This year, with the fourth annual festival planned for Saturday, Aug. 16, they are well on their way.

The festival will take place from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Lake Placid Middle/High School. The event is free and open to all and will be featuring 16 authors and illustrators from diverse backgrounds, including several local authors.

Martha Swan, founder and executive director of John Brown Lives! and one of the organizers of the festival, said the idea for the event had been percolating for years. She had always been inspired by Karen Armstrong’s work as the librarian in charge of children’s programming at Lake Placid Public Library.

“Karen’s dedication to putting story and wonderful art in front of kids’ eyes and families’ eyes has really inspired me,” she said.

The other source of inspiration was Sarah Galvin at The Bookstore Plus. Swan said Galvin works tirelessly to serve the community by organizing events and opportunities to meet authors. Central to the festival’s efforts is local Adirondack author Kate Messner, who always has an ear to the ground in the literary world, and helps the committee recruit its dream list of authors each year.

“So much of this work is about relationship,” Swan said.

The festival is intentionally small, and authors participate by invitation only. There are a few familiar names who are local authors who frequent Adirondack literary spaces — Messner, Maxwell Eaton III, Loree Griffin Burns and Amy Guglielmo. They try to invite new authors each year, as well as authors with new releases, so that repeat attendees can have the opportunity to try new books.

This year, seven out of the 16 authors are new, Swan said.

Adalyne Perryman was brought onto the festival’s organizational team during the first year as a youth volunteer. She said that over the years, while the festival’s main goals have stayed the same, it has been gratifying to see it grow in popularity and to see kids enjoying their interactions with authors.

“Understanding and reading about different experiences that might be different from the youth’s own lived experiences are important for growing adults who have open minds, who are understanding, who are empathetic,” she said. “That creates a much better community, whether that community is locally in the Adirondacks or Lake Placid, or large-scale, for the country or the world.”

The festival goes to great lengths to involve youth in every part of the festival, including helping introduce authors. This has become a hallmark of the event for both the kids and the authors.

The festival has adopted a mission statement of sorts which came from a message from a parent after the first festival.

“She said, ‘The authors and illustrators showed young people a vision of the world as a kind and good place,'” Swan said. “If we can do that, then to me that’s the reward.”

The festival has received support from the town of North Elba, Stewart’s Shops, Lake Placid Rotary Club, the Lake Placid Education Foundation and the office of Assemblyman Billy Jones. Swan also wanted to thank the Lake Placid Central School District for opening their doors to the festival once again.

This festival is an opportunity for local residents and kids to learn about people and perspectives around the globe. However, the learning goes both ways. For some of the authors, Swan said it’s an opportunity to experience a rural community outside of the more urban spaces they might be used to.

“In a time where there is so much intentional sowing of division and divide,” Swan said, “(We) have a day-long festival that is a counterpoint to a manufactured divide.”