28th Rochester Children and Teens Book Festival

Over 50 Authors and Illustrators

The Rochester Children and Teens Book Festival (RCTBF) has been a treasured annual event for the Rochester community and beyond for 28 years, now renamed to reflect the growing audience. This year’s festival theme “Feed Your Imagination: Read!” encourages children of all ages to celebrate literacy, diversity, and the magic of reading with a day of family-friendly activities, presentations and programs.

This year’s free festival will run from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Saturday, November 8, 2025, at the R. Thomas Flynn Campus Center, Monroe Community College (MCC), 1000 E. Henrietta Road. Free parking will be available in Lot M.  

Visiting out-of-town authors include bestselling and award-winning authors and illustrators Tracey Baptiste, Derick Brooks, Bruce Coville, Saadia Faruqi, Nikki Grimes, Michelle Knudsen, Nilah Magruder, Torrey Maldonado, Kate Messner, John Parra, Matt Phelan, Heidi Stemple, Brian Young and the ever-popular Jane Yolen. Also attending will be more than 25 Rochester area authors, including Newbery Medal Winner Linda Sue Park, New York Times best seller and Printz Honor winner Julie Berry and Edgar Award winner Vivian Vande Velde. Several authors, along with the festival co-chairs are available for interviews, upon request.

“We’re excited to welcome the tweens and teens of Rochester with more panels and activities especially geared to them while still maintaining all the programming for the younger ages that has made the festival a beloved tradition,” shares co-chair Mylisa Larsen. “By expanding and adding more programming and growing our lists of attending authors in the teen and YA genre, we hope to continue to serve our community and be more inclusive of teen authors and attendees,” adds co-chair Jim Chaize.

The November 8 festival will offer:

• Free admission and parking (Lot M)

• “Meet and greet” with over 50 authors and illustrators

• Break-out rooms for author/illustrator presentations, teen panels, drawing and comics workshops, and story times for younger readers

• Book-related craft activities for children and teens

• Face painting

• Food trucks

• Signed books for purchase through our on-site vendor, Lift Bridge Book Shop

• ASL interpretation of presentations provided pro-bono by RIT/NTID students.

Complementing the MCC event is the RCBF outreach program, Festival-to-Go, which brings the festival to children who might not otherwise have the opportunity to attend. Each fall, local authors and illustrators volunteer in Rochester city schools to share their enthusiasm for reading and writing. Children experience and participate in presentations that focus on writing, illustrating, reading, research, storytelling, poetry and music. Over the years, the program has delivered free books to thousands of city school children.

Full PR can be found here.