EDINBURG — In the courtyard at Edinburg City Hall families gathered together Saturday to attend the FESTIBA Community Day event, where they met local authors, poets, and enjoyed other literature-related activities.
The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley holds the Festival of International Books and Arts, better known as FESTIBA, as a week-long event annually.
Saturday’s event included many engaging festivities for the children to take part in, such as a Storywalk, in which children walked along a path where they would stop at designated markers to read pages from “TK’s First Lesson” by local author David Lejia. This would culminate in the children receiving a free copy of the book they just read.
Magdiel Castle, assistant director of cultural arts for the city of Edinburg said that the goal of the event is to encourage children to read more books. According to Castle, the illiteracy rate in the Rio Grande Valley is high and he hopes that events such as FESTIBA will motivate students to become more interested in reading and pick up a book.
“It is a way to help inspire kids to read, to learn how to read and inspire them to be lifelong learners,’ Castle said.
Patty York Raymond, who has been a children’s book author since 2013, has attended previous FESTIBA events and believes it gives children a fun outlook for the future. She believes that allowing children to meet local writers and poets will help them understand that they are capable of doing whatever they set their minds on.
Her most recent book, “Aspire,” which won various awards such as the International Latino Book Award, reflects those ideas by telling the story of a little girl who pictures what her future career will be. With each story she has written she has also created songs and Loteria sets for the stories.
“It gives the kids the opportunity to read the book, sing and dance to the songs, and then they get to play games. It helps with vocabulary development,” Raymond said.
Parents followed as their children were running from booth to booth collecting books and prizes. There was one booth in particular that attracted the attention of a mother and her three kids.
At the event, they had a booth with piles of books where children could choose their favorites and take them for free.
Amanda Rendon, a mother of three, said she heard about FESTIBA on social media where she read that it was an event dedicated to literature and decided it was something her children, especially her son, would enjoy.
“My son who is autistic really loves books, so I thought it was a good opportunity to bring him out and see stories and hear about the authors. When we got here he said ‘oh I want books!’ So we headed straight for the booth with the books,” Rendon said.
Clarissa O’Brien, a mother of two, believes it is important to support community events and now after more than two years of being stuck at home due to the pandemic, she looks forward to taking her kids to festive environments for a little fun.
She said that FESTIBA, in particular, attracted her attention because it was an event that focused on promoting literature, which is an important subject in her family.
“It is really important to read to your children, to have that time together and it really promotes vocabulary so it is something we try to do all the time to read at least one book a day,” said O’Brien, who added that she believes it is generous of the community to be providing them with this opportunity. “They are excited to be getting free gifts from different community organizations … I think giving away books is a great way to increase people’s libraries at home.”
FESTIBA concludes Sunday with a dance at 5 p.m. featuring the UTRGV Dance Program, which will be hosting the Dance Adjudication Festival Gala Concert at the university’s Performing Arts Complex, located at 1201 W. University Drive in Edinburg.
