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Readers of all ages will have plenty of activities to pursue across Winnipeg this weekend.
Plume Winnipeg, organizers of the Thin Air Writer’s Festival, have created a festival directed entirely at kids from February 14 through 16 in libraries and bookstores all over the city. This year’s activities are the first of their kind that the festival has planned with an eye towards building an annual celebration of local children’s literacy.
Even though the Thin Air Festival has long offered children’s programming in the month of September, Charlene Diehl, the director of the Thin Air Kids Festival, notes that the kids festival was intended to piggyback off of I Love to Read month. “We weren’t expecting that it would be minus 30,” she laughs, noting the extreme cold warnings that have gripped the province, “but one of the things about February and the winter cold is that you curl and read good books.”
Those books, selected in advance for early readers, serve as great introductions to stories from a wide variety of cultures. Diehl highlights two books in particular – It's Powwow Time by Lac Seul First Nation author Martha Troian and The Journey of the Ancestors’ Gifts by Vietnamese-Canadian artist Linda Trinh – as examples of books getting the spotlight in this year’s festival to introduce cultural ideas through story.
“I think it’s so critical that we support kids not only to learn to read because their capacity to read words is important,” Diehl explained in an interview on Morning Light, “but also, we have to support and encourage kids to encounter different kinds of stories. Different stories allow kids to understand different perspectives, the interiors of other people, [and] correct information.
In addition to readings and author meetings, another key element of the festival is the chance for kids to create their own works of literature through workshops. Children are invited to create their own graphic novel in a workshop called Finding Closure, led by Ojibwe creators Jen Storm and Alice RL on the afternoon of February 15.
Diehl notes that offering this opportunity for kids to create their own graphic novels creates a space for everyone to engage in literacy, regardless of how they engage with stories. “For a lot of storytellers, they don’t necessarily have a clear distinction between their visual sense of story and their language sense of story,” she says, noting that this opportunity is great for young readers with decoding issues such as dyslexia.
The other workshop being offered at the Thin Air Kids Festival is a chance for aspiring young authors to try their hand at creating their own dystopian worlds. This type of fiction has long been a preferred story setting in young adult literature circles, and local author Mark Morton, author of The Headmasters, will offer a chance for kids and teenagers to channel their writing through worlds of futuristic desolation.
Ultimately, Diehl wants to see a re-engagement with reading emerge in festival attendees. “I think all of us, even those of use who are really avid readers, are having a harder time reading,” she admits. “Attention span is very chopped up and the demands on our time are very heavy. I think we really have to support our kids to learn to read, and also to feel the capacity to engage in different kinds of stories.”
Young readers can find more information about the Thin Air Kids Festival at Thin Air Winnipeg’s website.