Festival of Books: Dora, Boots and the titles kids are picking up
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‘One, two, three, gallina,’ sang the chicken. ‘Bock bock,’ sang the backup singers for Ozokidz on the Target Children’s Stage at the L.A. Times Festival of Books on Saturday.
Inside the tents, a crush of children and teens snatched copies of ‘The Hunger Games’ and ‘If You Give a Pig a Pancake.’
‘Its beautiful, wonderful,’ said Monica Ruiz, who was looking at Dora the Explorer books with her sons, Joshua, 7, and Julian, 4. Her sons, she said, ‘love to read, and they learn something new every day.’
Nearby, children haggled with their parents over how many books they were allowed to buy.
‘Just one book,’ Amy Aranda of East Los Angeles said to her son, Jesse, 7. ‘That was the deal. If he got into his school’s reading club he could come here and choose a book.’ Jesse said he was leaning toward ‘Diary of a Wimpy Kid’ because ‘I like to draw him.’
And then there was an appearance by 11-year-old actress Fatima Ptacek, who voices the title character in the ‘Dora the Explorer’ animated series.
FULL COVERAGE: Festival of Books
‘I like Dora because she speaks Spanish just like me,’ said Sarah Pinkston, 6, of Phillips Ranch. She was waiting in line to have a book signed by the actress.
Moments later, Sarah beamed as she had her photo taken with Fatima and Regan Mizrahi, who voices Boots, Dora’s monkey friend.
Michele Mizrahi, mother of Regan, confided that when her son gets in trouble he will use his Boots voice on her because he knows she finds it charming.
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-- Jessica Garrison
