Boston Book Festival

Our friends from Bright Horizons Early Education and Preschool® are turning the Brainstorm Tent into a writer's studio! Bring your child to this drop-in activity where they can write and illustrate their own hardcover book. With a variety of writing materials, your child can tell their own story and add their own drawings to a book that they can take home that day, complete with their own author/illustrator photo. Not sure what to write about? Don’t worry. We'll provide some story prompts! You can also learn about the Bright Horizons Growing Readers program, and take home tips on choosing the best books for children and how to make story time more engaging.

In Hair Like Obama’s, Hands Like Lebron, New York Times best-selling author Carole Boston Weatherford celebrates iconic Black figures inspiring children across America. | Ages 3-6 | BPL Children’s Library

Embark on a whirlwind adventure across the globe packed with dark magic, protector spirits, and enchanting mysteries! New York Times bestselling author Tracey Baptiste tells the tale of Moko Magic: Carnival Chaos, following twelve-year-old Misty who has just moved from sunny Trinidad to Brooklyn, New York, right in time for the annual carnival. As curious disasters and dark forces threaten the festivities, Misty and her cousins discover they’ve inherited magical powers from their ancestors—now they just need to learn to master their new powers in order to save the day…no big deal, right?! Cindy L. Rodriguez’s Lola Reyes Is So Not Worried follows a Guatemalan-American girl who fights to stop her cursed ‘worry dolls’ from absorbing all her friends' and families’ anxieties. Will Lola stop the dolls from bursting before it’s too late—and will she gather the strength to face her own anxieties and fears to finally break the curse? S.J. Taylor transports readers to 1700s Norway in Madsi The True as Madsi’s sister Lisbet is mysteriously taken by the Northern Lights. With a gang of unlikely companions, Madsi embarks on a daring quest to rescue her sister and uncover the truth. The Horn Book Editor-in-Chief Elissa Gershowitz moderates this conversation about middle grade adventures inspired by folklore.

Come meet your favorite book-loving, yellow sweater-wearing character. Near the Brainstorm Tent and walking around the outdoor fair.

Ismée Williams weaves a heartfelt story of immigration, family connection, and love when she reads her book Abuelo, the Sea, and Me. In the book, Cuba comes alive through Abuelo's memories of his youth and the stories he tells his grandchild. | Ages 4-8 | BPL Children’s Library

A still-life painting is a painting where everything is supposed to stay still. But what if it doesn’t?! Acclaimed author Alex London and Caldecott Medal-winning artist Paul O. Zelinsky team up to read Still Life–a book full of art, rule-breaking, and a whole lot of fun! | Ages 4-8 | BPL Children’s Library

Zeke the Wombat is here to say hello!  Near the Brainstorm Tent and walking around the outdoor fair.

Prepare to explore enchanted realms and mysterious dark regions in these tales of young adventurers! Dive into the Ghanaian supernatural with Craig Kofi Farmer and learn how twelve-year old Kwame sets out to help his late grandmother save humanity from the wrath of the nature gods in Kwame Crashes the Underworld. Piper CJ, author of the best-selling series The Night and Its Moon, invites you to enter a school like no other where part-human and part-fae students learn to work their peculiar powers to unravel the mystery at the heart of Fern’s School for Wayward Fae: Graveyard Gift. Soar with Zuli in Majorie Liu’s Wingborn, the sequel to Wingbearer, as she embarks on a quest to free the spirits of her bird friends. After escaping a merchant airship, Zuli must uncover ancient secrets in order to restore the world’s broken magic. Boston Public Library children’s librarian Patty Lawley guides us on this fantastical tour.

Come meet your favorite book-loving, yellow sweater-wearing character. Near the Brainstorm Tent and walking around the outdoor fair.

Nobody knows maps like Nikki, who traces her family’s roots all across the globe. After a wrong turn on a road trip, can Nikki use her knowledge to reroute them in time for Uncle Travis’ wedding? Find out when award-winning educator and artivist Nadia L. Hohn reads Getting Us To Grandma’s. | Ages 4-8 | BPL Children’s Library

Two families—both filled with love, hardship, and joy, both living in the same place—and the one table that connects them all. Coretta Scott King Book Award winner Winsome Bingham and long-time educator Wiley Blevins tell a story about families who are more alike than they are different through their new book, The Table. | Ages 4-8 | BPL Children’s Library

Zeke the Wombat is here to say hello!  Near the Brainstorm Tent and walking around the outdoor fair.

How do your favorite graphic novels make you double over in laughter with just a few comic frames?  Come to Kaboom! and learn about the antics in graphic novels from two of the most popular authors who make them. John Patrick Green, New York Times bestselling author of the InvestiGators series, writes his latest adventure about Mango and Dash, two detective alligators who are sure to make a splash! Jorge Cham writes Oliver’s Great Big Universe, the diary of a science-loving eleven year old, comparing the mysteries of the universe to the trials and crazy antics of his school life. In the session, Green and Cham will go pen to pen in a live DRAW-OFF! Come with your suggestions, some of them might be used to decide this graphics duel. Boston Public School’s very own head of libraries Liz Phipps-Soeiro will facilitate.

Playful Engineers returns to our Brainstorm Tent, with their chain reaction-themed program - all materials included and ready for you to build! In this hands-on session, kids and their families design, build, test, and play with complicated chain reactions made from simple parts (Rube Goldberg machines), using the provided tracks, balls, dominoes, blocks, wheels, rods, and connectors, cars, gears, and pulleys. This is a fantastic chance to see what kinds of creative, crazy contraptions you can build together as a family! Ages 5-12. Please note: children must be accompanied by an adult at all times.

Maybe a rainy summer day is the perfect time for an adventure in an imaginary world all of your own! Award-winning storyteller Idris Goodwin encourages children to think outside of the walls, windows, and furniture that make up their homes in Your House Is Not Just a House. | Ages 4-8 | BPL Children’s Library

Bring your curiosity and sense of adventure to explore these mysteries, layered with secrets and mind-boggling twists! NAACP Image Award and Margaret Edwards Award winner Kekla Magoon takes us into Secret Library, where 11 year old Dally finds that each book is a portal to a precise moment in time and, when she looks closely, reveals truths about her family. New York Times best-selling author Jasmine Warga weaves a tale of missing paintings and ghostly girls, along with a reptilian friend that helps crack the case in A Strange Thing Happened in Cherry Hall. In Lola, Karla Arenas Valenti introduces Florestra, a land of mythos and monsters that the title character Lola must navigate and outwit in order to save her brother. This discussion of sleuthing and solving stories will be led by literacy educator Nicholl Montgomery. This session is sponsored by Simmons University.