Rochester Children and Teens Book Festival

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 7, 2026, 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 A. S. King, Karina Yan Glaser, James Ransome, Lesa Cline Ransome, Alyssa Capucilli, Nikki Grimes, and Kate Messner. 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. 

“After the success of last year’s addition of teen and YA authors, we are excited to continue to welcome the tweens and teens of Rochester with more panels and activities, while still maintaining all the programming for the younger ages that has made the festival so beloved by Rochester area and beyond,” shares co-chair Susannah Buhrman-Deever. “Our line-up this year includes even more heavy-hitter authors, particularly in the teen set, and we are excited for our community to get to meet and interact with so many authors and illustrators,” adds co-chair Jim Chaize.

The November 7 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.

More information including the full author list and presentation schedule, can be found on the festival website: https://www.rcbfestival.com/ and full press release can be found online.