Judging from last year’s first edition, people who live around Freeport have a good appetite for the Edible Books Festival.

On Wednesday, April 15, the Freeport Community Library again will offer up this free event that invites everyone to create and bring in something that relates to books and also can be eaten. Judges will award eight prizes – four for adult entries and four for children – based on funniest, most “bookish,” creative and best in show.

People can register at the library from 10 a.m.-5:45 p.m. on the day of the festival. From 6-6:30, judges will vote on the “Golden Spoon Awards,” and at 6:45, anyone who wants gets to eat the entries.

The Edible Books Festival was a group affair on two fronts for Isla Wilson of Freeport, now a fourth-grader at Mast Landing School. Wilson’s father, Robert, submitted a prize-winning entry, and Wilson and four of her classmates, under the direction of teacher Sarah Templeton-Bush, also came home with a prize.

Wilson, Jillian Wight, Lauren Roussel, Phoebe Keliher and Riley Atkinson won Best in Show” and “Most Creative” for a cake made to look like Mount Desert Island, based on the book about the island, “Small as an Elephant,” by Jennifer Richard Jacobson. The girls read the book in their book group, led by Templeton-Bush.

“The girls decided that they would make a cake that was essentially an aerial view of MDI,” said Wilson’s mother, Fiona. “The bus was on top of the cake. There was an elephant that one of the girls made out of marshmallows. There’s a toy elephant in the book.”

They girls brought their cakes to the school and then assembled them together and added frosting.

“The teacher got it into her car and into the library, miraculously all in one piece,” Fiona Wilson said.

Wilson said she liked the Edible Books Festival because it welcomed new ideas.

“It let people be creative, and it was really accessible to people,” she said, adding that she and her friends are reading “The Little Prince” in their group book and are working on a look for a contest entry.

“You kind of have to do it the day of the event,” she said. “We’re going to start planning it soon.”

Robert Wilson won adult category prizes for “Most Creative” and “Wittiest.” He “threw together” a bird’s nest, he said, and an egg underneath that had been broken in a depiction of the book, “One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”

“It’s an awful lot of fun,” he said. “You get a voting card as you come in, and then they do a tally of the vote.”

Suanne Williams-Lindgren, a consultant and artist from Freeport, launched the Edible Books Festival. Williams-Lindgren was familiar with the concept, having taken part in festivals at the Portland Public Library. She is hoping that this year’s turnout on April 15 matches last year’s crowd.

“There were about 80 in the public meeting room,” Williams-Lindgren said. “I have to tell you, it was phenomenal. We had an exceptional number of kids’ entries, and a good number of adult ones. We’re hoping for more adults this year.”

The Edible Books Festival is not a fundraiser, and is open to anyone in the area.

“It’s for fun,” she said. “It’s to celebrate books, and to look at books in a different way.”

Students from Mast Landing School pose with the award-winning entry they created last year for the Edible Books Festival at the Freeport Community Library. In front, from left, are Lauren Roussel, Riley Anderson and Isla Wilson. In back are teacher Sarah Templeton-Bush, Jillian Wight and Phoebe Keliher. This year’s festival is April 15.Courtesy photoEntries in last year’s Edible Books Festival at the Freeport Community Library showed imagination. Courtesy photoEntries in last year’s Edible Books Festival at the Freeport Community Library showed imagination. Courtesy photo

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