Fay B. Kaigler Children's Book Festival
Celebrating excellence in children’s and young adult literature
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The 2024 Fay B. Kaigler Children’s Book Festival will take place April 10-12 on campus at The University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg, MS. We’re honored to announce that Cynthia Leitich Smith is the 2024 Southern Miss Medallion winner. Smith is a New York Times bestselling author and the 2021 NSK Neustadt Laureate. Her novel Hearts Unbroken won an American Indian Youth Literature Award and she has been named one of the 10 Must-Read Native American Authors by Book Riot. Smith’s anthology Ancestor Approved: Intertribal Stories for Kids was an ALA Children’s Notable Book in addition to winning the Reading the West Young Readers Book Award.
Additional keynotes include Coleen Salley Storytelling Lecturer Juana Martinez-Neal, de Grummond Lecturer Jason Chin, Lesa Cline-Ransome, James Ransome, Carmen Oliver, and Southern Miss SLIS Lecturer Liz Kleinrock.
Download a PDF of this year's schedule HERE.
Thanks to the Mississippi Library Commission, we will be able to offer a total of approximately 3.8 CEUs for the 2024 Festival!
This year, the Kaigler Book festival is possible in part thanks to a grant from VisitHattiesburg. We look forward to welcoming our speakers and attendees to our beautiful city and showing them all that it has to offer!