them again? >> i was fortunate to have found a very close that in tightknit community bad but also very good people. and support. i am leaving from here to go straight to the airport because my best friend from the third grade elaine in the book is getting married tomorrow and i am officiating. [laughter] i am very excited i have never officiated before so i hope i don't mess it up. the book also brought me back to her and went to elementary school and i spoke to a lot of thehi teachers there including y second grade teacher who is still teaching there as well as some of my former classmates who aree now teachers. they also have some choicee wors to say about the teacher i described as mr. kaine. i've cut a lot of reader e-mails but moaning teachers like him. teaching is a hard job i do not begrudge him at all am not connected with him. most especial perhaps is my third grade teacher the principal at ps 124 put us in touch. i sent her photos of the charlotte's web copy she gave me when i was eight years old. she could not believe i had kept it all of these years. but then she sent me copies of cards that i gave her often full of gibberish that she kept for 28 years, 30 years. i did not remember. i guess i remembered a little but if you read my book how much of a snarkyid sneaky kid i was. in one of the cards i was purportedly apologizing for what 'i had gotten in trouble with ws was speaking chinese is that it wasn't my fault my friend was the one that did it. it was followed by a riddle like what you call ank witch on a beach? i think i copied it from somewhere. to think she thought that line of a ramblings was special enough to keep it made me cry instantaneously. i just so very special. she now has children of her own we are planning to meet up in brooklyn when everything gets a little less hectic. this book has brought about so many developments and connections i could not have even fathomed and i feel like the luckiest person in the world and most special has been connecting with readers.t >> everyone like you with whom the book has resonated more than i could have thought. it really does approve my initial hypothesis with writing a beautiful country. when you peel back all of the labels we are really not different at all. x thank you so much. [applause] [applause] >> on book tv author interview program, after words indicated call must reflect on what he called the on really torrent years between 2008 and 2020. >> that is unusual most people's ig how do you come up with things to write about? that is the most commonly asked question of a columnist. the question when i began as a comments asked my friend bill how do you come up with things to write about? he said the world irritates me three times a week. i would say the world irritates me, amuses me, piques my curiosity. the world is just littered with things to write about. it was said of napoleon he could not look at a landscape without saying a battlefield. if you are a columnist you can't look at the world without seeing column topics. they just come at you. >> visit booktv.org to watch the rest of the program you can find it and all previous of our weekly author interview program by clicking on the after words a tab the top of the page. >> weekends on cspan2 are an intellectual feast. every saturday american history tv documents america story and on sunday book tv brings you the latest in nonfiction books and authors. funding for cspan2 comments from these television companies and more including a while. >> the world has changed into the fast reliable internet connection is something no one can live without. wow is there for our customers with speed, liability, value and choice. now more than ever it starts with great internet. while along with these television companies support cspan2 as a public service. : : : thank you. michael you and i have done this many many times. to the point where i don't even think we should. pretend that this is that we should just think of this as an ongoing conversation and just start in the middle. i'm pick up where we left off. you just whispered to me you wanted to well she just i mean, i think we have to honor shawn tooie because he was going to be another high school classmate. who was the main one of the main characters in the blind side and he was supposed to be

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