Rochester Children's Book Festival 2024
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The Rochester Children’s Book Festival (RCBF) has been a treasured annual event for the Rochester community and beyond for 27 years. This year’s festival features 50 authors and illustrators with the theme “Feed Your Imagination: Read!”, encouraging children of all ages to celebrate literacy, diversity and the magic of reading with a day of family-friendly activities and programs.
This year’s free festival will run from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Saturday, November 2, 2024, at the R. Thomas Flynn Campus Center, Monroe Community College (MCC), 1000 E. Henrietta Road.
Visiting out-of-town authors include Caldecott Medalist Paul Zelinksy, New York Times bestselling authors Chris Grabenstein, Nikki Grimes, Rajani LaRocca, Anika Aldamuy Denise, and the ever-popular Jane Yolen. Also attending will be more than 25 Rochester area authors, including Newbery Medal Winner Linda Sue Park and Edgar Award winner Vivian Vande Velde.
The November 2 festival will offer:
- “Meet and greet” with over 50 authors and illustrators
- Break-out rooms for author/illustrator presentations, workshops and story times
- Face painting and book-related craft activities for children
- Signed books for purchase through Lift Bridge Book Shop
- ASL interpretation of presentations provided pro-bono by RIT/NTID students.
Complementing the MCC event is the RCBF outreach program, Festival-to-Go, which brings the festival to children who might not otherwise have the opportunity to attend. Each fall, local authors and illustrators volunteer in Rochester city schools to share their enthusiasm for reading and writing. Children experience and participate in presentations that focus on writing, illustrating, reading, research, storytelling, poetry and music. Over the years, the program has delivered free books to thousands of city school children.
More information including the full author list and presentation schedule, can be found on the festival website: https://www.rcbfestival.com/.
*Times, dates, and prices of any activity posted to our calendars are subject to change. Please be sure to click through directly to the organization’s website to verify.