An Insane Decatur Book Festival

From the sold-out keynote address to the "insane" crowd at Sunday morning's Pete the Cat parade, the sixth annual Decatur Book Festival was another success for organizers, attendees, and the city of Decatur. Cofounder and executive director Daren Wang estimates that attendance was up between 10% to 15% this year, and that the turnout for the parade Sunday morning easily doubled, and perhaps tripled, their highest parade numbers: "The Judy Schachner parade [on Saturday morning] was really wonderful – probably 400 to 500 kids took part. But Pete the Cat was insane! I stood on the corner and watched it go by, it was 10 or 15 minutes of just kids. I knew [Pete the Cat illustrator] James Dean and [author] Eric Litwin were hometown favorites, but I had no idea it was going to be like that."