Bookmans was proud to be a sponsor of Tucson Festival of Books for the second year in a row, and we had a great time at the festival! We had thousands of visitors to both our main tent and our kids tent, and enjoyed meeting new people and hearing your ideas and feedback.

At the festival, there were lots of great charater appearances both days, from some of the "Where the Wild Things Are" creatures to Clifford, the big red dog; Ronald McDonald; Thing 1 and Thing 2; and even a Darth Vader and Princess Leia sighting.

Over at the culinary stage, chefs were making crowds hungry with their awesome demonstrations. We caught Janos' excellent demonstration on chile rellenos...which made us very, very hungry. Luckily, there were plenty of fabulous local food establishments represented in the food court!

In the literary world, Janis Ian (not just an iconic singer/songwriter, but an author and a sci-fi fan, too!) and the ever-popular sci-fi creator, J.A. Jance, were going to interview each other ... or rather, that's what was supposed to happen. Check out J.A. Jance's blog for her take on the great story of what actually happened.

Over in our Bookmans Kids Tent, we were giving away our "I Heart Bookmans" tote bags, and kids were sprucing up our original design with some of their own really creative additions!

At our main tent, we gave away our exclusive-to-the-festival "Reading is not a Crime" t-shirts and Bookmans tote bags, while encouraging festival goers to participate in our larger-than-life community art project, "Tucson Loves Books."

For our art project, we assembled a wall and printed up recommendation forms for your favorite books, because at Bookmans, we believe that you have the right to read whatever you want. We got thousands of participants and nominations from all over the world -- some all the way from Australia! The art project will be traveling around Tucson on display to encourage a love of reading and the fight against censorship. Check out some of our before-and-after pictures of the project:

 

So, thanks to everyone who came out to the Tucson Festival of Books 2010. We had a great time and we hope you did as well. We're looking forward to seeing you there again next year! You can check out more photos of the Tucson Festival of Books 2010 on their official website, or on our Flickr page.