Truman to Host Children’s Literature Festival April 4

The Truman Children’s Literature Festival will take place from 9 a.m.-2:15 p.m. April 4 in the Student Union Building for almost 1,400 fourth-, fifth- and sixth-grade students.

Visiting authors and illustrators include Leslie Bulion, Frances O’Roark Dowell, Lisa Campbell Ernst, Kelly Milner Halls, Katherine Hannigan, Kenn Nesbitt, Sara Pennypacker, Ginny Rorby, Amy Timberlake, Linda Urban and Jacqueline West. Students will participate in 30-minute sessions with the guest authors and illustrators. All children attending must be pre-registered. The authors’ books are available at the Truman State University Bookstore.

University faculty, staff, students and other interested adults are welcome at any of the sessions. To register, contact Daisy Rearick at drearick@truman.edu or call 660.785.4048. Anyone interested is welcome to attend an informal meeting and book signing with the authors and illustrators from 3-4 p.m. in the Student Union Building Conference Room (SUB 3000). Refreshments will be served.

The festival will conclude with a dinner at 6 p.m. in the Student Union Building Activities Room (SUB 3200). The dinner is limited to pre-registered adults and children accompanied by an adult. The cost of the dinner is $11. To register, contact Rearick at 660.785.4048. At 7 p.m. author Sara Pennypacker will give a presentation.

The Children’s Literature Festival was an annual event for 21 years. Due to severe budget cuts the festival was discontinued in 2004. A Children’s Literature Festival Fund was established in 2007 in an effort to bring the Festival back, and it did return in 2009. For more information about the fund, contact the Office of Advancement at 660.785.4133 or visit giving.truman.edu/SpecialInitiatives/ChildrensLiteratureFestival.asp.

The festival is sponsored by Pickler Memorial Library with financial support from the Freeman Foundation, Follett Higher Education Group—Truman State University Bookstore and the Truman State University Foundation. Additional information may be obtained from Sharon Hackney (660.785.7366 or shackney@truman.edu) and the Children’s Literature Festival.