Youth Literature Festival celebrates reading with authors, books

CHAMPAIGN – For Mary Kalantzis and Violet Harris, planning the first-ever Youth Literature Festival for East Central Illinois has required a lot of labor. But it's work that Harris calls a "glorious burden" because it celebrates books.

The dean and associate dean, respectively, of the University of Illinois College of Education, have ambitious goals for the festival, happening Thursday, Friday and Saturday. They hope it will eventually rival Roger Ebert's Film Festival in popularity and the ability to attract people, including from out of town, and make reading central to families' lives.

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