If you’ve been keeping up, you already know how much I love to read – the book reviews I post here and what I write for Comics Cosmos alone would clue anyone in to that. And, of course, I’m friends with a lot of people who read (because why would I hang out with people who don’t?!). You may have also heard on GW1 mention of the Rubber City Book Posse, the book group Kylan and I are in, as well as our big annual book giveaway at our local library. 

Well, the annual Family Reading Festival was this past weekend and our Posse gave away hundreds of books once again. As much effort as it takes to collect all of these books throughout the year, pack them into the car and unload them at the festival, it always seems to be worth it. Sure, we get people who don’t believe us when we say the books are free and there’s no catch. And there are those “book snobs” who only read one author or one genre and if we don’t have it on the table they won’t take anything else. But for the most part, people are happy (and often amazed) to be able to take home a few books at no charge.

And doing this festival every year (the RCBP has been involved for 11 years) reinforces one fact: hard copy, printed, in your hands books are not dying out.  It doesn’t matter that e-books are huge, big sellers, popular, convenient… that’s all true. But people still like holding a book in their hands, flipping pages, passing it around, seeing it on their shelves. Books are still “a thing” and always will be. Publishing houses are still in business, as are bookstores – even Amazon has opened “brick and mortar” stores to sell books!

So as tiring as a full day of “peopling” at the library can be, there is some gratification in seeing people excited for books. Especially when you hand them one that’s exactly what they’ve been looking for – not only are they happy to take it home, we’re happy knowing the book is going where it’s going to be loved.