Fun for ALL at the Social Justice Children's Book Fair + Award

Hey everyone,

I thought I’d write another newsletter with more details about what’s coming up this weekend, because we’ve created so many wonderful opportunities to engage with social justice and indie children’s books! Even if you aren’t in the Bay Area, you can enjoy the books by our award winners and most vendor’s books from this year’s fair by perusing this Bookshop link.

First, there’s the Social Justice Children’s Book Award event. This is taking place at the gorgeous Chapter 510 in old town Oakland, and will include mingle time as well as the ceremony itself and book signing. If you are an aspiring or published children’s book author, an educator, librarian, parent, or just passionate about supporting awesome social justice children’s books, this could be the festive evening for you! We’ll have drinks and nibbles, and a good time to be had by all from 6:00-8:00 pm on Friday, December 5th. It’s free to attend, but space is limited so please RSVP here.

Then there’s the Social Justice Children’s Book Fair on Saturday, December 6th from 11:00-3:00.

This will be our ninth year, and we are expanding to offer WAY more programming than we have in the past. Do you have a little who loves hearing stories read out loud? Then take a look at the Storytime schedule which includes a drum story with drum-making activity, a puppet (with Angelo) and a Reading the Rainbow queer celebration storytime. We are adding panels on important topics for older kids and adults, including Black Representation in Indie Publishing, Creating the Graphic Novels the World Needs, and Environmental Justice Stories. Outside we’ll have the bigger performances, including Alphabet Rockers, Mr. Juan of the Storytime Band, a rousing session on fighting book bans with leaders from Authors Against Book Bans, a No Kings line dance, live drawings by illustrators from audience prompts, and more. There’s even a make-your-own zine activity!

Check out the full program…

In addition, we’ll have over 50 vendors, including book creators and literacy orgs. Here they are, in all their visual glory…

And with links so you can learn more and buy your books from them directly:

• Ajuan Mance

• Alejandra Domenzain

• Alphabet Rockers

• Angelo Monsalve

• Avy Jetter

• Aya de Leon

• Booki Vivat

• Brook M. Thompson

• Charlotte Cheng

• Crystel Patterson

• Gloo Books/ Karen Chan

• Hayley Diep

• Innosanto Nagara

• JaNay Brown-Wood

• Jill Guerra

• Jin Rou

• Joanna Ho

• Justine Villanueva/ Sawaga River press

• Khalid White

• Laura Atkins

• Lena Fuentes

• Mackenzie Lee Foster

• Maggie Owsley

• Maggie Tokuda-Hall

• Malik Sickstein

• Mariah Parivizi

• Michael Genhart

• Meera Sriram

• Meredith Steiner

• Mona Damluji

• Nancy Kay

• Natasha Triplett

• Paige Mason

• PM Press

• Reflection Press (Maya and Matthew)

• Robert M. Alexander

• Robert Liu-Trujillo

• Robin Poindexter

• Roxanne Chester

• Ruchi Shah

• Sana Rafi

• Sandra Proudman

• Sandya Acharya

• Sara Alfageeh

• Shruthi Rao

• Sistah Sci Fi

• Sonali Patodia

• Sophie Dipti Sarkar

• Wahab Algarmi

Organizations: Children’s Fairyland, Mrs Dalloway’s Bookstore, Oakland Literacy Coalition, Oakland Public Library, and Reading Partners.

This really will be the place to be this weekend. Fun, excellent company, creative expression, social justice speaking up in a world that so desperately needs it, and being in community which is a balm. And as we like to say, you can do all your holiday shopping in one place!

I’ll be mostly hanging out in the panels area, but will pop into the vendors area as well. You can buy my book Calling All Future Voters! from publisher Gloo Books, and Bringing the Beach Home from the Mrs. Dalloways tables. I’ll try to remember to bring some Fred Korematsu Speaks Up paperbacks as well — just out this fall. I’ll be more than happy to sign them!

May you all celebrate and honor this holiday period in whatever way is meaningful to you. And remember - we are stronger together!

Hugs,

Laura