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AUTHORS FOR CHILDREN + TEENS
Catch online presentations from some of the hottest authors for kids and young adults.
Past Events
November 2023
SWOONWORTHY SPICE & EVERYTHING NICE: FOUR YOUNG ADULT ROM-COMS
You won’t want to miss this sizzling panel with four young adult romance writers on juggling the entanglements in love and life. In The Secret Summer Promise by KEAH BROWN, Andrea spent last summer recovering from the latest surgery for her cerebral palsy, and is determined to make up for lost time with the Best Summer Ever List – which includes falling out of love with her best friend. In ALI HAZELWOOD’s Check & Mate,…
POMP, SNOW, & CIRQUEUMSTANCE Takeover in Children’s Alley!
Featured on Good Morning America and based on the award-winning book by Broadway director and Cirque Dreams founder NEIL GOLDBERG, join best friends POMP, SNOW & CIRQUEumstance in a teaser performance for their new magical holiday show and stage spectacular happening later this year! Three best friends, Pomp, Snow, and Cirqueumstance, study and learn special music, magic, and circus skills at a secret university filled with daring acrobatics, song, dance, and astonishing costumes, set in an immersive visual landscape beyond imagination!…
THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS: ADVENTURES IN ALTERNATE UNIVERSES
Step into other worlds with each of these chilling, action-packed middle-grade adventures. In The Shape of Time by RYAN CALEJO, Antares has never left South Florida – until strange creatures whisk him away to the mysterious Rymworld, where he must outsmart molemen, mermaids, mystics in search of a mythic compass. The Cursed Moon by ANGELA CERVANTES follows Rafael, who discovers that the chilling ghost story he made up about The Caretaker might actually be real – and only he can stop him.…
Make a melody with Justin Roberts
Make a melody with Grammy-nominated children’s songwriter JUSTIN ROBERTS as he sings and plays guitar for a special performance inspired by his latest picture book, Giant-Sized Butterflies on My First Day of School, and many other stories!…
TRIALS, TRAITORS & TEMPTATIONS: YOUNG ADULT FANTASY SUPERSTARS
Join four bestselling young adult fantasy writers on breaking curses, liberating lands, and how to fight the darkness within and without. In ALEX ASTER’s Nightbane, Isla Crown has secured the love of two powerful rulers and broken centuries-long curses, but as certain death races toward Lightlark, she must weigh her responsibility to her people against the whims of the most dangerous traitor of all: her heart. LAUREN ROBERTS’ Powerless follows Paedyn Gray, an Ordinary posing as a Psychic to keep from being banished from the world of Elites who finds herself thrown into the Purging Trials – and if the opponents don’t kill her,…
PICTURE BOOK STORYTIME: JUST WILD ENOUGH!
For Mireya Mayor, even as a young child whose house was filled with cats, dogs, rabbits, birds, a chicken, and a snapping turtle, nothing was quite wild enough. Older, she traded her pompoms as a cheerleader for the National Football League for the swamps of the South American jungle. The first woman wildlife TV reporter for National Geographic, she traveled the world, but things still weren’t quite wild enough. It was only when Mireya went to Madagascar that things FINALLY got wild enough.…
POMP, SNOW, & CIRQUEUMSTANCE Takeover in Children’s Alley!
Featured on Good Morning America and based on the award-winning book by Broadway director and Cirque Dreams founder NEIL GOLDBERG, join best friends POMP, SNOW & CIRQUEumstance in a teaser performance for their new magical holiday show and stage spectacular happening later this year! Three best friends, Pomp, Snow, and Cirqueumstance, study and learn special music, magic, and circus skills at a secret university filled with daring acrobatics, song, dance, and astonishing costumes, set in an immersive visual landscape beyond imagination!…
PICTURE BOOK STORYTIME: THE TAIL OF CLAYBE
Claybe is a happy little monkey who lives in the jungle. His favorite thing to do is to swing by his beautiful long furry tail. Claybe is just as happy as happy can be until the day he discovers people. Suddenly, Claybe’s life doesn’t seem as great to him as the lives of people. Claybe wonders if a people’s life is better than a monkey’s life. In The Tail of Claybe by FRANCINELEE HAND, travel with Claybe to the Big City where he learns about people and their ways.…
SOLE SURVIVORS & DEADLY SECRETS: JENNIFER DUGAN IN CONVERSATION WITH KIMBERLY WHITE
In JENNIFER DUGAN’s chilling psychological thriller, The Last Girls Standing, Sloan and Cherry bonded over their traumatic experience as the sole survivors in their summer camp massacre. But as new evidence comes to light, Sloan begins to suspect that Cherry may be more than just a survivor – she may actually have been part of it. Moderating is KIMBERLY WHITE, youth services coordinator, Broward County Libraries Division. Buy The Last Girls Standing. – Dugan…
WHERE ARE YOU GOING, WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN? THREE YA AUTHORS ON DANGER, DISAPPEARANCES & DIFFICULT DECISIONS
Three young adult authors bring real main character energy to their thrilling new novels about the complexities of family, friendships, and romance in a desperate search for answers. In ALLY CONDIE’s novel The Only Girl in Town, every single person in July Fielding’s small town has disappeared. No family. No friends. Her only chance at unraveling the mystery of their disappearance is a series of objects, each a reminder of the people she loved most. And a mysterious message: GET TH3M BACK.…
IT AIN’T EASY BEING IN MIDDLE SCHOOL: THE GRAPHIC NOVEL EDITION
Illustrator ROSE BOUSAMRA’s Frizzy is about Marlene, a young Dominican girl who hates being in the salon and doesn’t understand why her curls are not considered pretty by those around her. MAX BRALLIER returns to his bestselling series with The Last Comics on Earth, in which The Last Kids discover they’ve read every last issue of their favorite comic and decide to continue Z-Man’s legacy by writing and illustrating their own comic book. In A First Time for Everything,…
POMP, SNOW, & CIRQUEUMSTANCE TAKEOVER IN CHILDREN’S ALLEY!
Featured on Good Morning America and based on the award-winning book by Broadway director and Cirque Dreams founder NEIL GOLDBERG, join best friends Pomp, Snow, and Cirqueumstance in a teaser performance for their new magical holiday show and stage spectacular happening later this year! Three best friends, Pomp, Snow, and Cirqueumstance, study and learn special music, magic, and circus skills at a secret university filled with daring acrobatics, song, dance, and astonishing costumes, set in an immersive visual landscape beyond imagination!…
ON CONSPIRACIES, COMICS & SELF-CONFIDENCE: A CONVERSATION WITH URU-CHAN & HUDA FAHMY
From URU-CHAN comes unOrdinary, the popular, action-packed web series about John, an ordinary teen trying to survive high school in a world where superpowers dictate social status, and betrayal and conspiracies make up every turn. Nobody pays much attention to John at a school where the social elite happen to possess unthinkable powers and abilities. He prefers it that way; the more he stays under the radar, and stays close to the Royal’s most powerful Ace, Seraphina, the safer he is in the halls of Wellston High.…
CARL HIAASEN WITH CARLOS FRÍAS ON WRECKER
Wrecker is the latest, wildest adventure in CARL HIAASEN’s Florida. Valdez Jones VIII calls himself Wrecker because his great-great-great-great-great-grandfather salvaged shipwrecks for a living. So is it destiny, irony, or just bad luck when Wrecker comes across a speedboat that has run hard aground on a sand flat? The men in the boat don’t want Wrecker to call for help – in fact, they’ll pay him to forget he ever saw them. Wrecker would be happy to forget,…
PICTURE BOOK STORYTIME: PEPITA MEETS BEBITA!
Welcoming a new baby can be hard, especially when you’re used to being the center of attention! When it’s time for Pepita, the puppy of the family, to meet the brand new bebita, she’s in for a few surprises. What do you mean that Mami is too busy to bounce a ball for Pepita? And Papi seriously can’t find any time to scratch her ears? This new bebita is a bit of a problem … But along the way, the two will grow to love one another and become a family with even more smiles and heartwarming moments.…
POMP, SNOW, & CIRQUEUMSTANCE TAKEOVER IN CHILDREN’S ALLEY!
Featured on Good Morning America and based on the award-winning book by Broadway director and Cirque Dreams founder NEIL GOLDBERG, join best friends Pomp, Snow, and Cirqueumstance in a teaser performance for their new magical holiday show and stage spectacular happening later this year! Three best friends, Pomp, Snow, and Cirqueumstance, study and learn special music, magic, and circus skills at a secret university filled with daring acrobatics, song, dance, and astonishing costumes, set in an immersive visual landscape beyond imagination!…
PICTURE BOOK STORYTIME: THE TAIL OF CLAYBE
Claybe is a happy little monkey who lives in the jungle. His favorite thing to do is to swing by his beautiful long furry tail. Claybe is just as happy as happy can be until the day he discovers people. Suddenly, Claybe’s life doesn’t seem as great to him as the lives of people. Claybe wonders if a people’s life is better than a monkey’s life. In The Tail of Claybe by FRANCINELEE HAND, travel with Claybe to the Big City where he learns about people and their ways.…
THE STORIES WE TELL: A CONVERSATION WITH ERIN BOW & DONNA BARBA HIGUERA
In ERIN BOW’s Simon Sort of Says, Simon is known online as a famous survivor of gun violence at school. Two years after the infamous event, 12-year-old Simon and his family move to the National Quiet Zone – the only place in America where the internet is banned. Instead of talking about Simon, the astronomers who flock to the area are busy listening for signs of life in space. And when Simon makes a friend who’s determined to give the scientists what they’re looking for,…
CHRISTOPHER PAOLINI ON MURTAGH: THE WORLD OF ERAGON
Master storyteller CHRISTOPHER PAOLINI returns to the World of Eragon with Murtagh, a stunning epic fantasy set a year after the events of the Inheritance Cycle. The world is no longer safe for the Dragon Rider Murtagh and his dragon, Thorn. An evil king has been toppled, and they are left to face the consequences of the reluctant role they played in his reign of terror. Now they are hated and alone, exiled to the outskirts of society. So begins an epic journey into lands both familiar and untraveled,…
MIAMI BOOK FAIR & THE NATIONAL BOOK FOUNDATION PRESENT THE TEEN PRESS CONFERENCE 2023
The 2023 National Book Award-honored authors in Young People’s Literature visit Miami Book Fair to share more about their books and answer questions from Miami-Dade County’s middle and high school students acting as journalists! Hosted by EBONY LADELLE, authors include ERIN BOW, Simon Sort of Says; KENNETH M. CADOW, Gather; HUDA FAHMY, Huda F Cares; DAN NOTT, Hidden Systems: Water, Electricity, the Internet, and the Secrets Behind the Systems We Use Every Day;…
November 2022
E. Lockhart on Family of Liars: The Prequel to We Were Liars: Young Adult Fiction
Family of Liars: We Were Liars by E. Lockhart is the story of another summer, another generation – and the secrets that will haunt them for decades to come. A windswept private island off the coast of Massachusetts. A hungry ocean, churning with secrets and sorrow. A fiery, addicted heiress. An irresistible, unpredictable boy. A summer of unforgivable betrayal and terrible mistakes. Welcome back to the Sinclair family. They were always liars. Moderated by Safon Floyd,…
Mortals & Monsters: Choose Your Own Comic Adventure: Nathan Hale, George O’Connor & Jason Shiga
From Nathan Hale, creator of the Hazardous Tales series, comes Let’s Make History! (Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales): Create Your Own Comics, an exciting activity book that puts kids’ writing, drawing, and researching to the test. Do you have what it takes to be a Hazardous Cartoonist? George O’Connor draws his Olympians series to a close with the tale of Olympians #12: Dionysos: The New God, from his birth to a mortal mother, to his discovery of wine,…
“Race Against Time: Let’s Save the World”: Pablo Cartaya, Alan Gratz, Laura Krantz & S.A. Rodriguez
Facing a world dually altered by climate change and those who profit from it, Yolanda Cicerón will have to fight to save the last known beehive from extinction in The Last Beekeeper by Pablo Cartaya. Alan Gratz returns with Two Degrees, an action-packed novel in which four kids in California, Canada, and Florida fight for their lives against three climate disasters. Inspired by her popular Wild Thing podcast, journalist Laura Krantz incorporates the scientific method,…
Vanessa Garcia Picture Book Story Time: Children’s Fiction
In What the Bread Says: Baking with Love, History, and Papan, Vanessa Garcia relays how, when she was a little girl, she and her grandfather, Papan, baked bread while he shared the amazing adventures of his life. That’s how, as a child, Garcia learned about her roots – and how stories can carry us through no matter what. Sponsored by…
“What the Fact: How to Tell Truth from Lies”: Mark Kurlansky & Seema Yasmin, M.D.
Mark Kurlansky wrote Big Lies: From Socrates to Social Media for the next stewards of our world. It is not only a history but a how-to manual for seeing through big lies and thinking critically. “I hope that you will keep asking yourself what is true as you read this book and live your life,” he entreats readers at the outset. “If the Age of Enlightenment is not to be followed by the Age of Chaos, we have to think for ourselves.” What is a fact?…
“I Get by With a Little Help From My Friends”: Chantel Acevedo, Christina Diaz Gonzalez, Maulik Pancholy & Sherri Winston
The Curse on Spectacle Key by Chantel Acevedo is a sweetly spooky ghost story about a Cuban American boy who befriends a pair of spirits and tries to break the curse on his island home, only to discover a seemingly lost piece of his family’s history in the process. Christina Diaz Gonzalez‘s Invisible: A Graphic Novel follows five very different students who are forced together by their school to complete community service…and may just have more in common than they thought.…
National Book Foundation Presents: The 2022 National Book Awards
The National Book Foundation presents the 2022 National Book Award longlisters, finalists, and winners, in an annual super-sized showcase of readings and conversation, moderated by Ruth Dickey, executive director of the National Book Foundation. Featuring Fatimah Asghar, Derrick Barnes, Isaac Blum, Sarah Booker, Traci Chee, Johnnie Christmas, Jennifer Croft, Ramona Emerson, Jonathan Escoffery,…
National Book Foundation Presents: Teen Press Conference
High school students from Miami-Dade County Public Schools act as journalists, posing questions to the honorees for the 2022 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature. Since 1998, Teen Press Conference has taken place at various literary landmarks in New York, including the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the Scholastic Auditorium, Brooklyn Borough Hall, and now – for the eighth year – at the Miami Book Fair! Hosted by author Pablo Cartaya,…
R.L. Stine on Stinetinglers: All New Stories by the Master of Scary Tales: Middle Grade Fiction
From New York Times bestselling author R.L. Stine, the master of horror for young readers, comes 10 new stories that are sure to leave you shivering. A boy who hates bugs starts to see them everywhere. A basketball player’s skin starts to almost drip off his hands – but no one else can see it. Three friends find a hole in the ground that just gets bigger, and bigger, and bigger … And each story is introduced by Stine himself,…
Eric Gansworth on My Good Man: Young Adult Fiction
In Eric Gansworth’s newest novel, My Good Man, Brian, a 20-something reporter on the Niagara Cascade’s City Desk, is navigating life as the only Indigenous writer in the newsroom, and being lumped into reporting on stereotypical stories that homogenize his community, the nearby Tuscarora reservation. But when a mysterious roadside assault lands Tim, the brother of Brian’s mother’s late boyfriend in the hospital, Brian must pick up the threads of a life that he’s abandoned. The resulting narrative takes us through Brian’s childhood and slice-of-life stories on the reservation,…
“This Monster Panel Really Bites”: Kalynn Bayron, Roseanne Brown, Derrick Chow & Zoraida Córdova
Part I: In The Vanquishers by Kalynn Bayron, Malika “Boog” Wilson is determined to save her missing friend, which might mean admitting vampires weren’t wiped out after all, but if their town needs protection from the undead, Boog knows who to call. in Zoraida Córdova’s new book, nothing about Valentina Salazar has ever been “normal” – from grumpy unicorns to chupacabras to the occasional fire-breathing chipmunk – even though her family insists Valentina Salazar is Not a Monster Hunter.…
“Code-Cracking & Puzzling Prequels”: Chris Grabenstein & Kekla Magoon
Before Mr. Lemoncello became everyone’s favorite game maker, he was a kid who liked to roll the dice … Luigi has a knack for games and puzzles. But sometimes it feels like the cards are stacked against him. UNTIL a carnival arrives in town and Luigi gets the CHANCE OF A LIFETIME – the opportunity to work for the world-famous Professor Marvelmous, a dazzling, banana-hat-wearing barker who puts the SHOW in SHOWMAN! Discover the origins of what James Patterson calls “the coolest library in the world” in Mr.…
Rainbow Rowell on Scattered Showers: Stories: Young Adult Fiction
From #1 New York Times bestselling author Rainbow Rowell comes Scattered Showers: Stories. Rowell has won fans all over the world by writing about love and life in a way that feels true. In her first short story collection, she gives us nine beautifully crafted love stories. Girl meets boy camping outside a movie theater. Best friends debate the merits of high school dances. A prince romances a troll. A girl romances an imaginary boy. And Simon Snow himself returns for a holiday adventure.…
Yarrow & Carrie Cheney on Superworld: Save Noah: Middle Grade Fiction
Husband-and-wife creative team Yarrow and Carrie Cheney join forces to present Superworld: Save Noah, a new series that breaks the mold with gorgeous black-and-white art on every page, and a cinematic, blockbuster feel. Every 12-year-old kid feels like they don’t fit in sometimes – but Noah takes it to a whole new level. When a meteor crashed to Earth on his seventh birthday, the whole planet got superpowers … except for Noah. Thanks to his tin foil superhero costume,…
“Rick Riordan Presents Ballad & Dagger”: Daniel José Older & Meagan Albright
Bestselling author Rick Riordan presents Daniel José Older’s Ballad & Dagger, a music-and-magic-filled YA urban fantasy about two teens who discover each other and their powers during a political battle within a unique diaspora community. While the rest of his tight-knit Brooklyn community dreams of someday finding a way back home to the lost island of San Madrigal, Mateo Matisse – a high school junior and piano prodigy living with his two aunts (one who’s alive, the other not so much) – is focused on one thing: getting the attention of locally grown musical legend Gerval.…
“Rivalries & Responsibilities”: B. B. Alston & Julie C. Dao
B. B. Alston returns to his Supernatural Investigations trilogy with Amari and the Great Game. Between the fearsome new Head Minister’s strict anti-magician agenda, fierce Junior Agent rivalries, and her brother Quinton’s curse steadily worsening, Amari’s plate is full. So when the secretive League of Magicians offers her a chance to become its new leader, she declines. But her refusal allows someone else to step forward, a magician with dangerous plans. This challenge sparks the start of the Great Game,…
Hayao Miyazaki & His Manga Classic Shuna’s Journey: Alex Dudok de Wit, Helen McCarthy & Deb Aoki
From legendary animator Hayao Miyazaki comes Shuna’s Journey, a new manga classic about a prince on a quest for a golden grain that would save his land, never before published in English! Shuna, the prince of a poor land, watches in despair as his people work themselves to death harvesting the little grain that grows there. And so, when a traveler presents him with a sample of seeds from a mysterious western land, he sets out to find the source of the golden grain,…
Mary Pope Osborne on Memories and Life Lessons from the Magic Tree House: Middle Grade Fiction
Celebrate the 30th anniversary of the #1 New York Times bestselling series with Memories and Life Lessons from the Magic Tree House, which offers heartfelt advice from beloved creator Mary Pope Osborne’s own childhood and her magical adventures with Jack and Annie – perfect for Magic Tree House fans of all ages! Look for heroes, far and near. Give your gifts to the world. Have compassion for all creatures. These are just a few of the lessons that Magic Tree House fans will learn on their magical journey through this book.…