Tweens Read Book Festival 2022

Calling all tweens!

Do you love books?   So do we!  

Come meet 22 of your favorite authors for free.  

Be sure to bring your ticket with you - your ticket will allow you to use the FAST PASS line!

Bringing a group? After registering here, visit the TweensRead.com page to complete a group form and have bus information in advance. Having completed these forms along with a FAST PASS for EVERY person in your group will speed up your entrance to the event. 

Space may be limited so we encourage all participants to register early.

Christina Soontornvat is the award-winning author of over a dozen books for children of all ages. Her picture books include The Ramble Shamble Children, illustrated by Caldecott Honoree Lauren Castillo, and Simon at the Art Museum, illustrated by Christine Davenier. She is the author of the beloved Diary of an Ice Princess chapter book series. Her recent works include the middle grade fantasy, A Wish in the Dark, which was named a 2021 Newbery Honor Book, and was chosen as Best Book of the Year by The Washington Post and and , which received the 2021 Kirkus Prize for Young People’s Literature and was also named a 2021 Newbery Honor Book. Her latest novel, The Last Mapmaker, published April 2022 from Candlewick Press.

Christina Soontornvat grew up behind the counter of her parents’ Thai restaurant in a small Texas town with her nose stuck in a book. She is very proud of both her Thai and her Texan roots, and makes regular trips to both Weatherford and Bangkok to see her beloved family members (and eat lots and lots of Thai food!). In addition to being an author, Christina holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and a master’s degree in Science Education. She spent a decade working in the science museum field, where she designed programs and exhibits to get kids excited about science. She is passionate about STEM (science, technology engineering, and math), and loves learning new things. She lives in Austin, Texas with her husband, two young children, and one old cat.

Adam Perry

Adam Perry is the author of The Magicians of Elephant County, The Big Book of Horrendous Diseases, and The Thieving Collectors of Fine Children’s Books.

The son of an elementary school librarian, he discovered a love of stories at an early age. He lives in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, with his wife, children, and a growing collection of children’s books. To the best of his knowledge, none of them are stolen.

J.C. Cervantes

J.C. is a New York Times best-selling author of books for children and young adults. Her books have appeared on national lists, including the American Booksellers Association New Voices, Barnes and Noble’s Best Young Reader Books, as well as Amazon’s Best Books of the Month. She has earned multiple awards and recognitions, including the New Mexico Book Award, the Zia Book Award, and most recently the 2021 New Mexico Land of Enchantment Readers’ Choice Award.She currently resides in the Land of Enchantment with her family, three spoiled dogs, and a lifetime collection of books. But she keeps part of her heart in Southern California, where she was born and raised. When she isn’t writing she is haunting bookstores and searching for magic in all corners of the world.

Dhonielle Clayton

Dhonielle Clayton is a New York Times Bestselling author of The Belles series, co-author of Shattered Midnight and the co-author of the duology, Tiny Pretty Things a Netflix original series. She hails from the Washington, D.C. suburbs on the Maryland side. She taught secondary school for several years, and is a former elementary and middle school librarian. She is COO of the non-profit We Need Diverse Books, and President of Cake Creative, an IP story kitchen dedicated to diverse books for all ages. She’s an avid traveler, and always on the hunt for magic and mischief. Up next: The Marvellers , her middle grade fantasy debut. You can find her on social media @brownbookworm.

Adrianna Cuevas

J. Elle

I've been writing since I could hold a pencil. But, it's a bit more legible nowadays. I enjoy elevating voices in my stories who have had too few. You know you're reading a J.Elle book if it's impossible to put down and at some point, you're crying.

I have a Bachelors degree in Journalism with a minor in Rhetoric & Writing from The University of Texas at Austin. And a Master's in Educational Administration. I write. I read. I pray. I photograph too, actually. But most often, I laugh. Learning to laugh at myself is the greatest lesson I've ever been taught.

Stuart Gibbs

I’m the author of five bestselling middle grade series: Spy School, FunJungle, Charlie Thorne, Moon Base Alpha, and The Last Musketeer. I also write for TV and film. Before all that, I studied capybaras, the world’s largest rodents. Really. If you want to write to me, read my FAQ page for details.

Ben Guterson

Ben Guterson was born and raised in Seattle. Before working at Microsoft as a Program Manager, Ben spent a decade teaching public school on the Navajo Reservation in New Mexico and in rural Colorado. He has written features and book reviews for newspapers, magazines, and websites, as well as a nature-travel guide to the Southwest. Ben and his family live in the foothills of the Cascades east of Seattle. Winterhouse is his first book.

Nathan Hale

Nathan Hale currently lives in Utah and is the author and illustrator of the Eisner-nominated, New York Times bestselling graphic novel series on American history, Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales. He also created the sci-fi horror comics One Trick Pony and Apocalypse Taco. His illustrated works include Rapunzel's Revenge, Calamity Jack , Frankenstein: A Monstrous Parody, The Dinosaurs' Night Before Christmas, and many others.

Terri Libenson

Terri Libenson is a New York Times bestselling children’s book author and award-winning cartoonist of the syndicated daily comic strip, The Pajama Diaries, which ran from 2006-2020. She is also the New York Times bestselling author of the popular middle grade series, Emmie & Friends (Balzer + Bray). Prior to that, she was an award-winning humorous card writer for American Greetings.

Gillian McDunn

Gillian McDunn is the award-winning author of Caterpillar Summer, The Queen Bee and Me, These Unlucky Stars, Honestly Elliott, and the forthcoming When Sea Becomes Sky. Her books have received various honors including Best Books of the Year by Kirkus and Parents Magazine, chosen as Junior Library Guild gold standard selections, and nominated to eight state reading lists, including the Texas Bluebonnets Master List. Her most recent book, Honestly Elliott, received four starred reviews.

Jennifer A. Nielsen

Jennifer Nielsen, New York Times Bestselling author, was born and raised in northern Utah, where she still lives today with her family, a dog that won’t play fetch, and a cat that hallucinates. She is the author of The Ascendance series, beginning with The False Prince; the Traitor's Game series, the historical novels, Resistance, A Night Divided, Words on Fire, Rescue, and several other titles.

Maulik Pancholy

Maulik Pancholy is an award-winning actor, author and activist. He is best known for his comedic roles on various shows and is the voice of Baljeet on Disney’s Phineas and Ferb and the title voice of Sanjay on Nickelodeon’s Sanjay and Craig. His debut novel, The Best at It, is about a gay, Indian American boy coming into his own. His second novel, Nikhil Out Loud is set for a Fall 2022 release.

Celia C. Perez

Celia C. Pérez is the daughter of a Mexican mother and a Cuban father. Her debut book for young readers, The First Rule of Punk (Viking / Penguin), was a 2018 Pura Belpré Award Honor Book, a 2018 Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards honor book, and a winner of the 2018 Tomás Rivera Mexican American Children's Book Award, a Junior Library Guild selection. Her second book, Strange Birds: A Field Guide to Ruffling Feathers (Kokila / Penguin, 2019), is an Association of Library Services to Children Notable Children’s Book. Her third book will be out in August 2022. She lives in Chicago and works as a community college librarian.

Varsha Bajaj

Varsha Bajaj grew up in Mumbai, India, and when she came to the United States to obtain her master’s degree, her adjustment to the country was aided by her awareness of the culture through books. She is the author of the upcoming middle grade novel Count Me In.  She has also written the middle-grade novel Abby Spencer Goes to Bollywood and the picture books The Home Builders and This Is Our Baby. She lives in Houston, Texas.  You can learn more about her on her website at www.varshabajaj.comor by following her on Twitter @varshabajaj.

Rex Ogle

Rex Ogle has worked for Marvel Comics, DC Comics, Scholastic, and Little Brown, creating books with LEGO, Star Wars, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, X-Men, and more. When he's not writing, you can find him reading or hiding outdoors. Rex lives in Los Angeles. You can follow him on Instagram @thirdrex where he tries to be funny, but often fails.

Julian Randall

Julian Randall is a Living Queer Black poet from Chicago. He has received fellowships from Cave Canem, CantoMundo, Callaloo, BOAAT and the Watering Hole. Julian is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize. Julian is the winner of the 2019 Betty Berzon Emerging Writer Award from the Publishing Triangle.

His writing has been published in New York Times Magazine, Ploughshares, and POETRY, and anthologized in Black Boy Joy (which debuted at #1 on the NYT Best Seller list), Wild Tongues Can’t Be Tamed and Furious Flower.

He has essays in The Atlantic, Vibe Magazine, Los Angeles Review of Books, and other venues. He holds an MFA in Poetry from Ole Miss.

He is the author of Refuse (Pitt, 2018), winner of the 2017 Cave Canem Poetry Prize and a finalist for a 2019 NAACP Image Award, as well as the middle grade novel Pilar Ramirez And The Escape from Zafa (Holt, Winter 2022), and The Dead Don’t Need Reminding: Essays (Bold Type Books, Spring 2023).

He can be found on Twitter @JulianThePoet.

Justin Reynolds

AUTHOR. SCREENWRITER. CREATOR.

I just wanna keep telling stories, that’s all.

Lora Senf

Lora Senf is a wife and mom to twins. She is also a writer of dark and twisty middle grade and young adult stories.

Lora finds inspiration for her writing in her children’s retellings of their dreams, on road trips through Montana, and most recently in an abandoned abattoir. As a young reader, she raised herself on classic fairy tales, John Bellairs, Ray Bradbury, and Stephen King (she read Cujo when she was eight and was simultaneously terrified and hooked).

Today, she still prefers a rainy day and a scary book to nearly anything else. When she isn’t reading for school, she’s reading fiction—mostly horror or anything a little weird and unsettling. Lora credits her love of words to her parents and to the public library that was walking distance from her childhood home. Lora is a member of SCBWI, Horror Writers Association, and the Pacific Northwest Writers Association. You can find her spending far too much time on Twitter @Lora013.

Kiersten White

Kiersten White is the New York Times bestselling, Bram Stoker Award-winning, and critically acclaimed author of many books, including the And I Darken trilogy, the Sinister Summer series, the Camelot Rising trilogy, and her adult debut, Hide. Her books have been published in over twenty territories, and her novel The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein is currently in development with Sony Pictures Television.

Kiersten lives with her family in San Diego, where she can regularly be found pressing her hands against the glass of her back door, furtively whispering I love you to her deeply ambivalent tortoise, Kimberly.

Lisa Yee

Lisa Yee was born and raised near Los Angeles. As a kid, she loved reading, opening brand new boxes of cereal (to get the prize), and riding the teacups at Disneyland.

Lisa attended Brightwood Elementary School in Monterey Park, CA where she once won an award for best decorated cake.

While at Alhambra High School, Lisa was on the debate team and president of the honor society. On occasion, she would ditch class and sneak off to the library. (Okay, so she never quite figured out the juvenile delinquent thing.) At the University of Southern California, she majored in English and Humanities, and she also took a bowling class.

Lisa has been an inventor, a hand model (once), and worked for a creative think tank. At Walt Disney World she was a writer/producer and one time, when she was the only short person around, she got to be Mickey Mouse. She has also directed creative projects for Fortune 500 clients, led creativity seminars for dairy farmers (moo), and been featured in the Wall Street Journal for her obsessive workaholic behavior. (She is now practically, totally cured of this.)

Her recent projects included penning the DC Super Hero Girls middle grade novel series and American Girl's Girl of the Year books. Her latest novel, MAIZY CHEN'S LAST CHANCE, debuted February 2022 to rave reviews.

Lisa lives In Western Massachusetts, but spends a lot of time in Los Angeles, especially when it's cold.

For the past eight years, Lisa's helped pick the Best Books of the Year for NPR.

Jennifer Ziegler

Jennifer Ziegler is the author of several novels for young and young-at-heart readers, including Worser, Revenge of the Flower Girls , and How Not to Be Popular . She also serves as faculty co-chair of Vermont College of Fine Arts’ MFA program in Writing for Children and Young Adults. A native Texan of Mexican American heritage, Jennifer lives in Austin with her husband (and favorite author), Chris Barton, and their boss, a terrier mix named Ernie. When not teaching or creating books, Jennifer loves to visit schools, festivals, and conferences to lead workshops and presentations, urging readers and writers to recognize their own powers and use them for good.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

J. Frank Dobie High School Pasadena ISD, 10220 Blackhawk Blvd, Houston, United States