UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Marathon Read, an annual event featuring students and other members of the Penn State community coming together to read for 12 hours, will take place from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 26. This year’s new location — the Dewey Room of the Collaboration Commons, located on the ground floor of the Pattee Library on Penn State’s University Park campus — will allow participants to view graphic novels while they are being read.

Now in its 12th year, Marathon Read is free and open to the public. Anyone can sign up to read in five-minute increments or sit and listen for all or part of the event. Food will be provided throughout the day.

This year’s theme is “Youth on Fire: Stories of Growing Up.” The event will highlight stories that chronicle the hopeful and harrowing changes humans encounter as they grow up. It will also celebrate 35 years since the creation and signing of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, an international human rights treaty that led to significant changes in the treatment of children across a variety of areas.

Visit Marathon Read to learn more or to sign up in advance to read at this year’s event.

The first text for the event will be “The House on Mango Street” by Sandra Cisneros, a foundational piece of coming-of-age literature. Work from Benjamin Aliré Saenz and Nidhi Chanani will represent the power of the young adult genre, while memoirs from Aleksandar Hemon and former “The Daily Show” host Trevor Noah will add nonfiction stories to the event. Lat’s classic graphic memoir “Town Boy” is also on the schedule.

Samuel Kọ́láwọlé, assistant professor of English and African Studies, will introduce the event. Kọ́láwọlé’s short fiction often touches on the experiences of young adults in environments not designed for them, and his first novel “The Road to the Salt Sea” was recently published by Amistad, an imprint of HarperCollins. Special guests Sue Paterno and Russ Rose, former Penn State women’s volleyball coach, will begin reading “The House on Mango Street.”

Marathon Read is sponsored by the College of the Liberal Arts; Department of English; Paterno Fellows Program; School of Global Languages, Literatures, and Cultures; Penn State University Libraries; Center for American Literary Studies; Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies; Department of Asian Studies; and the Humanities Institute.