DON’T LEAVE HOME WITHOUT IT The mayor checks out new library cards at last year’s Bookamania.

It’s easy to fall back on video games and kiddie cable to keep little ones occupied as the days grow shorter and the weather gets colder. That’s why the Chicago Public Library is hosting Bookamania, its annual ode to children’s literature, on Saturday 22.

“November is gloomy; [Bookamania] brightens up the month,” says Mary Dempsey, commissioner for CPL, of the festival aimed at kids ages 3 to 10. Activities at area branches, including performances and storytelling, have been held throughout the month to lead up to a daylong celebration at Harold Washington Library Center. CPL launched the celebration in 1994 to coincide with the Children’s Book Council’s Children’s Book Week. When the council moved that event to May earlier this year, the library opted to keep Bookamania in November because it seemed a better fit, Dempsey says, noting that it’s scheduled the same day as the Magnificent Mile Lights Festival. “It becomes a free family day, courtesy of the city of Chicago,” she says. More than 3,000 people usually attend the event, she adds.

Several well-known kid-lit authors and illustrators are scheduled to make appearances at this year’s Bookamania. Most notable among them is Caldecott Honor recipient and all-ages fave Mo Willems, the writer and artist behind modern classics Knuffle Bunny and the Pigeon series (Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!, The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog!). Willems designed the poster for this year’s event and will sign copies of some of his books. (Oak Park’s Magic Tree Bookstore will be on hand to sell copies of these and other titles.)

Also reading from their books and speaking to kids are illustrator Bryan Collier (Doo-Wop Pop) and authors Lucía González, (The Storyteller’s Candle/La Velita de los Cuentos), Amy Krouse Rosenthal (Little Hoot) and Sallie Wolf (Truck Stuck).

Events include meet-and-greets and photo ops with classic storybook characters, including Corduroy, Mother Goose and Amelia Bedelia, as well as performances by magician Sean Masterson and Puppet Bike’s Jason Trusty. The library also plans to give away more than 2,000 books to kids who come to the event.

“Bookamania is fun, but it’s also curriculum-based,” Dempsey says. The group of librarians who comprise the library’s department of children and youth services plans each of the day’s activities to relate to a specific book or to reading as an activity. Fans of Krouse Rosenthal’s Little Hoot can make owl masks, and Emerald City Theatre is staging its musical adaptation of Laura Numeroff’s book If You Take a Mouse to School. The idea is to remind kids how much fun they can have with books as they participate in each activity.

The department also publishes a recommended reading list each year to correspond with Bookamania to foster reading beyond the event. Bernadette Nowakowski, CPL’s director of children and young-adult services, works with her department to find titles for the list that include books to read aloud, picture books, poems and ones appropriate for all ages. The list is purposely compiled by the library in time for the holiday season, she points out.

“[This] is our sneaky way of presenting children and parents with some new titles to share as gifts,” Nowakowski says.

The reading starts at Bookamania on Saturday 22 at Harold Washington Library Center.