At the Vilnius book fair, young readers will be welcomed by literary and artistic celebrities

The tradition of the Hall of Young Readers, which has become popular at the Vilnius Book Fair, is expanding its spaces and activities this year. Visitors to the fair - teenagers, children, babies and their parents - are welcomed by the renewed hall. As in the rest of the program of the Vilnius Book Fair, which will be held at the Lithuanian Exhibition and Congress Center LITEXPO on February 23-26, the themes of freedom and Vilnius' 700th birthday will be heard here, according to the press release of the fair. 

Lively, resounding with the voices and laughter of young readers, the Hall of Young Readers will delight you with publishers' stands and book news in them, creative activities, events and meetings. The "Library Space" will be located here, the most famous children's book creators will be invited to workshops and educational sessions in the "Creative space without formulas". Teenagers and young people will be welcome in the "Youth Point" space for discussions, conversations and events, and they will be able to meet their peers from Ukraine in the "Ukrainian Literature Space". The youngest visitors of the fair will be waiting for the "Book Start" program organized by the Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania for the second year in the Youth Hall, and as many as 27 events are planned for the children's stage - meetings with writers, theatrical performances, readings.

"Talking about freedom is more important than ever. In our programs, we aim to promote discussions among children and youth not only about freedom, but also about responsibility for freedom and the coexistence of different people. Both the war in Ukraine and the history of the city of Vilnius invite us to such a conversation. Today we are free, we live in a free city, but in the history of our city there have been various episodes - freedom, captivity, adaptation, resistance, opposition, and reconciliation," says Aistė, project manager of the Lithuanian Institute of Culture, who oversees the cultural events program of the Vilnius Book Fair. Žukauskaitė.

Moments of the Vilnius Book Fair / Organizers' photo.

News - literary space for Ukraine

One of the organizers of the Vilnius Book Fair, the Lithuanian Institute of Culture, will set up a special space for Ukrainian literature in the Hall of Young Readers this year. Lithuanian and Ukrainian children and teenagers will be invited to meet, communicate and share experiences. The organizers of the space hope that the space will also become an information point where it will be possible to get acquainted with the literature, culture and history of both countries.

In the space of Ukrainian literature, it will be possible to read standard and popular books by Lithuanian and Ukrainian authors in Ukrainian, to get acquainted with various activities offered to children and teenagers by the organizers of Lithuanian educational and creative activities.

"The Ukrainian space in the Hall of Young Readers will be more than an information point, it is a place where Ukrainian and Lithuanian children and teenagers can establish friendships," says the coordinator of the Ukrainian literary space A. Žukauskaitė and adds that it will be possible to learn more about Ukrainian literature, culture, and history to get acquainted with the special Ukrainian stand, which will be located in the lobby of the 3rd hall of LITEXPO congresses and exhibitions.

At the youth point - conversations with famous people

For the third year now, the Lithuanian Institute of Culture has been cooperating with the team of young curators. Having grown up from the representatives of the Lithuanian School Students' Union, she offers teenagers and young people a self-invented program of the "Youth Point" space.

The exclusive youth space has already become a meeting place recognized by teenagers at the Vilnius Book Fair. Here, young people have the opportunity to get to know their peers, meet friends, and most importantly, get close to popular writers, journalists, and stage stars and ask them questions at "Face from the Screen" events. Writers Daiva Čepauskaitė, Aušra Kaziliūnaitė, Kotryna Zylė, performer Gabrielius Liaudanskas Svaras, writer and film director Vytautas V. Landsbergis, film director Saulius Baradinskas and others will participate in the meetings.

Moments of the Vilnius Book Fair / Organizers' photo.
This year, visitors to the Youth Hall will be able to participate in a discussion about youth volunteering in Lithuania, find heart-warming activities in singing poetry workshops or other activities.

"You don't just need to talk about freedom, it's important to feel responsible for it," says Ignė Alėbaitė, curator of the Young Readers' Hall program and project coordinator of the Lithuanian Institute of Culture. - "Youth point" opens up such an opportunity for young people who are becoming independent. It is also important that the "Youth Point" program is created for visitors by their peers, program curators. Every year they can suggest how to set up the space, which participants and which conversation moderators to invite to the meetings, and which topics to discuss. And this means that they think about other people, think about what interests them, what could be interesting and pleasant for them. Point events test their ideas, allow them to self-assess their ideas and whether the freedom they received was used properly."

World-renowned creators in the creative space without formulas

As every year, the Lithuanian Institute of Culture organizes the "Creative space without formulas", where famous artists and educators will invite book fair visitors to meetings and creative workshops.

Perhaps the biggest guest of the creative space is the famous German writer and illustrator, bestselling author Nora Krug. The book author, who is coming to the Vilnius Book Fair for the second time, last year presented to the visitors of the fair directly from her studio in New York her very personal graphic novel, included in the lists of the best books of the year by the New York Times and The Guardian, the Lynd Ward Graphic Novel Prize, the National Book Critics Circle wheel prize (USA) and the book "Heimat", awarded with the British book design prize. This year, N. Krug is coming from the USA to present the book "On Tyranny" created together with the famous historian Timothy Snyder. The New York Times recognized this book as the best graphic novel of 2021, and the Society of Illustrators awarded the book a gold medal.

Fans of creativity, illustrators and students of the Vilnius Art Academy are waiting for a meeting with the world-famous author and illustrator, a teacher at Parsons School of Design in New York and her master classes. N. Krug will organize the presentation of the book "About Tyranny" created together with T. Snyder and an exhibition of the book's illustrations, as well as previews of Lithuanian illustrators' portfolios.

The duo of Ukrainian book authors - Romana Romanyšyn and Andrij Lesivas, also known as "Agrafka", is returning to the Vilnius Book Fair. The books of these authors have won prestigious international awards. Even three of them - "Garsiai, tiliai, kuždomis", "Taip aš matau" and "Kaip Karas salieni Ronda" - were published in Lithuanian by the publishing houses "Baltos lankos" and "Baltos lankai vadovėliai".

The duo of creators of "Agrafka" visited the Vilnius Book Fair for the first time in 2016, when the Lithuanian Institute of Culture implemented the cultural cooperation project "Lithuania-Ukraine: Cultural Partnership". This year, an exhibition of illustrations of R. Romanyšin and A. Lesivos' world-famous book "How War Changed Ronda" is planned at the fair, as well as creative workshops and meetings with students of the Vilnius Academy of Arts.

Jubilee Year of the Library Space

The Library Space created by Lithuanian librarians will welcome visitors for the tenth time at the Vilnius Book Fair. This is another space for reading, communication and events, where guests of the fair are invited to engage in creative activities, educational games and other playful activities.

Creative graphics, ex-libris, diaries, postcard production workshops, the opportunity to view and use digitized cultural heritage will be waiting here.

In the "library space", the Lithuanian Blind Library will offer to get acquainted with books of universal design, will invite you to read audio books not only in Lithuanian, but also in Ukrainian - in 2022, the library, the Lithuanian Institute of Culture and the Lviv branch of the Ukrainian Association for Disabilities started publishing Lithuanian literature for children and adults universally, for all readers available in audio format. The presentation of these books is also scheduled at the Vilnius Book Fair.

Nearly 20 libraries from all over Lithuania, the National Museum of Lithuania, the Office of the Chief Archivist of Lithuania, the State History of Lithuania and the Central State Archives of Lithuania will participate in the library space.

The Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania will even organize several workshops where they will congratulate Vilnius on their birthday - postcards will be created, white poems will be written about the city of Vilnius and freedom.

The public library of the Molėtai district municipality will present an unusual way of telling history in the library space - miriorama. This is exactly how the library staff will invite everyone to listen to one of the legends of Molėtai region.

For the second year in a row, the Lithuanian National Martynas Mažvydas Library will set up a soft and cozy "Book Start" corner in the Hall of Young Readers. It will welcome visitors of the Vilnius Book Fair who are not yet a year old.

The international, 23rd Vilnius Book Fair - 700 lines for freedom - will be held on February 23-26, 2023 at the Lithuanian Exhibition and Congress Center LITEXPO. The organizers of the fair are the Association of Lithuanian Publishers, the Lithuanian Institute of Culture and the Lithuanian Exhibition and Congress Center LITEXPO.