BROOKINGS — Bibliophiles from across the state will be descending on Brookings for the 22nd annual South Dakota Festival of Books Sept. 20-22.

“The festival is a book lover’s dream,” Jennifer Widman, Center for the Book director, said. “It is a chance to have readers and writers come together. Readers can meet authors from all over the state and all over the country, and writers can get new audiences for their work and interact with the people who love it. And it’s just a chance for people who love books to come together, to talk about them, to buy them and to enjoy them.”

The annual literary celebration alternates locations — during odd-numbered years, it’s held West River; during even-numbered years, it’s held East River. Widman said since 2016 Brookings has been the preferred east river location, with a handful of activities still held in Sioux Falls. She also said in recent years they’ve i n c r e a s e d their focus on children’s and young adult literature.

“We always included those in the festival, but in 2014 we launched our Young Readers One Book — which is given out across the state to third graders,” Widman said. “And we started featuring more of the children’s authors and illustrators in events that classes can come to in field trips, for example at the children’s museum on Friday the 20th. And that has been a huge hit and really both inspirational and educational.”

She said being able to inspire young readers is one of the best parts of the festival.

“Every year it feels like we have a few stories about that — where, for instance, the next day at school a teacher will report to us that a child came in and they had written and illustrated … a little book the evening before because they were so excited about it,” Widman said. “Or we sometimes see interactions with the author where the child will say, ‘oh that same thing happened to me that you wrote about in your book.’ So maybe if you can do it — then I can do it.”

Since 2014, the Young Readers One Book program has distributed more than 14,000 free books to third graders at 381 schools throughout South Dakota.

“One of the most exciting things we do at the festival is to bring that Young Readers One Book author in to speak to — on this side of the state — about 2000 third graders in Sioux Falls and well over 200 here in Brookings. And to see those students start cheering and clapping and getting so excited when the author or illustrator comes out on stage and cheering for different book titles that he or she mentions — that’s just really exciting,” Widman said. “It just shows a lot of enthusiasm for reading, which is a lot of what we’re trying to do with this — to give each child their own book, then introduce them to the author or illustrator so they know those are real people. Those are possible role models. Those are creative artists who can make these stories come alive for me.”

This year’s Young Reader One book author is Columbian writer Juana Medina who will be speaking to children about her semi-autobiographical book “Juana and Lucas: Dos Grandes Changes.” And Medina is just one of 65 authors (of both adult and children’s literature) who will be giving presentations at this year’s festival.

One of those presenters is Brookings resident Kevin Smith — a professor at Dakota State University — whose book “Yucky” tells the story of a young girl who learns to love math.

“I’ve encountered so many students that don’t have real great feelings about math. They don’t like it that much. Many of them think it’s yucky,” Smith said. “I wanted to write a book to kind of get the conversation started about why is it people don’t like math. And then kind of try to show them that math is about more than just doing calculations — that it can be a fun and creative subject.”

In his professional capacity, Smith teaches prospective math teachers — coaching them on how to get kids to understand and enjoy math. It was in that capacity that he was inspired to write and illustrate the book.

“One of the things I get to do at DSU is go into classrooms and observe our students teaching, and I get to meet area classroom teachers. I’ve been in lots of schools all over the region and we have some amazing teachers doing amazing things,” Smith said. “Even though in math class we do spend a lot of time learning calculations — that’s an important part of math — I want kids to realize that that’s not all of what math is. There’s a lot of kids that they’re creative, they love art, they have all sorts of interests. And often times many of those interests are connected to math in some way. And so I want them to realize that math isn’t just about doing those calculations. It’s about all sorts of things. It’s really about becoming a good problem solver.”

He will be presenting to kids Thursday at the Washington Pavilion in Sioux Falls at 10 a.m. and 12:30 p.m., and again Friday at the Children’s Museum in Brookings at 10 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. He will also be co-presenting a presentation Saturday at 2 p.m. at the Children’s Museum with fellow author Laura Dean — the two will speak to adults interested in becoming children’s authors. All of Smith’s presentations are free to attend and open to the public.

“A lot of people will ask me what is the age range for the book? And I say it’s like 6 years old up to 15 or 16 years old. I feel like the messages in the book are really appropriate for any student in that range — but they’re also a good reminder for adults,” Smith said. “Whenever we’re faced with hard things, it’s sometimes easier to give up. So I think some of the reason people don’t like math is just because it can be challenging. I think many people have had negative experiences with math. They don’t feel very confident in their own abilities and maybe it’s because of experiences where they’ve felt time pressured to do things quickly. And math isn’t about speed; math is about being able to persevere and really think through problems carefully.”

Smith’s presentations are just a handful of the many being offered during this year’s festival. A handful of events require tickets and pre-registration; but most are free. A complete schedule of the three-day event — with details on all of this year’s presenters — is posted at sdhumanities.org/festival-of-books.

— Email Jay Roe at jroe@brookingsregister.com.