Yes, those of us in the digerati generation enjoy blogging and Facebooking and Twittering and yes, we spend way too much reading about random things online like frozen-food reviews and rants from angry journalists, but we nonetheless love books. I mean, really love books, and yes, I mean the dead-tree variety that you can actually hold, spill coffee on, and impress your friends with when said books are sufficiently large and/or esoteric and arranged just so on the living room table.

And back when the TRS-80 was just a mere gleam in our young and soon-to-be pixel-stuffed and dry eyes, we spent hours and hours and days with books.

It's a part of growing up that has not changed, despite the ability to download an entire season of Family Guy onto a device the size of a slice of melba toast.

On September 28, the community at Washington Irving's Sunnyside, our "founding father of literature" will be celebrating children's books with an event called (fittingly) Celebrate Children's Book Day. It's an annual occurrence and it's hugely popular, proving that reports of the death of books are greatly exaggerated.

Sunnyside will be hosting more than 60 children's book authors and illustrators, so young fans get to interact with them and get their favorite books signed.

I just learned that new participants this year will include Hudson Talbott, author/illustrator of United Tweets of America, Jerry Smath, author/illustrator of But No Elephants, Jerry Craft, author/illustrator of Mama's Boyz, Leslie Kimmelman, author of Everybody Bonjours!, Elise Broach, author of Shakespeare's Secret, Robert Casilla, illustrator of A Picture Book of Jackie Robinson, Ida Pearle, author/illustrator of Child's Day, and Daniel Mahoney, author/illustrator of A Really Good Snowman.

The weather held and folks came out for a little sunshine and history at Friday's Independence Day celebrations at Van Cortlandt Manor and Sunnyside.

In the top photo are gentlemen from Doughty Artillery Company, military re-enactors who wowed the crowds at Van Cortlandt Manor, and in the bottom photo, some spirited country dancers at Sunnyside.

Hundreds of visitors came out for both events, and the press came, too. Here's a piece from the Journal News.

Were you there? Leave a comment and tell us what you thought!

Yes, HVBlogger acknowledges the 50% chance of  a shower, but c'mon, you can't just sit inside on the start of a long holiday weekend! HHV has two offbeat events today -- Independence Day 1808 (Van Cortlandt Manor) and Independence Day 1858 (Sunnyside). How often do you get to choose your own time period?

The Journal News saw fit to publish a cover story on today's events, featuring the most clever lede (the opening sentences, for you non-journo types) HVBlogger has seen in quite some time:

Cannnon-wielding soldiers and hotheaded debaters might seem like a dangerous combination. Luckily, they're miles apart.

Oh, and Crotonblog had a few things to say about us, too.

Click here to buy tickets online. (Psst...used discount code USA and your 5-17 year olds get in free.)

Your faithful HVBLogger was on the scene at Van Cortlandt Manor yesterday and shot this video of Dikki Ellis, king of the slack rope walkers (and a pretty good comedian/magician, too).

Yes, Dikki will be there today for those of you who still haven't made it to Animals & Acrobats.

A Journal News reporter and photographer came to Van Cortlandt Manor yesterday and filed this report on Animals & Acrobats.

Cool stuff!