Join Monica Brown at 11 for a read aloud and art project for all ages as well as a question and answer session about the art of being a children's author. Stay for Darcie Little Badger and Kinsale Drake at 12 for more readings - this time from YA (teen) books -  and more creative activities.

Monica Brown is the Peruvian-American author of many award-winning multicultural books for children, including, Sharuko: El Arqueólogo Peruano /Peruvian Archeologist Julio C. Tello, Frida and her Animalitos, Waiting for the Biblioburro/Esperando al Biblioburro, Marisol McDonald Doesn't Match/no combina, and the Lola Levine chapter book series, among others. Her books have garnered multiple starred reviews and awards, and is available in a dozen languages. Her books have been featured in the New York Times, The Washington Post, and on NPR's All Things Considered. Her most recent picture book, is Small Room, Big Dreams: The Journey of Julián and Joaquin Castro, out from HarperCollins/Quill Tree in an English and Spanish editions. Her next picture book is The Turquoise Room/El Cuarto Turquesa forthcoming from Lee and Low in 2022. Monica Brown lives in Arizona with her family.

At Noon Darcie Little Badger will read from her young adult novel, A Snake Falls to Earth, which was a Newbery Honor Winner and longlisted for the National Book Award. Following the reading, NDN Girls Book Club will host a free community workshop especially for Native youth & girls in poetry and zine-making.
Darcie Little Badger (she/her) is a Lipan Apache writer with a PhD in oceanography. Her critically acclaimed debut novel, Elatsoe, was featured in Time Magazine as one of the best 100 fantasy books of all time. Elatsoe also won the Locus award for Best First Novel and is a Nebula, Ignyte, and Lodestar finalist. Her second fantasy novel, A Snake Falls to Earth, received a Nebula Award, an Ignyte Award, and a Newbery Honor and is on the National Book Awards longlist. Darcie is married to a veterinarian named Taran.
Kinsale Drake (Diné; she/they) is a poet, playwright, and performer based out of the Southwest. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Poetry, Best New Poets, Poetry Northwest, Black Warrior Review, MTV, Time, and elsewhere. She recently graduated from Yale University, where she received the J. Edgar Meeker Prize, the Academy of American Poets College Prize, and the Young Native Playwrights Award. She is the winner of the 2022 Joy Harjo Poetry Prize and the founder/director of NDN Girls Book Club.