9th Annual Maynard Book Festival
(originally scheduled for May 1 & 2, 2020)
Cancelled, but events will be rescheduled!!
Here are some online resources while we're waiting
Original Schedule of Events
Thursday, April 16
6:00 pm Art Exhibit Reception
Friday, May 1
7:00 pm Concert with Goza Latin Band
Saturday, May 2
10:30 am Children's Author Lisa Robinson--Madame Saqui, Revolutionary Rope Dancer
10:30 am Author Cynthia Anderson--Home Now: How 6000 Refugees Transformed an American Town
12:00 pm Storytelling Workshop with Norah Dooley
2:00 pm Newbery Award–winning Author Jack Gantos
3:30 pm Emerging Authors Panel Discussion with Lisa Duffy, Marjan Kamali and Nina MacLaughlin
For the last eight years, the Friends and the library have been bringing a literary festival to Maynard on the first weekend in April. This year, our plan was to present the 9th Annual festival to you on the first weekend of May. Now, due to circumstances beyond anyone's control, we have had to cancel the Festival.
We will do our very best to bring the individual events to the library in the near future. But in the meantime, we'd like to share the following book reviews, author interviews, book talks and other online resources featuring our Festival authors.
Jack Gantos
Jack Gantos has written picture books (Rotten Ralph series), middle grade books (Joey Pigza series, Dead End in Norvelt) and young adult books (Hole in My Life). He has won the Newbery Award, The Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction and the Printz Award.
Here is a link to Jack Gantos's website, which includes these videos:
The Dumbest Boy in the World
Writing and Telling Great Stories
and
Jacks' acceptance speech for the Newbery Medal, won for Dead End in Norvelt in 2012
Gantos was a guest on NPR's Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! in 2012 for a rolicking round of Not My Job. (Please note that this is NOT G-rated!
Click on the book covers to borrow them in OverDrive! Other versions may be available.
Lisa Robinson
Lisa Robinson is the author of three picture books, including Madame Saqui, Revolutionary Rope Dancer which was released on March 24, 2020! Her website includes a really interesting biography, and pictures of her performing circus acts.
Click here to watch Lisa reading from her new book (and there may be a special circus surprise too.) You can read an interview with Lisa about her writing and first two picture books,
Goza Latin Band
Four members of the Goza Band appeared in last year's Festival as the Goza Brazilian Quartet. They were so great that we wanted to invite the whole band back this year!
Check out a few of these tunes and then head over the to band's website for videos and more audio clips. These are sure to raise your spirits!
Cynthia Anderson
For last year's Festival, we focused on the refugee experience in New England. As chance would have it, this year a former Festival author, Cynthia Anderson, published a her book about the effect of an influx of refugees to Lewiston, Maine.
Here's what author Monica Wood has to say about Home Now: How 6000 Refugees Transformaed an American Town: "Home Now is a breathtaking work of journalism and heart. Following several ‘new Mainers’ who arrive from war-ravaged African countries, Anderson brings her own deep Maine roots to bear as she illuminates their culture, assimilation, trauma, and homecoming. Her writing is graceful and clear-eyed and brimming with compassion both for the intrepid newcomers and the often ambivalent citizens who receive them. I found it instructive, poignant, and riveting.”
You can listen to an interview with Anderson by KERA, the Dallas NPR station.. This clip runs about 45 minutes.
