Meet the Medalists

We’re rolling out the red carpet for some luminaries of children’s literature at this year’s Festival. Join us in welcoming the two most recent winners of the Newbery Medal, children’s literature’s most prestigious award, which celebrates its hundredth anniversary this year. In Donna Barba Higuera’s The Last Cuentista, winner of the 2022 Newbery Medal and the Pura Belpré Award, a Mexican American girl, awakening after centuries in suspended animation, discovers she’s the only one who remembers the stories of the Earth humans have left behind. Tae Keller won the 2021 Newbery for When You Trap a Tiger; now, in Jennifer Chan Is Not Alone, Keller offers a powerful story of friendship and alienation, as a girl ostracized for her belief in aliens . . . disappears. Berkeley Public Library children’s supervising librarian Elaine Tai will host this star-studded celebration of children’s literature. Ages 8–12.

The bookstore partner for this session is Flashlight Books! Buy the books online at Bookshop.org or purchase them in person at the Festival. More information here.

Book signing information: Flashlight Books Tent at the Bookstore Blv (corner of Allston & Milvia in the Outdoor Fair) at in the park, 1:00 PM