Kristi Yamaguchi's Family Literacy Festival returns to San Jose next Saturday, September 5, bringing hands-on reading activities, celebrity story readings and family entertainment to the Children's Discovery Museum for its fourth year running. Tickets cost $20 to $22 and include museum admission, with the event running from 9:30 AM to 4:30 PM in downtown San Jose.
The featured guest this year is Mychal Threets, an award-winning Bay Area librarian who now hosts the revived children's program Reading Rainbow on PBS, according to The Mercury News. Known to many as Mychal the Librarian, Threets built his reputation over more than a decade working in the Solano County Library system in Fairfield, rising to supervising librarian before stepping down in March 2024, and he was named one of 10 national honorees for the American Library Association's I Love My Librarian Award in December 2023, as Hoodline previously reported.
Threets' appearance carries extra weight this year given his recent openness about mental health. Last Sunday, he posted on Instagram that he had placed himself on a five-day psychiatric hold, writing, as per The Mercury News, “I am not better, I'm getting help to be better.” Hoodline covered his disclosure in depth in a piece detailing his Fairfield roots after his hold, connecting his advocacy for mental health awareness to the same public library work that made him a household name for reading.
A Foundation Built on Third-Grade Reading
Yamaguchi, the 1992 Olympic figure skating gold medalist, founded the Always Dream Foundation in 1996 to promote early childhood literacy and expand underserved children's access to books and family reading support, per U.S. Figure Skating. The foundation points to research showing that children who fail to read proficiently by the end of third grade are four times more likely to drop out of high school, underscoring the urgency behind the festival's mission. Yamaguchi has also built a career as a children's author herself, penning the New York Times best-selling picture book Dream Big, Little Pig! in 2011 and donating a portion of the proceeds to literacy programs.
The festival will include art projects alongside its readings and activities, all housed at a venue with its own local landmark status. The Children's Discovery Museum of San Jose opened in 1990 inside a 52,000-square-foot purple building on Woz Way, designed by architect Ricardo Legorreta and named for Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, who was the primary private donor for its original capital campaign, according to Wikipedia. The museum logged more than 208,000 family visits and 22,500 group visitors during its fiscal year ending August 2024, per Cause IQ, as attendance continues climbing back toward pre-pandemic levels near 400,000 annual visitors.
Winchester Mystery House Opens Its Rarely Seen Attic
Across town, the Winchester Mystery House is gearing up for its own fall programming with Festival Fright Nights, running from September 18 through November 1 at 525 Winchester Blvd. The seasonal event is produced by Thirteenth Floor Entertainment Group, a Denver-based company that operates more than 30 haunted attractions and live immersive events across 17 U.S. cities, according to VoyageDenver.
Tickets start at $61 and grant access to three main attractions, including a new twist on one of the mansion's least-accessible spaces. The house's attic, rarely open to visitors, will be converted into an interactive add-on called Hide & Seek: The Lost Children Experience. Additional offerings include axe throwing, a shooting gallery and a fire pit for roasting s'mores, while VIP admission adds a live séance, access to the Séance Society speakeasy and an audience with Harry Houdini.
A Mansion Built Without a Blueprint
The Winchester Mystery House itself has drawn more than 12 million visitors since opening to public tours in 1923 following the death of heiress Sarah Winchester, and it was added to the National Register of Historic Places and designated California Historical Landmark No. 868 in August 1974, per EcoDrive Auto Sales. Built continuously over 38 years without a master architectural blueprint, the 160-room mansion features 47 stairways, 10,000 windows, 2,000 doors and 52 skylights, including staircases that lead directly into ceilings, according to Komoot. Popular lore attributes the unplanned, ever-expanding construction to Sarah Winchester's belief that constant building would appease or confuse spirits, though that explanation remains folklore rather than settled fact.
Together, the two San Jose institutions are leaning into contrasting seasonal draws this fall: one built around books, readings and third-grade reading milestones for families, the other around a century-old architectural puzzle turned haunted attraction. Whether the literacy festival's single-day turnout will approach the museum's broader annual traffic, and whether Threets plans specific remarks on mental wellness alongside his book readings, remain open questions ahead of the September 5 event.
