Welcome to our Video Directory for Kids and Family-Friendly Programs!
Below you can find all of our past recorded kids’ and family events in reverse chronological order.
Search the database by typing in a keyword into our word search, or browse entire categories by selecting one of them in the drop-down.
For General Public program recordings, click to navigate to our general video directory page
If you like what you see and want to join live when events happen, click on Upcoming Programs below to see what we have cooking!
Presented on our YA Stream
The Bay Area Book Festival’s Writing Contest aims to encourage people to engage with the craft of writing. This year’s prompt was centered around the theme of expectations, and submissions were judged in three categories: Adult (18+), High School, and Middle School. There was a first, second, and third place winner in each category, and we’re excited to showcase many of them here. To read their full pieces, visit this page: 
One war, three continents, and a quartet of necessary voices in conversation. Seventh-graders Quinn Boyd-Roberts and Tej Wong interview bestselling authors Lois Lowry and Jan Terlouw in a fascinating look at war, heroism, and humanity that transcends geography, nationality, and time. With On the Horizon, two-time Newbery Award medalist Lowry draws from her own childhood memories of Hawaii and Japan in an honest and empathetic account of lives lost and forever altered by the twin tragedies of Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima. Jan Terlouw’s Winter in Wartime has been in print for almost fifty years, for good reason: this beloved novel, based on Terlouw’s own boyhood in wartime Holland, is a young-adult classic with the suspenseful pacing of a thriller. Heroism, not war, takes center stage in this conversation: the everyday heroism of young people in extraordinary times, drawn from a well of universal humanity.
In a world that’s rarely quiet, listening is an underrated skill–and, for little ones living lives full of distractions, it can be the toughest skill to master. With Yes, I can Listen!, author Steve Metzger and illustrator Susan Szecsi make the art of listening fun and easy, with playful rhymes and warm illustrations that’ll help kids excel at school, follow safety rules, and show others that they care. Tune in with your kids, and learn how to turn listening into a game they’ll want to play again and again!
They say history is written by the winners. But when important stories and facts are suppressed, disguised, or forgotten, the worst patterns of history are doomed to repeat themselves–and no one wins. Kate Schatz and illustrator Miriam Stahl’s Rad American History A-Z: Movements & Moments that Demonstrate the Power of the People, uncovers the hiding-in-plain-sight histories they don’t teach you in school. In this conversation, which touches on Black Lives Matter, the Women’s March, the Stonewall riots, and Trump’s recent trouncing at the hands of teen Tiktok users, moderator Sammy Destin–member of Gender Sexuality Alliance, burgeoning activist, and eighth-grade wunderkind–steals the show, and shows us exactly how bright the future can be when we truly understand our history.
The Bay Area Book Festival is joining up with the hugely popular, community-building writing initiative National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo for short) for a special virtual “write-in” for middle-grade and high school writers, led by two popular YA guest authors, Mitali Perkins and Maggie Tokuda-Hall, who will provide writing tips and interactive prompts for participants. In this time of social isolation, NaNoWriMo has reported great demand for this communal, interactive “writing lab” that takes the self-consciousness and “inner editor” out of writing, sparks a spirit of playfulness and adventure, and includes options for participants to chat and build a sense of community.
Do you want to turn your favorite book into a podcast? This is your chance to learn how to do it! Even how to play a… dog! Legend has it whoever sees the Demon Cat of Capitol Hill is cursed; Fina Mendoza, the daughter of a congressman , just saw it, but can she save her family from “cat”astrophe? Join public radio veteran Kitty Felde and a host of talented actors to talk about turning the award-winning book “Welcome to Washington, Fina Mendoza” into the episodic podcast THE FINA MENDOZA MYSTERIES.
This empowering, informative program, moderated by Khepera Lyons-Clark, senior of Bentley School and a member of Cinnamongirl, Inc, is the young-adult complement to BABF’s robust Voting Rights Program, a centerpiece of our 2020 virtual programming in response to this year’s hugely consequential election and the challenges posed to voting rights due to COVID-19. Aimed at teens who will be first-time voters in 2020, this panel features bestselling National Book Critics Circle Award winner Carol Anderson with the YA edition of her seminal book One Person, No Vote; award-winning author Liz Rusch with You Call This Democracy?, and author and journalist Jeff Fleischer with Votes of Confidence: A Young Person’s Guide to American Elections.