06/11/2025
The Vanderbeekers of 141 Street
&
Brooklyn
to represent
New York State at the National Book Festival
The Empire State Center for the Book is pleased to announce the two books that will represent New York State at the National Book Festival in Washington, DC, on September 6, 2025.
The 2025 New York State Young Readers’ Selection is Karina Yan Glaser’s The Vanderbeekers of 141 Street, the first book in a series that follows a large mixed race family living in Harlem. Glaser also lives in Harlem.
In 2022, the Affiliate Centers for the Book were asked to choose a book for Adult Readers, in addition to a book for Young Readers. The 2025 New York State Adult Readers’ Selection is Colm Toibin’s Brooklyn. The novel follows a young Irish woman who emigrates to Brooklyn in the 1950’s to seek a better life. In 2015 Toibin was selected as a member of the New York State Writers Hall of Fame.
The Center for the Book (www.read.gov/cfb) in the Library of Congress works with its 56 Affiliate Centers for the Book (the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam and Northern Marianas) to fulfill each Center’s mission of promoting literacy and the literary arts, supporting libraries and lifelong learning, and celebrating our nation’s diverse literary heritage, at home and nationwide.
Since 2002, each of the Affiliate Centers for the Book has chosen a book for Young Readers that in some way represents the state’s or territory’s literary heritage. Perhaps the author or illustrator was born or lives there, or the book is set in the state or territory.
Each year, the Affiliate Centers attend the National Book Festival and participate in the Roadmap to Reading, a giant space at the Washington Convention Center where each state and territory’s booth features these “Great Reads” books, and provides information about their states or territories. Last year, thousands of book lovers visited the exhibits of the Affiliates and learned about the “Great Reads from Great Places” list (www.read.gov/greatreads/).
This year’s National Book Festival is Saturday, Sept. 6, 2025. https://www.loc.gov/bookfest/.
