In a normal year, the AJC Decatur Book Festival is one of the largest of its kind in the nation, hosting somewhere in the ballpark of 300 authors and 100,000 attendees at some 20 venues — all within walking distance of the Decatur Square — each Labor Day weekend. It is an amazing event and certainly one of the highlights of our year.
This is not a normal year.
Click here to go to the AJC Decatur Book Festival’s website. You can also use this link to send them a donation. Please do, if you can.
Since the festival’s inception in 2006 Little Shop has been intimately involved by assisting in programming, serving on advisory boards, moderating author presentations, and acting as a bookseller. We’re back at it again in 2020!
Here’s what’s going on this year! It’s a little more condensed. It’s a lot more digital. BUT IT’S STILL GOING TO BE AWESOME!
Kidnote Address: I Am Every Good Thing with Derrick Barnes and Gordon C. James!
Saturday, September 5th at 10 a.m.
From the duo who brought you the award winning Crown: An Ode to the Fresh Cut comes a great new picture book, I Am Every Good Thing!
Crown was awarded a Newbery Honor, a Caldecott Honor, and TWO Coretta Scott King Awards (one for writing, one for illustration).
I Am Every Good Thing, which will be published on September 1st, is already receiving high praise. Read the starred Kirkus review here.
Here’s the tag line from Derrick Barnes: “Black boys all over the world redefine who and what they are… and own it.”
Raise Your Voice with Elizabeth Acevedo, Becky Albertalli and Aisha Saeed, Brendan Kiely, and Renée Watson!
Saturday, September 5th at 10 a.m.
Five — count ’em — five major YA authors team up for this event.
Elizabeth Acevedo is the 2018 winner of the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature and the Printz Award for The Poet X, published her latest book earlier this year, Clap When You Land.
You can listen to NPR’s recent interview with Elizabeth Acevedo here.
Two New York Times bestselling authors teamed up for their most recent book, Yes No Maybe So, a novel about activism. We love books by Becky Albertalli and Aisha Saeed when they write individually as well!
The newest book from The New York Times bestselling author of All American Boys (with Jason Reynolds) is Tradition, which received a starred review from the School Library Journal. You can read all about Brendan Kiely here.
New York Times bestseller Renée Watson is the author of picture books (fiction and nonfiction), middle grade novels, and YA novels and has been awarded a Newbery Honor and a Coretta Scott King Award. She’s a performing artist. She’s a teacher and a consultant on issues of social justice. Read her bio. It’s pretty amazing.
Renée Watson’s most recent YA novel is Watch Us Rise.
Purchase a copy of Watch Us Rise here.
Kevin Riley Reads!
Saturday, September 19th at 10:30 a.m.
AJC editor, Kevin Riley will be reading two picture books by Dave Eggers that focus on civic engagement, Her Right Foot and What Can a Citizen Do?.Purchase a copy of Her Right Foot here.