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Children’s Book Awards Luncheon
Saturday, Nov. 22, 12:30-2:30 pm
Antwan Eady
Antwan Eady is the author of the award-winning picture book Nigel and the Moon, illustrated by Gracey Zhang, and The Last Stand, illustrated by Jarrett and Jerome Pumphrey, which received seven starred reviews. Down the dirt roads of South Carolina’s Low Country is where Antwan’s understanding of—and appreciation for—family, community, and land unfolded. Now he shares those stories with the world. When he isn’t writing, he’s visiting schools, libraries, and colleges throughout the country. A graduate of Clemson University, Antwan lives in Savannah, Georgia.
Charles R. Smith Jr.
Charles R. Smith Jr. is an award-winning author, poet, and photographer. His awards include the Knickerbocker Award (2024), the Coretta Scott King Award for Illustration (2010) for his photographs accompanying the Langston Hughes poem “My People,” and a Coretta Scott King Honor Author Award (2008) for his biography of Muhammad Ali, Twelve Rounds to Glory. Many of his books have made notable lists and garnered reluctant-reader awards, proving that kids who don’t like to read do like to read his books.
Charles has combined his passions of writing and photography to create forty-five titles, covering a variety of subjects from basketball with the Sports Royalty series, featuring Hoop Kings and Queens, to Black history with 28 Days, to diversity with I Am America and I Am the World, to Greek mythology with The Mighty 12, to biography with Song for Jimi: The Story of Guitar Legend Jimi Hendrix, Bessie the Motorcycle Queen, and Major Taylor: World Cycling Champion.
But Charles is more than an author of books. He has worked as a fitness trainer and studied martial arts, boxing, gymnastics, and ninja obstacles, even appearing on the TV show American Ninja Warrior in 2017. He attributes those physical skills to his success as an author and believes in fighting ignorance with knowledge. In his school presentations, Charles discusses the importance of developing the mind, body, and spirit and likes to remind students and aspiring authors, “If you feed the mind, challenge the body, and ignite the spirit, you can achieve your dreams.”
Charles R. Smith Jr. was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. He graduated with a BA in photography from Brooks Institute of Photography and currently lives in the Hudson Valley in New York with his wife Jan and his dog Jake.
Dan SaSuWeh Jones
Dan SaSuWeh Jones is the critically acclaimed author of Stealing Little Moon: The Legacy of the American Indian Boarding Schools and Living Ghosts and Mischievous Monsters: Chilling American Indian Stories, and was a storyteller and consultant for National Geographic Encyclopedia of the American Indian. A former Chairman of the Ponca Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma and former member of the Producers Guild of America, he is also a filmmaker who has produced work for Sesame Street, NBC, TBS, and other national and international networks. He worked as an honorary Imagineer and consultant for the Walt Disney Company’s Disney America theme park and as a field producer for the television miniseries 500 Nations, produced by Kevin Costner. As a bronze sculptor, he was a finalist in the competition for the American Indian Veterans Memorial at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, DC. He holds a seat in the House of Warriors, a traditional Ponca Warrior Society.
Middle Level Section Luncheon
Friday, Nov. 21, 11:30 am-1:30 pm
Tony Weaver Jr.
Tony Weaver Jr. is a storyteller who uses his passion for comics and anime to help people unlock their inner hero. With his TikTok videos and social impact organization Weird Enough Productions, he uses diverse stories to uplift young people. He made history as the first comic writer ever selected for Forbes 30 Under 30. His work has attracted coverage from CNN, NBC, HuffPost, and The Mary Sue, and landed him honors from organizations such as Microsoft, Gucci, and Coca-Cola. Funko profiled him on the side of a Pop figure box, and he won the AdColor Influencer of The Year award. He is the author of the middle grade graphic novel memoir Weirdo.
Katherine Applegate
Katherine Applegate is the #1 New York Times–bestselling author of beloved and award-winning books for young readers, including Odder, Home of the Brave, Crenshaw, Wishtree, Willodeen, and The One and Only Ivan, for which she won the Newbery Medal. She is also the author of the Animorphs series, and a beginning reader series, Doggo and Pupper, illustrated by Charlie Alder. Katherine Applegate lives in Southern California with her family.
Secondary Section Luncheon
Saturday, Nov. 22, 12:30-2:30 pm
Angeline Boulley
Angeline Boulley, an enrolled member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, is a storyteller who writes about her Ojibwe community in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. She is a former director of the Office of Indian Education at the US Department of Education. Her debut novel Firekeeper’s Daughter was an instant #1 New York Times bestseller and recipient of many international accolades including the ALA Printz and Morris Awards; the YA Goodreads Choice Award; the Walter Award for Outstanding Children’s Literature; and is Carnegie Mellon nominated. Angeline lives in southwest Michigan, but her home will always be on Sugar Island.
College Section Luncheon
Thursday, Nov. 20, 5:30-7:00 pm
John Warner
John Warner is a writer, speaker, researcher, and consultant. The former editor of McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, he is the author of the books Why They Can’t Write and The Writer’s Practice. As “the Biblioracle,” Warner is a weekly columnist at the Chicago Tribune and writes the newsletter The Biblioracle Recommends. He is affiliate faculty at the College of Charleston and lives in Folly Beach, South Carolina.
ELATE Lunch
Friday, Nov. 21, 11:30 am-1:30 pm
Mahogany L. Browne
Mahogany L. Browne, a Kennedy Center Next 50 fellow, is a writer, playwright, organizer, and educator. Browne has received fellowships from ALL ARTS, Arts for Justice, AIR Serenbe, Baldwin for the Arts, Cave Canem, Poets House, Mellon Research, Rauschenberg, and Wesleyan University. Browne’s books include A Bird in the Air Means We Can Still Breathe, Vinyl Moon, Chlorine Sky (optioned for Steppenwolf Theatre), Black Girl Magic, and banned books Woke: A Young Poet’s Call to Justice and Woke Baby. Browne’s Chrome Valley tour was highlighted in Publishers Weekly and The New York Times. Founder of the diverse lit initiative Woke Baby Book Fair, Browne is the 2024 Paterson Poetry Prize winner. She is the inaugural poet-in-residence at the Lincoln Center and lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Children’s Literature Assembly Breakfast
Sunday, Nov. 23, 7:00-8:45 am
Jason Chin
The Children’s Literature Assembly (CLA) Breakfast welcomes Jason Chin, an award-winning author and illustrator of numerous children’s nonfiction titles. His work has been recognized by prestigious children’s book awards. Life After Whale: The Amazing Ecosystem of a Whale Fall (2024, written by Lynn Brunelle) was recognized as a 2025 NCTE Orbis Pictus Award Honor Book. Watercress (2021, written by Andrea Wang) received the Caldecott Medal in 2022, and Grand Canyon was named the 2018 Orbis Pictus Award winner, a Caldecott Honor Book, and a Sibert Honor Book. Jason’s books invite readers to explore widely, from the redwoods to the whole universe. His most recent book, Hurricane (2025), introduces the formation of a hurricane and how people prepare and respond to it as it passes through their town and moves away. At the CLA Breakfast, Jason will unpack his experiences with writing and illustrating as he works to create nonfiction picturebooks for children with heart and hope, enriching our humanity.
ALAN Breakfast
Saturday, Nov. 22, 7:00-9:15 am
Tiffany D. Jackson
Tiffany D. Jackson is the New York Times bestselling author of Allegedly, Monday’s Not Coming, Let Me Hear a Rhyme, Grown, White Smoke, The Weight of Blood, and The Scammer. A Margaret A. Edwards Award and Coretta Scott King–John Steptoe New Talent Award winner, the Brooklyn native is splitting her time between the South and the borough she loves. You can visit her at writeinbk.com.
National Writing Project Brunch
Sunday, Nov. 23, 10:30 am-12 pm
Multigenerational Community Writing with Slam Poet Jovan Mays
Come to the National Writing Project’s Brunch to experience a condensed version of a Community Writing Workshop facilitated by Jovan Mays – Inaugural and Emeritus Poet Laureate of Aurora, Colorado; National Champion Slam Poet; TED Speaker; community organizer; teacher and more. Additionally, learn from leaders of the Denver Writing Project about how you might plan and facilitate multigenerational Community Writing Workshops where you live. Writing Project leaders will also learn how these opportunities support youth writing camps and other site programming. Come eat and write with us!
Coming Soon!
All Section Get Togethers are included with your Convention registration and do not require an additional ticket. Each event features a book sale and signing opportunity with the speaker immediately following the session.
ElemenTary Section
Thursday, Nov. 20, 5:30-7:00 pm
Dr. Julia López-Robertson
Dr. Julia López-Robertson is a professor in the Department of Teacher Education at the University of South Carolina. She holds a BS in elementary education from Northeastern University, and an MA in bilingual/multicultural education and a PhD in language, reading, and culture from the University of Arizona. A former bilingual early childhood educator, she now prepares preservice teachers to work in diverse classrooms. Her scholarship bridges teacher preparation, family engagement, and early literacy, with particular attention to the use of diverse children’s literature—with a focus on Latine children’s literature—as a powerful tool for helping young learners make sense of their social and cultural worlds.
Her research explores the intersections of language, race, ethnicity, and culture in education, centering the experiences of multilingual learners and their families. She is especially interested in how family linguistic and cultural influences shape children’s literacy development. Committed to equity and inclusion, she works alongside educators, families, and communities to develop inclusive, equitable practices that honor and sustain students’ lived experiences and linguistic resources.
Julia has served NCTE as a member of the Elementary Section Steering Committee and most recently as chair of the Orbis Pictus Award for Outstanding Nonfiction for Children. She is the author of Celebrating Our Cuentos: Choosing and Using Latinx Literature in Elementary Classrooms and coauthor of Re-envisioning Family Engagement and Literacy in Early Childhood Classrooms: “Porque así ya conocemos.”
Middle Level Section Meet-Up
Thursday, Nov. 20, 5:30-7:00 pm
Derrick BArnes
Derrick Barnes is a National Book Award Finalist for his graphic novel Victory. Stand! Raising My Fist For Justice, which also won the YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults Award and a Coretta Scott King Book Awards Author Honor. He is also the author of the critically acclaimed, multi-award-winning picture book Crown: An Ode to the Fresh Cut, which received a Newbery Honor, a Coretta Scott King Author Honor, the Ezra Jack Keats New Writer Award, and the Kirkus Prize for Young Readers’ Literature. In 2020, he became the only author to win the Kirkus Prize twice, this time for the New York Times bestseller I Am Every Good Thing, which also won an NCTE Charlotte Huck Award for Outstanding Fiction for Children and a Boston Globe–Horn Book Award Honor. Derrick is also the creator of the New York Times bestselling companion picture books The King of Kindergarten and The Queen of Kindergarten. He is a native of Kansas City, Missouri, but currently lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, with his enchanting wife, Dr. Tinka Barnes, and their four sons, the Mighty Barnes Brothers.
Secondary Section Get-Together
Thursday, Nov. 20, 5:30-7:00 pm
Dan Zitt
Dan Zitt is Senior Vice President of Content Production for Penguin Random House Audio, and he has spent his entire 27-year career in the audiobook industry. Dan has been the creative catalyst for over two thousand audio productions, collaborating with people like Barack and Michelle Obama, Bill Clinton, Bono, the Beastie Boys, Dolly Parton, Rick Rubin, and other notable celebrities, public figures, and award-winning actors. More than 20 of his recordings have been nominated for Grammy Awards, with former president Bill Clinton’s autobiography My Life, Carrie Fisher’s The Princess Diarist, and Michelle Obama’s memoir Becoming all winning the award for Best Spoken Word Album.
He is also the founder of Penguin Random House Audio’s casting website, Ahab Talent. This site was developed to create opportunity for actors and creators around the world, expanding access to underrepresented and BIPOC communities of actors hoping to break into the audiobook industry.
College Section
Thursday, Nov. 20, 5:30-7:00 pm
Ruth J. Simmons
Ruth J. Simmons is the former president of Smith College, Brown University, and Prairie View A&M University, Texas’s oldest HBCU, and the former vice provost of Princeton. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Dillard University and her master’s and doctorate from Harvard in Romance languages and literatures. The president of France named her chevalier of the French Legion of Honor and President Biden named her to the White House HBCU Advisory Board. In 2024, she was honored with the National Humanities Medal. She lives in Texas.
Secondary Section Get-Together
Thursday, Nov. 20, 5:30-7:00 pm
Jason Reynolds
Jason Reynolds is the #1 New York Times–bestselling author of more than 20 books for children and young adults. A 2024 MacArthur Fellow, Jason is best known for his novel All American Boys (cowritten with Brendan Kiely); the Track series; and Long Way Down, which received Newbery, Printz, and Coretta Scott King Honors. Among his many accolades, Jason was named the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature by the Library of Congress for 2020–2022. He is on the faculty at Lesley University, for the Writing for Young People MFA program, and lives in Washington, DC. You can find his ramblings at JasonWritesBooks.com.