Four-year-old Violet King was returning for her third year and received a book signed by Tracey Baptiste. Her father, TJ King, said it was his first time attending.

“We’re very fortunate to have this awesome event in our community,” he said.

It was a literary week in the Tri-Lakes, with Adirondack Authors Day on Tuesday in Tupper Lake and the Summer Book Sale at Saranac Lake Free Library.

Lake Placid’s festival is intentionally small, and authors participate by invitation only. There are a few familiar names of local authors who frequent Adirondack literary spaces — Kate Messner, Maxwell Eaton III, Loree Griffin Burns and Amy Guglielmo. The festival’s organizers try to invite new authors each year, as well as ones with new releases, so that repeat attendees can have the opportunity to try new books.

Loree Griffin Burns speaks with young attendees of the Adirondack Family Book Festival at Lake Placid Middle/High School on Saturday. (Enterprise photo — Grace McIntyre)

This year, seven out of the 16 authors are new, said Martha Swan, founder and executive director of John Brown Lives! and one of the organizers of the book festival.

Some of the authors introduced their new novels in the first panel, one of seven discussions scheduled throughout the day. Messner has a new book, “The Trouble with Heroes,” that combines different forms of writing to tell a young boy’s experience of hiking the High Peaks.

“It’s told mostly in poetry, but there are also text messages and photographs and cookie recipes and choose your own disaster sequences, a little bit of everything,” she said.

Author Saadia Faruqi writes books ranging from early readers to the middle grades. She said her stories are often informed by her own experiences of being from somewhere else, having moved to the United States as an immigrant from Pakistan. She lives in Texas and was thrilled to be in the Adirondacks for the first time.

The festival’s consistent goal over the years has been to expose local kids to diverse stories from around the country and the world. Festival assistant Adalyne Perryman, who originally got involved with the festival four years ago as a youth volunteer, said it has been gratifying to see the event grow in popularity and to see kids enjoying their interactions with authors.

“Understanding and reading about different experiences that might be different from the youth’s own lived experiences are important for growing adults who have open minds, who are understanding, who are empathetic,” she said. “That creates a much better community, whether that community is locally in the Adirondacks or Lake Placid, or large-scale, for the country or the world.”

However, the learning goes both ways. Swan said it’s an opportunity for authors to experience a rural community outside of the more urban spaces they might be used to.

“In a time where there is so much intentional sowing of division and divide,” Swan said, “(We) have a day-long festival that is a counterpoint to a manufactured divide.”

Bridging the divide between subcultures and life experiences is a part of the motivation for Messner, who has been closely involved with the festival since its inception, mainly by helping recruit authors. She said authors are usually sent to big cities on book tours, but rural areas often lack these opportunities. The Adirondack Family Book Festival includes authors who are Newbery Medal winners, National Book Award finalists and New York Times best sellers.

At the same time, the festival is an opportunity for authors to experience the Adirondacks, sometimes for the first time. The day after the festival, Messner often takes the authors on a hike.

“It’s a joy for me to share the authors whose work I love so much with my home community,” she said. “But also it’s a joy for me to share the place that I love with my colleagues.”