The festival celebrates the joy in opening the pages of a book and features talks by various authors throughout the day, book signings and more.
This year's list of authors includes Sarah Albee, Aaron Becker, Chris Grabenstein, Leila Howland, Liz Kessler, Gordan Korman, Grace Lin, Scott Magoon, Meghan McCarthy, Heidi Stemple, Rita Williams Garcia, and Jane Yolen, as well as local storytellers, including Len Cabral, Marc Levitt, and Valerie Tutson.
Meghan McCarthy knew by age seven that she wanted to illustrate books for a living when she grew up. After attending the Rhode Island School of Design, she took the step that would make that dream a reality: she packed up all her earthly goods, moved to New York City, and began to knock on publishers' doors, portfolio in hand. The risk paid off when McCarthy was given a two-book contract by Viking that included publication of her first picture book, George Upside Down. Able to quit her pizza-delivery job in 2000, she has published several more books since, winning critical praise and a host of young fans along the way due to the appeal of her quirky cartoon drawings and humorous stories.
Scott Magoon is the illustrator of many books for young readers, including Mostly Monsterly by Tammi Sauer; Kara LaReau’s Rabbit and Squirrel and Ugly Fish, which was a CCBC Blue Ribbon winner; The Luck of the Loch Ness Monsterby Alice Flaherty, which was named to the 2009–2010 Texas Bluebonnet Award Master List; Otto Grows Down by Michael Sussman; and Spoon by Amy Krouse Rosenthal. He is also both the author and illustrator of Hugo & Miles; I’ve Painted Everything; Mystery Ride; and The Boy Who Cried Bigfoot, which Kirkus Reviews called “entertaining and clever—and that’s no lie.” The art director at a major children’s publisher, he lives in the Boston area with his wife and two sons
Bugged: How Insects Changed History by Sarah Albee
Sarah Albee was born in Cleveland, Ohio, the fourth of four children. Her parents were both professors. They moved from Cleveland to Burlington, Vermont when she was in fourth grade. Her first big job after college was working as an editor at Children’s Television Workshop (the company that produces Sesame Street). She met and eventually married a high-school history teacher, and after her second child was born, they moved from New York City to Connecticut, where her husband began teaching at a boarding school, and where they had their third child. Nowadays she is a full-time freelance children’s book writer.http://www.sarahalbeebooks.com/
Rita Williams Garcia’s Newbery Honor-winning novel, One Crazy Summer, was a winner of the Coretta Scott King Award, a National Book Award finalist, the recipient of the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction, and a New York Timesbestseller. The sequel, P.S. Be Eleven, was also a Coretta Scott King Award winner and an ALA Notable Children's Book for Middle Readers. She is also the author of six distinguished novels for young adults: Jumped, a National Book Award finalist; No Laughter Here, Every Time a Rainbow Dies (a Publishers Weekly Best Children's Book), and Fast Talk on a Slow Track (all ALA Best Books for Young Adults);Blue Tights; and Like Sisters on the Homefront, a Coretta Scott King Honor Book. Rita Williams-Garcia lives in Jamaica, New York, is on the faculty at the Vermont College of Fine Arts in the Writing for Children & Young Adults Program, and has two adult daughters, Stephanie and Michelle, and a son-in-law, Adam.
How do Dinasours Say Good Night by Jane Yolen and Mark Teague
Jane Yolen is a novelist, poet, fantasist, journalist, songwriter, storyteller, folklorist, and children’s book author who has written more than three hundred books. Her accolades include the Caldecott Medal, two Nebula Awards, the World Fantasy Award, three Mythopoeic Awards, the Kerlan Award, two Christopher Awards, and six honorary doctorate degrees from colleges and universities in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Born and raised in New York City, the mother of three and the grandmother of six, Yolen lives in Massachusetts and St. Andrews, Scotland.
Liz Kessler wanted to be a poet when she was quite young (about eight). She grew up and did lots of other things, but then in 1999 she suddenly realized she wanted to write a book. She says, "It was as though I'd remembered what I'd always wanted to do, and I've never looked back." About mermaids (a topic of many of her books), she says, "I am fascinated by the sea and all the mysteries of the ocean. It's so huge and there is so much of it that we haven't discovered and know nothing about. To me, mermaids represent the possibilities of what might just exist, on the edges of our imaginations and our world." Liz just spent a year traveling around Europe in a camper van with her best friend and her dog, Poppy! She now lives in St. Ives, England.
Leila Howland attended Lincoln for a few years and has written a series of books about a young woman who attends an all-girls school in Providence. A graduate of Georgetown University, Leila Howland spent five years acting in New York in everything from an MTV public service announcement to a John Guare play at Lincoln Center and was a proud company member of the award-winning Flea Theater in Tribeca. Currently, she teaches high school English and English as a second language in downtown Los Angeles and occasionally moonlights as an extra on the Young and the Restless
Grace Lin grew up in Upstate New York with her parents and two sisters, who are featured in many of her books, includingDim Sum For Everyone! and my novels, The Year of the Dogand The Year of the Rat. Her mother and herself were the star characters in her first book, The Ugly Vegetables -- she cut both of her sisters out of that story! They were quite upset with her and made her promise never to cut them out again. And since then, she hasn’t...yet. While many of her books highlight her family, not all of them do. Lin’s Newbery Honor-winning novel Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, is an Asian inspired fantasy that some people call a ChineseWizard of Oz, and her early reader "Ling & Ting" is inspired by the old 'Flicka, Dicka & Ricka' books she read when she was young.
Chris Grabenstein is the 2014 RI Children’s Book Award Winner for Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library. He is an award-winning author of books for children and adults, a playwright, screenwriter, and former advertising executive and improvisational comedian. Winner of two Anthony and four Agatha Awards, he is also the co-author with James Patterson of The #1 New York Times bestseller I FUNNY. A former writer for Jim Henson's Muppets and past president of the New York Chapter of the Mystery Writers of America, Chris co-wrote the screenplay for the CBS-TV movie, The Christmas Gift, starring John Denver. He lives in New York City with his wife, three cats, and a rescue dog named Fred, who starred in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang on Broadway.
Aaron Becker was born in Baltimore, Aaron Becker moved to California to attend Pomona College where he scored his first illustration job designing t-shirts for his water polo team. Since then, he's traveled to Kenya, Japan, Sweden, and Tahiti backpacking around while looking for good things to eat and feeding his imagination. He now lives with his family in Amherst, MA where he's busy at work on his next book project.
Not All Princesses Dress in Pink by Jane Yolen and Heidi Stemple
Heidi Stemple didn’t want to be a writer when she grew up. In fact, after she graduated from college, she became a probation officer in Florida. It wasn’t until she was 28 years old that she gave in and joined the family business, publishing her first short story in a book called Famous Writers and Their Kids Write Spooky Stories. The famous writer was her mom, author Jane Yolen. Since then, she has published more than a dozen books and numerous short stories and poems, mostly for children. Heidi, her two daughters, her mom, and a couple cats live in Massachusetts on a big old farm with two houses.
Gordon Korman is the author of more than sixty books for kids and young adults, most recently Pop. His writing career began at the age of twelve when his seventh-grade English assignment became his first published novel. Now, thirty-three years later, he is a full-time writer and speaker, with more than sixteen million copies of his novels in print. His books have been translated into French, Swedish, Danish, Spanish, Norwegian, Hebrew, Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, Italian, Korean, Dutch, Greek, and Thai. Each year he travels extensively, visiting schools and libraries, bringing his trademark humor and adventure styles to readers everywhere. A native of Ontario, Canada, he lives with his family on Long Island, outside New York City
