TIMESLEDGER | Q 2 NS.COM | MAY 21-MAY 27, 2021
BY JENNA BAGCAL
The annual College Point
Memorial Day celebration
will look a bit different this
year as New York City continues
its reopening plan
following COVID-19’s gradual
decline.
The College Point parade
committee announced a car
parade to mark the national
holiday. On Sunday, May 30,
at 2 p.m., community members
are invited to travel
down College Point Boulevard
to honor fallen service
men and women.
This is the second consecutive
year that the
annual parade has been
canceled due to COVID-19
restrictions. In 2020, the
community organized a
virtual wreath-laying ceremony
as part of a larger,
Queens-wide ceremony
hosted by then-Acting Borough
President Sharon Lee
and Queens District Attorney
Melinda Katz.
According to organizers,
parade participants
will line up on 28th Street
and will make their way
down College Point Boulevard
to MacNeil Park. Attendees
are encouraged to
decorate their vehicles and
bring flags. Those who do
not drive are asked to line
up along College Point Boulevard
to show support.
The car parade will be
led by a trolley donated by
the Poppenhusen Institute.
Early Memorial Day remembrances
in the United
States were documented in
the late 1860s after the end
of the Civil War. Originally
known as “Decoration
Day,” it became an official
federal holiday in 1971 and
traditionally marks the unofficial
start of summer.
Visit Facebook and Twitter
or reach out to Chairperson
Jennifer Shannon
or Co-Chairperson Henry
Wick at 929-356-4344 to
learn more about the car
parade.
Reach reporter Jenna
Bagcal by e-mail at jbagcal@
schnepsmedia.com or
by phone at (718) 260-2583.
BY JENNA BAGCAL
When Bayside resident
Robyn Bonavita started her
“bookstagram” — a portmanteau
of the words “book” and
“Instagram” — she gained
about 1,000 followers in her first
month.
Now, Bonavita, also known
as @Robyn_Reads1, has
amassed a following of more
than 5,250 fellow book lovers
who enjoy her honest approach
to book reviews.
“I try and do my page a little
bit different than a lot of bookstagram
pages because I try to
be really true to my personality,”
she said. “I don’t have an
eye for aesthetics. I can’t set up
a pretty pillow and make it look
like a studio shot. I just post
funny book memes and I post
my reviews with my real, honest
opinions. I really try and engage
with the other people that
are on bookstagram. It seems to
be working.”
She started the account as a
way to rediscover herself in the
midst of COVID-19 and being a
mother to two young children.
The book reviewer told QNS
that running the account has
helped her stay true to her own
interests and “not follow what
everyone else is doing.”
“Starting this bookstagram
has just opened up a whole new
part of me and it made me feel
like myself again. I followed my
heart for the first time in a really
long time,” Bonavita said.
Growing up, the lifelong
Bayside resident shared that
both of her parents were “huge
readers” and their quality time
as a family centered on making
regular trips to bookstores
or the library. Since her family
did not own a car at the time,
Bonavita and her father would
walk about a mile to the nearest
library on Saturdays.
“There’s a 25-book maximum
that you could take out
and every week I would take
out the 25 books,” Bonvita said.
“My dad always encouraged
it. He always wanted me reading
as much as possible and
we would read together all the
time.”
Long before starting her
Instagram account, Bonavita
reviewed books for print magazines
like RT Book reviews,
which became defunct as the
internet grew in popularity.
These days, she still considers
herself a professional book
reviewer since publishers regularly
send her books to read.
“There’s this thing called
NetGalley and it’s where you
go on and you request the books
that you want to read from the
publishers. If the publisher
likes your credentials, they approve
you for the book. Now
that’s what I’m doing. Because
I am on bookstagram and I’m
writing the honest reviews, I
have authors reaching out to
me asking me to review their
books,” Bonavita said.
When reading a book she
intends to review, Bonavita
said that the flow of the story is
the most important feature she
looks for.
“If I can put a book down and
not think about it and not want
to pick it up, then I know there’s
a problem. For me, the flow is
everything about a book because
I don’t want to be slogging
through it; I want to be excited
to pick it up again,” she said.
Second to story flow is character
development and she said
that good stories have characters
who are “fleshed out.”
“I can not like a character
— that’s totally fine, as long as
they’re a real person to me. I
Photo courtesy of Robyn Bonavita
want to know backstory. I want
to know why the character is
the way they are. If you give me
that, I’m happy.”
At the time of the interview,
Bonavita said that she had read
32 books since January and she
was on track to read between
120 and 125 books for 2021. Some
of her favorite authors to read
include Karin Slaughter, Taylor
Jenkins Reid, Jude Deveraux,
Jennifer Crusie and Lisa Lutz.
She said that her love of
reading is something she got to
share with her daughters.
“I have two daughters. One
is 3, so she just sits there and
flips through the books and
pretends she’s reading. But my
7-year-old loves books, so we try
to have reading time every single
day where we all sit on the
couch and we read our books.
Her teachers are always telling
me how much she loves reading
and how well she’s doing with
it,” Bonavita said.
Her advice for those who
want to start reading when they
have not found books they enjoy
is “don’t stop.” She suggests aspiring
readers to try different
genres and authors in order to
find something that interest
them.
Find Bonavita on her Instagram
page @Robyn_Reads1.
College Point Memorial Day Parade from a previous year.
Photo courtesy of College Point Memorial Day Parade committee
College Point to
host car parade for
Memorial Day 2021
‘I followed my heart’
Bayside resident turns love of reading into popular ‘bookstagram’
BAYSIDE TIMES (USPS#025088) is published weekly by Queens CNG LLC, 38-15 Bell Boulevard, Bayside, NY.11361, (718) 229-0300. The entire contents of this publication are copyright 2021. All rights reserved. The newspaper will
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