Community Calendar

Join us for an artist talk with photographer David Ricci about his latest photobook, Hunter Gatherer: Salvaged Stories of American Culture (MW Editions, 2026). This decade-long project reveals America’s complex cultural history through objects and scenes photographed at resale marketplaces nationwide, examining consumerism, racism, beauty standards, pop culture, and Christianity, offering commentary on facets of past and contemporary American society.
David will trace his 50-year journey as a self-taught photographer, sharing highlights from his monograph EDGE (Fall Line Press, 2022) before focusing on Hunter Gatherer. He'll discuss stories behind key photographs, his creative process from image capture to final book design, and how his perspective as a white male from a middle-class New England background shaped the project.
One quarter of the images were captured at the Brimfield Antiques Fair with nearly half taken throughout New England and New York. Copies will be available for purchase.

Join the Forbes Library for a May 5 “cat pawty” and storytime with Caldecott honoree Brian Lies! The event is focused on Cat Nap, a beautiful and playful picture book that follows a sleepy kitten whose afternoon nap transforms into an epic chase through nine iconic artworks from the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collections. Cat themed activities and crafts will follow the storytime presentation.

Books will be available for purchase through High Five Books, and an author signing will follow the program.

​​This Mass Kids Lit Fest event is presented in partnership with the Massachusetts Center for the Book. For a full schedule, please visit https://www.makidslitfest.org/.

Children’s book author and illustrator Brian Lies has created over thirty children’s books, including his acclaimed Cat Nap, which garnered seven starred trade reviews and was named a 2025 ALA Notable Book, Boston Globe Best Book, and a SCBWI Golden Kite Award finalist. His 2019 book, The Rough Patch, was a Caldecott Honors title, and his other works include his New York Times-bestselling bat books—Bats at the Beach, Bats at the Library, Bats at the Ballgame, Bats in the Band, and Little Bat / Up All Day—as well as Wombat Said Come In. This September, Lies will publish Diffy, a thoughtful ode to storytelling that chronicles an anglerfish’s encounter with a dictionary.

Brian’s work has been featured on The Martha Stewart Show, named as a top ten book of the year by Time/CNN, and read aloud on NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday by Scott Simon and Daniel Pinkwater. Brian spends part of every school year traveling throughout the United States to work with students and encourage them in their goals. He lives with his family in Duxbury, Massachusetts.

The Chicopee Public Library will host acclaimed children’s author and illustrator Sarah Brannen for an event focused on her beautiful new picture book, Monarch and Mourning Cloak: A Butterfly Journal! Following along at a butterfly’s-eye-view, attendees will discover how they live in different habitats, eat different foods, and have different strategies for avoiding enemies and making it through the winter. A nature journaling activity will follow the presentation.

Books will be available for purchase and signing following the program.

​​This Mass Kids Lit Fest event is presented in partnership with the Massachusetts Center for the Book. For a full schedule, please visit https://www.makidslitfest.org/.

Sarah S. Brannen has written and illustrated over two dozen books for children, including Lolly on the Ice, Bear Needs Help, A Perfect Day and Madame Martine. She illustrated the Sibert honor book Summertime Sleepers as well as the award-winning Feathers: Not Just for Flying and Seashells: More Than a Home, all written by Melissa Stewart. Monarch and Mourning Cloak: A Butterfly Journal, created by Sarah and Melissa together, was published in March 2026. As an author, Sarah wrote Uncle Bobby’s Wedding, illustrated by Lucia Soto, and Miles Comes Home, illustrated by Forrest Burdett. Uncle Bobby’s Wedding was at the center of the Supreme Court case Mahmoud v. Taylor, and was named one of the best children’s books in the past 100 years by Booktrust. Sarah’s books have been translated into 12 languages.

Join the Wistariahurst Museum for an evening with poet Sarah Levine, whose collection Each Knuckle with Sugar received Poetry Honors in the Massachusetts Book Awards. This program will feature a reading from the collection, followed by a conversation with the poet and an audience Q&A. Attendees are invited to engage with the poems and hear Levine speak about her creative process, influences, and the questions that shape her work.

Each Knuckle with Sugar is a collection in which play becomes power at the turn of a page or a line. Sarah Levine’s endlessly inventive imagery offers readers a charged interiority through language that surprises, delights, and—at times—bares its teeth. The book’s lively wonder is driven by the interplay of grief, love, loss, confusion, and desire, unfolding through an epistolary exchange between two recurring speakers, Herman and Begonia.

This program is sponsored by the Mass Book Awards Speakers Bureau and is presented in collaboration with the Massachusetts Center for the Book.

SARAH LEVINE is the author of Each Knuckle with Sugar, winner of the Driftwood Press Open Reading Contest and a 2025 Massachusetts Book Awards Honors recipient in Poetry. She is also the author of the chapbooks Take Me Home and Her Man, and her work has appeared in Poets & Writers, The Paris American, Passages North, Green Mountains Review, and the Best New Poets anthology, among others. Levine teaches at Williston Northampton School and lives in Western Massachusetts.

Springfield Museums will host acclaimed children’s author Phaea Crede for an action-packed event celebrating her new picture book, Princess Battle Royale, an exciting introduction to the world of wrestling. Princesses from around the globe—including Rapunzel, the Little Mermaid, Sleeping Beauty, Little Red, and more—compete for the chance to be crowned victor and wear the Enchanted Championship Belt in this funny and heartwarming tale. Following the presentation, attendees will have the chance to create their own wrestling character and throw their hat in the ring!

Books will be available for purchase and signing following the program.

​​This Mass Kids Lit Fest event is presented in partnership with the Massachusetts Center for the Book. For a full schedule, please visit https://www.makidslitfest.org/.

Phaea Crede writes silly stories for silly kids. Serious kids, too! She is the author of seven picture books including Princess Battle Royale (Viking Books), Oh Deer! (Sleeping Bear Press), and Jet the Cat (is Not a Cat) (Barefoot Books). Phaea lives near Boston with her husband, two kiddos, two cats, and two dogs. Her favorite wrestling move is the moonsault.

Storrs Library will host acclaimed children’s author Vicki Johnson for a special Mass Kids Lit Fest event celebrating her brand-new picture book, Mac Wears a Hat!

Mac loves hats—she has one for every occasion. As an only child, she sometimes feels lonely, but her hat collection cheers her up, helps her express herself, and sparks joyful connections with others. This inclusive book celebrates kindness and positivity, and that what makes you different, makes you special! A hatmaking activity will follow the presentation.

​​This Mass Kids Lit Fest event is presented in partnership with the Massachusetts Center for the Book. For a full schedule, please visit https://www.makidslitfest.org/.

Vicki Johnson is children’s author, and a former band nerd, lawyer, White House staffer, and nonprofit director, among other life adventures. Her debut picture book Molly’s Tuxedo, illustrated by Gillian Reid (2023), received an NCTE Charlotte Huck Award for Outstanding Fiction for Children, was included on the American Library Association’s Rainbow Book List, and was selected as a Children’s Book Council “Teacher Favorite.” Her next book, Mac Wears a Hat, is from the same creative team. Johnson is a Southern writer who lives in western MA, where she tends to several rescue animals and one college kid.

Join the Sunderland Public Library for a fun, interactive storytime with New York Times-bestselling illustrator Scott Magoon! Scott will introduce his new picture book, There’s No Place Like Gnome’s—a story rooted in community, set in the New England woods, and shaped by real climate-care themes. When humans destroy the forest and bigger animals arrive seeking shelter, Gnome makes room for everyone in his small hotel, but after disaster strikes, it takes an unlikely guest to inspire him to rebuild and reopen his doors.

After exploring Gnome’s world, Scott will lead a live drawing demo!

​​This Mass Kids Lit Fest event is presented in partnership with the Massachusetts Center for the Book. For a full schedule, please visit https://www.makidslitfest.org/.

Scott Magoon is an award-winning author and New York Times bestselling illustrator of nearly 40 picture books, including Rescue & Jessica: A Life Changing Friendship and Spoon series, as well as his own picture books and Extincts graphic novels. With over two decades of experience—including roles as a designer at Candlewick Press and art director at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt—Scott infuses his art with warmth, humor, and heart. When he isn’t dreaming up new stories from his home in the Boston area, he can be found adventuring with his family, running, or hunting for jazz vinyl in local record shops.

Join the Jones Library and Mead Art Museum for a special program with award-winning children’s author Rachel C. Katz. Her inspiring new book, Rise Up!: Powerful Protests in American History, introduces young readers to 25 pivotal protests that shaped the United States—from the Boston Tea Party to modern activist movements—showing how ordinary people have stood up to demand justice and change. After Rachel’s presentation, attendees can celebrate the issues that they believe in with a hands-on protest sign-making workshop.

​​This Mass Kids Lit Fest event is presented in partnership with the Massachusetts Center for the Book. For a full schedule, please visit https://www.makidslitfest.org/.

Rachel C. Katz taught middle school humanities for many years and introduced hundreds of students to her passions: writing, literature, American history, and civics. Rachel is a curriculum consultant and a writer who loves making American history accessible to young readers. Her debut picture book, Rise Up!: Powerful Protests in American History, was named a 2026 Notable Social Studies Book by the Children’s Book Council and NCSS. In addition to writing both serious and silly picture books, Rachel also writes graphic novels and nonfiction for older readers. Rachel loves making art, doing crossword puzzles, and spending time with her family. Rachel lives in Massachusetts.

Join the Zoo in Forest Park for a special storytime with award-winning children’s author Heather Lang, co-creator of the “Animal Heroes” series! Her new book, Supersquads! shows young naturalists how animals band together to stay safe and thrive, from orcas to ostriches, spiny lobsters to snow monkeys, leaf cutter ants to zebras, and more. Attendees will learn about the incredible and ingenious ways that animal squads work together, and have the chance to meet some of the real-life creatures featured in Heather’s books.

Books will be available for purchase and signing following the program.

​​This Mass Kids Lit Fest event is presented in partnership with the Massachusetts Center for the Book. For a full schedule, please visit https://www.makidslitfest.org/.

Heather Lang writes picture books that celebrate our natural world and biographies about women who overcame extraordinary obstacles to follow their dreams. Her award-winning books include Supermoms!: Animal Heroes; Swimming with Sharks: The Daring Discoveries of Eugenie Clark; and The Leaf Detective: How Margaret Lowman Uncovered Secrets in the Rainforest, an NSTA/CBC Best STEM Book and Green Earth Book Award winner. To research her books, Heather has observed animals in the Serengeti, climbed to the treetops of the Amazon, and gone scuba diving with sharks. You can read more about Heather’s books and find lots of activities and resources for them at heatherlangbooks.com.

Join us for an evening with acclaimed author Victoria Redel in conversation about her highly anticipated new novel, I Am You. Set in 1600s Amsterdam, this evocative love story weaves together art, politics, gender, and identity through the intertwined lives of Gerta Pieters—a young girl raised as a boy in service to a Dutch family—and Maria van Oosterwijck, a painter navigating the challenges of the Dutch Golden Age. Inspired by historical fact, the novel is a powerful meditation on love, creativity, and the risks women have faced throughout history.

I Am You has been widely recognized as a Most Anticipated Book of Fall 2025 by Bustle and Zibby Books, an LGBTQ historical fiction pick by Book Riot, and has received a Publisher’s Weekly starred review. It has also been named an Amazon Editor’s October Best and a People Best New Book, with international editions forthcoming.

Redel will be joined by Robin MacArthur, award-winning author of Half Wild and a celebrated voice in contemporary literature.

Books will be available for purchase from ByWay Books, with a selection of titles by both authors. Don’t miss this engaging conversation exploring the craft of writing, the power of historical fiction, and the stories that shape our understanding of the past.