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YOUNGSTOWN -- Some 2,500 students and teachers across 200 area schools filled the halls of Youngstown State University on Wednesday for the 45th annual English Festival.
The three-day event starts each day at 9 a.m., giving students the chance to participate in competitions, collaborative activities and attend author talks scattered around Kilcawley Center.
Festival co-chairman Gary Salvner can say something no other organizer of the yearly affair can: He's the only chairperson who has been involved with the celebration of literature since its inception in 1978.
"The whole point of it from the very beginning was we wanted to set up an experience for kids to be encouraged to read books that they enjoy reading outside of the classroom assignments," Salvner said.
By doing so, Salvner said organizers hope to give students engaging activities, writing experiences and the chance to interact with students they might not otherwise have met if not for the festival.
The national award-winning event originated as a memorial for YSU English professors Thomas and Carol Gay a year after their daughter Candace died of cancer at age 13.
To celebrate the 45th year, the festival will play host to three nationally known, award-winning authors: Chris Crutcher, making his seventh appearance; Rita Williams-Gardia will make her first in-person campus appearance after COVID-19 caused her first appearance in 2020 to be held online; and Eliot Schrefer, also making his first appearance at YSU.
"The kids seem interested in the books themselves. It's really not about the author, we're just an added bonus," Williams-Garcia said. "Instead they seem to be very thoughtful readers interested in the story and telling their own stories."
For students to participate in the day's activities, they must've read all seven books from the festival reading list. Students will participate in various activities that will test their knowledge of each book.
The reading list for grades 7 to 9 is "King and the Dragonflies" by Kace Callender; "Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes" by Crutcher; "The Parker Inheritance" by Varian Johnson; "Nimona" by N.D. Stevenson; "Endangered" by Schrefer; and "Clayton Byrd Goes Underground" and "One Crazy Summer," both by Williams-Garcia.
The reading list for grades 10 to 12 is "White Cat" by Holly Black; "Deadline" and "Losers Bracket" by Crutcher; "Snapdragon" by Kat Leyh; "Endangered" and "Threatened" by Schrefer; and "Jumped" by Williams-Garcia.