Festival Info

Community & Educational Outreach

Author Visits To Schools

The San Antonio Book Festival partners with select authors who make visits to area schools and teach lessons in the days leading up to the Festival. During the 2019 Book Festival weekend, nine SABF authors visited seven schools, impacting nearly 1,500 students. In 2018, Jason Reynolds (For Every One and Sunny), winner of the Kirkus Prize, the National Book Award, Newbery Award, and more, visited Roosevelt High School, Ed White Middle School, and Bibliotech East, presenting to nearly 1,200 students. In the past, Jack Gantos (The Key that Swallowed Joey Pigza), spoke at an Education Service Center-Region 20 evening event for librarians and teachers and spent the day teaching writing classes to three different grades at KIPP’s Camino Academy and Un Mundo Dual Language Academy.

While SABF is committed to expanding these author visits throughout the calendar year, due to popular demand, we have migrated this valuable program to an application system. If you are a teacher, librarian, or school administrator interested in booking one of these meaningful teaching sessions, please visit the Authors in Schools page or sign up for our newsletter to be informed when there is a call for applications.

Two young students introduce author Brian Floca at the 2014 SABF.

Student Introducers

For the past seven years, SABF has selected student presenters from area schools to introduce authors at Festival sessions. This provides a wonderful opportunity for students to practice public speaking and develop their writing skills as they draft their author introductions.

As of January 2020, the Festival has streamlined this process and will select a partner school to introduce all middle grade and YA authors. SAReads, SABF’s largest educational partner, will coordinate student introductions in the Hawn Holt Children’s Reading Tent.

Organized Group Visits to the Festival

Through partnerships with non-profit organizations such as SAReads, Girls, Inc., Boys and Girls Club, Divas, Inc., and others, over 400 kids from underserved areas participate in this special program of the Festival. The kids are transported to the Festival where they take part in the activities, hear author presentations, and receive a Festival author’s book and a Festival T-shirt.

If you plan to organize a large group of students or kids to attend the Book Festival at the Central Library and Southwest School of Art please contact Jennifer Maestas. We will assist you with bus parking and can answer any other questions. We recommend that students bring their own lunch. There will also be food trucks on site.

If you are bringing a smaller group of kids to the Festival, you do not need to let us know. Due to growing expenses, we are no longer able to provide T-shirts to all of the student groups that come to the Festival.

Get the latest updates delivered straight to your inbox.

Send this to a friend

Your emailRecipient email