At a craft table in the large meeting room at the Austin Public Library, 5-year-old Ava Baskin put the finishing touches on a lollipop (or “sucker,” as she called it) she made from a paper plate and wooden stick. The plate was adorned with three colors: green, pink and her favorite, blue.

Next to her at the table, her 2-year-old sister, Olivia, worked on a lollipop of her own.

When asked what she was going to do at the library, Ava simply said, “Get some new books and play here.”

She was one of many children attending the Family Literacy Event on Saturday morning at the library.

“It’s a great opportunity to get the girls out and give them something to do that’s mentally constructive and they can have fun,” said Ava and Olivia’s father, Jason. “We always love going out to the library and going to the Tendermaid for lunch after that, so it makes for a good Saturday morning.”

There was no shortage of activities for children. There was face painting, games and a magic show by Jim Jayes.

The event was a joint effort by several community organizations to promote childhood literacy and family bonding.

“Three years ago we put together an Austin literacy group of folks from all over the community, various organizations wanting to promote the importance of literacy in young children,” said Jennifer Lawhead, who helped organize the event. “We started meeting and thinking about what we could do to improve literacy in early childhood.”

“We partnered with Matchbox Children’s Theatre and their play is how we determine our theme each year,” said Amy Baskin, who also helped organize the event. “This year it’s ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,’ which they are performing next week, so we decided to do a magical theme. We looked at different organizations and offered them opportunities to be here to do activities and they all do it free and voluntarily. The Kiwanis and Austin Rotary donated books, so every student that leaves gets a book. This year, Sweet Reads is giving out a golden ticket and you can take it to the store and get a free book.”

Matchbox Children’s Theatre was present at the library with cast members of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” in costume, reading excerpts from the Roald Dahl classic to children. One of the readers was 16-year-old Blythe Johnson, a Matchbox Children’s Theatre veteran who is portraying one of the two narrators in the show.

“I wanted to come out to do this because I think that Austin is a good place and I like to support new kids coming and having them explore new books,” she said.

The message that organizers like Baskin and Lawhead hoped visitors would leave with is the importance of reading and interacting with children.

“The first five years of a child’s life is when their brain develops and it’s really important for families to talk, read and sing with their children instead of doing a lot of screen time,” Baskin said. “Reading gives you the opportunity to snuggle with your child, it gives you the opportunity to build a relationship, it gives them the opportunity to be exposed to a lot of vocabulary and words, which then helps them to be able to read at grade level. Up to third grade, children learn to read; from fourth grade on they read to learn.”

“The reason we like the ‘talk, read, sing’ message so much is that all the research says that a tightly bonded relationship between a parent and child is the number one predictor of academic outcomes, not personal finance, not first language,” Lawhead said. “When you talk, read and sing with your child, that forms that bonded relationship. It doesn’t take money, it doesn’t take a degree, it takes a relationship with kids.”