Thank You Meg: Meg Medina’s Closing Ceremony

This post was written by Monica Valentine, a program specialist in the Informal Learning Office at the Library of Congress.

This month, Meg Medina will celebrate the conclusion of her triumphant term as National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. An audience of students, authors, and publishing professionals in children’s literature will join Meg at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. for what she describes as a party to celebrate her ambassadorship. The celebration will be held at 10:30 a.m. EST on Dec. 12 in the Coolidge Auditorium. Tickets are free, but registration is required at this link.

Since her inaugural event in January 2023, Meg has crisscrossed the country on an 11-state tour visiting with nearly 7,000 young people at personal appearances. Meg is the daughter of Cuban immigrants, and named her platform “Cuéntame!: Let’s Talk Books”. She has spoken at appearances with 42 students “cuentistas” (story tellers) to model book talking, which she describes as “talking about books: what we like, what’s interesting”. At the ceremony next Thursday, two local “cuentistas” from Elliot-Hine Middle School in Washington, DC will join Medina on stage to book talk about their favorite reads.

Over the past two years, staff from the Literary Initiatives Team and the Informal Learning Office at the Library observed how Medina poured the knowledge and experience gained from teaching, writing for, and engaging young readers into her ambassadorship. She hosted four Family Office Hours sessions on-site at the Library of Congress to spread the message that reading can be joyful. She invited families to discuss their reading lives as she shared with them her history with the Library as a researcher, and her favorite Library of Congress resources. Meg stated that one of her goals of her ambassadorship has been “to make people comfortable in libraries, including the Library of Congress and including the kids of this nation”. From our perspective of watching kids leaving Office Hours the confidence that a nationally-recognized author validated their love of reading, we know that she succeeded in this endeavor.

Medina is also leaving us with a dynamic video series titled “Let’s Talk Books”. In this series, she talked with notable authors and illustrators for young people such as Elizabeth Acevedo, Chelsea Clinton, Rita Williams Garcia, Lamar Giles and more. Aspiring young writers may find the series helpful, as the authors talk about not just their books but their writing careers. As Meg shared in a recent conversation with local students, “while you are reading, you are building how you write”. Check out her series on the Library’s website and Youtube channel for more words of wisdom that can help budding writers and readers.

Meg Medina brings warmth and boundless energy to this position, and has been laser focused on connecting with young audiences in-person and online to share her passion for books. Meg succeeded in her goal to “rescue reading from being more than a boring assignment”.  This month The Library of Congress has an opportunity to thank her for helping students and families rediscover the joy of reading. At the Informal Learning Office, we wanted to send a special thank you to our friend Meg for encouraging us and our audience to share what we think and feel about what we read. We’ll keep talking books in your honor!