This year's Boston Book Festival on Saturday, October 25, enjoyed seasonally nice weather, which brought out the crowds for a wonderful event. The Horn Book once again had a booth at the Copley Square Street Fair (courtesy of the Boston Globe), where we participated in the festival's Passport to Imagination scavenger hunt program for kids; displayed the 2025 Boston Globe–Horn Book Award winners and honorees; and encouraged people to subscribe, sign up for our free e-newsletters, and register for the BGHB award ceremony next week. Many thanks to staff members Shoshana Flax, Kitty Flynn, Cynthia K. Ritter, contributor Kari Brabander, and former interns and current freelancers Shenwei Chang and Emma Shacochis for taking turns running the booth all day. JustKids! will take place this Saturday, November 8, 2025, at the Hyde Park branch of the Boston Public Library from 10:30am–2:30pm. Below are some staff highlights and slideshow photos from Boston Book Festival.

Elissa Gershowitz (Editor in Chief):

The panel I moderated this year was "Early Readers: First Friends, First Laughs," and I enjoyed a lively conversation with Jannie Ho, author-illustrator of Pumpkin and Beetle: Two Vampire Cats (who I’d met earlier this year at the Greater Roxbury Book Fair and whose name I knew from pre-Horn Book educational publishing days); Susan Lubner, author of Drag and Rex: Sweet and Silly (sequel to Drag and Rex: Forever Friends), illustrated by Blythe Russo; and Colleen AF Venable, adaptor of Junie B. Jones and the Stupid Smelly Bus, illustrated by Honie Beam, the first in a graphic-novel adaptation of Barbara Park’s popular series. Discussion topics included thinking about audience (or not) while writing early readers specifically (and then later, during the Q/A, thinking about parents, or — spoiler alert — not); the collaboration process in book creation; and (another Q/A topic) how to self-motivate to finish a project you’d been excited to start. The panelists were thoughtful, the listeners were engaged, and at least one Caldecott medalist made an appearance in the audience.

Shoshana Flax (Associate Editor):

The highlight of the BBF for me this year was getting to moderate the "Thriller: Missing Person!" YA panel with authors Julie Berry (If Looks Could Kill), Channelle Desamours (Needy Little Things), and Tiffany D. Jackson (The Scammer). It was my first time moderating a BBF panel, but the three of them put me at ease with friendly chatter beforehand. Once the panel got going, our conversation encompassed writing process as well as real-world issues. The missing-person theme tied into discussions of vulnerability and responsibility, and the authors all weighed in thoughtfully.

The BPL’s Teen Central room was packed, and the audience, including lots of teens, asked great questions. I’d been on the YA programming committee earlier this year, so it was especially gratifying to see our initial suggestions come together.

Beyond that, it was great as always to hang out in and around our booth and chat with various “friends of the Horn Book,” from reviewers to former interns to longtime readers. Here’s to celebrating books!

Cynthia K. Ritter (Managing Editor):

I spent the majority of my day in our booth talking about the Horn Book to festival attendees (though the highlight for me on the packed square was walking by GBH's booth and seeing all the people interested in helping to protect public media and their new slogan "They said 'Go Fund Yourself'"), but I did step away a few times throughout the day so I could stop by some Kids and YA panels (plus storytimes) to take photos for our slideshow below. Luckily popping in-and-out was all I was trying to do, because several times I was told that the panels were at capacity, which, as a member of the 2025 Youth Programming Advisory Committee again this year, I was very pleased to hear, but I was also disappointed that people were being turned away. I wish more of the amazing Kids and YA authors/illustrators had been able to speak in larger venues, because there was clearly demand for it (I definitely wish I could have stayed longer to watch Nathan Hale demonstrate how he illustrates his Hazardous Tales books — wowza!). Shout out to fellow BBF committee member and Friend of the Horn Book Laura Koenig, head of central library youth services at Boston Public Library, for helping me get the Rey Room opened up so more people (including myself) could then attend that afternoon's popular-but-also-at-capacity panel "Middle-Grade: Legends, Myths, and Heroes" featuring Donna Barba Higuera (XOLO), Kwame Mbalia (Jax Freeman and the Tournament of Spirits), Laini Taylor (The Guardians of Dreamdark: Windwitch), and moderator Meena Jain (Ashland Library Director). The book lover/fangirl in me was very excited to attend this one panel in the afternoon to hear these three authors in conversation with one another — they offered insights about their books and processes, connected over similar experiences, and shared laughter with a captivated crowd.

I briefly witnessed Justin Colon's and Jason Chin's respective storytimes, which both offered up interactive experiences for their young kid audiences. Colon started off by having a member of the audience help him turn the pages in a loose advance reader copy of his picture book Impossible Possums, only to have it fall apart (that has happened to this reviewer many-a-time), which was no surprise to Colon but did give him an opportunity for a conversation with the kids about what makes a book a book. And I saw Jason Chin drawing for the kids after he read his nonfiction picture book Hurricane, using their scribbles to create simple, yet imaginative drawings (my friend's son was lucky enough to bring two drawings home that day, one by Chin and one from Peter H. Reynolds's storytime for The Dot).

And, of course, topping off my inspiring, book-filled day was lunch at Roxy's grilled cheese truck. Until next year, Boston Book Festival! 

Emma Shacochis (former intern and current freelancer):

My morning shift at The Horn Book booth was a delightful blur of delivering our “Are you familiar with The Horn Book?” spiel to interested festival-goers, clarifying that no, we were not a book publisher, and recommending Hilary Horder Hippely and Matt James’s Boston Globe–Horn Book Award–winning I Know How to Draw an Owl to readers of all ages. Our table was more sparsely decorated than in previous years, but that made every contribution to it more meaningful, from the library books and back issues that Cindy and Kitty brought from home to the e-newsletter sign-up sheet procured from a BPL team member and the Mass Freedom to Read buttons that Malinda Lo dropped off for us to help pass out. In between talking to visitors and chatting to one another during lulls in foot traffic, our volunteers’ friends and family, Horn Book–reviewed authors, and staff from the Cambridge Public Library and Candlewick Press all stopped by to say hello or thank you or tell us how excited they were for the upcoming Boston Globe–Horn Book Awards. That community, on either side of our booth’s table, was the highlight of the day for me (a close second being leaning over our table to watch costume character Zeke the Wombat from PBS KIDS show Work It Out Wombats! turn sideways in order to fit through the Boston Public Library’s front door).