A big booth near the entrance of the 2006 Los Angeles Latino Book and Family Festival gave fabled bookman Rueben Martinez a bully pulpit Saturday from which to promote the value of reading.
"If you read 20 minutes a day, you'll read a million words a year -- and learn as many as 3,000 new words in the process," said Martinez, a recent winner of the prestigious MacArthur Foundation grant and a keen student of the Latino literary scene.
"As I've been saying all my life," he added with a smile, "Read today, lead tomorrow."
His infectious enthusiasm put smiles on the faces of anyone within earshot on opening day of the traveling weekend festival, now in its 10th year of advancing the cause of Latino literacy.
The hodgepodge event, produced by actor Edward James Olmos and backed by corporate sponsors, brings Latino writers, musicians, dancers and a number of practical services to cities with large Latino populations: Los Angeles, Houston, Dallas/Ft. Worth and Chicago.
Storytelling, hot churros, book signing, meet-and-greets, \o7folklorico\f7 dances, motivational lectures, free cholesterol and blood pressure exams -- all unfolded in one cavernous building at a far corner of Pomona's Fairplex grounds.
Invited authors on Saturday included Mexican immigrant Reyna Grande, whose new book, "Across a Hundred Mountains," is about those who make it across the border, those who don't and those who are left behind.
A few booths down the hall, Laura D. Frisbee sat at a table stacked with copies of her self-published book, "Family Guide to Visiting California State Prisons." The book is crammed with the rules and regulations of the state's 33 prisons, as well as information, telephone numbers and maps for nearby hotels, restaurants, churches, support groups, transportation systems and places of interest.
"There's no other book out there like this one," said Frisbee, who said she was motivated to write it by the frustrations and high costs of visiting her husband, who is serving 14 years in prison for attempted murder.
Then there was Marta Acosta, who in an interview wryly described her new book, "Happy Hour at Casa Dracula," as "a comedy of manners with a paranormal element and a Latina twist."
"My book was influenced by Jane Austen and Mario Vargas Llosa," said Acosta, of Richmond, Calif. "The main character is Milagro de los Santos, and she's resilient and optimistic, just like the literary characters I love most.
