This author is scheduled to appear at the NH Book Festival which will be held at the Capitol Center for the Arts & NHBF Festival Village on South Main Street in Concord, NH on October 2-3, 2026.
8/16/26
NHBF Author: M. T. Anderson
8/15/26
NHBF Author: Jeff Kinney
the Awesome Friendly Kid series. He is a six–time Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Award winner for
Favorite Book and has been named one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the
World. He spent his childhood in the Washington, DC, area and moved to New England, where
he and his wife own a bookstore named An Unlikely Story.
Jeff Kinney will deliver the Children's Keynote on Friday night and the Family Keynote on Saturday night. Tickets for the Friday night keynote are sold out. Tickets for the Saturday night Family Keynote are on sale now.
This author is scheduled to appear at the NH Book Festival which will be held at the Capitol Center for the Arts & NHBF Festival Village on South Main Street in Concord, NH on October 2-3, 2026.
8/14/26
Ladybug Nominee Profile
The Day the Books Disappeared by Joanna Ho, Caroline Kusin Pritchard and Dan Santat (Disney Hyperions, 2025)
Arnold didn't mean for the books to disappear—not exactly. It all started because he liked his book about airplanes best. Why would anyone want to read about tomatoes or ostriches or submarines (ew, the worst!) when they could read about planes, instead?
When Arnold realizes—POOF!—he can make the other books vanish, he goes a little too far. Before he knows it, all the books are gone…including his. Can Arnold figure out how to bring them back before it’s too late?
This book about books celebrates themes of empathy, interconnectedness, and the value of diverse and differing perspectives.
About Joanna Ho
Joanna Ho is the award-winning and New York Times bestselling author of many children's books, including Eyes that Kiss in the Corners, We Who Produce Pearls, and The Silence that Binds Us, her debut young adult novel, which received the Young Adult Honor for the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature. She lives in the Bay Area, where she survives on homemade chocolate chip cookies, outdoor adventures, and dance parties with her kids. Her website is: https://www.joannahowrites.com/
About Caroline Kusin Pritchard
Caroline Kusin Pritchard is the author of Gitty and Kvetch and Where is Poppy, which School Library Journal called “a perfect story for all ages.” She has an MFA in writing for children and young adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts and lives in Virginia with her family. Her website is: https://carolinekusinpritchard.com/
About Dan Santat
Dan Santat is the National Book Award-winning, Caldecott Medal–winning, and New York Times–bestselling author and illustrator of The Adventures of Beekle: The Unimaginary Friend and the road trip/time travel adventure Are We There Yet? His artwork is also featured in numerous picture books, chapter books, and middle-grade novels, including Dav Pilkey's Ricky Ricotta series. Dan lives in Southern California with his wife, two kids, and many, many pets. His website is: https://sites.google.com/g.risd.org/dansantat/home
Activities & Links
- Check out this Read Aloud at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ad3sUwCxxIw
- Here's an interview with Joanna Ho, one of the authors of "The Day the Books Disappeared": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5e_87sHSkII
- Reflection exercise: Have students draw or write about how the main character Arnold felt when other people's books vanished versus how he felt when his own favorite book disappeared.
- Design a Book Cover exercise: Provide a blank book cover template for children to illustrate their own favorite topic or story, celebrating what makes their personal reading choice unique.
Suggestions for Further Reading
- Check out the other 2026 Ladybug Longlist titles featuring Books & Reading at: https://nhbookcenter.blogspot.com/2026/01/ladybug-longlist-books-reading.html
- For more books by Joanna Ho, check out Eyes That Kiss in the Corners or A Room with a View. For another book by Caroline Kusin Pritchard, check out The Keeper of Stories.
- For more stories about books, consider All the Books by Hayley Rocco and
The Dictionary Story by Oliver Jeffers & Sam Winston, both 2025 Ladybug Longlist titles.
This is one of nine titles nominated for the 2026 Ladybug Picture Book Award.
We
will be posting information about a different nominee each Friday
throughout the summer and will issue a pdf voters guide featuring all
the titles by Labor Day.
NHBF Author: Jodi Picoult
Picoult is the recipient of many awards, including the New England Bookseller Award for Fiction, the Alex Awards from the YALSA, a lifetime achievement award for mainstream fiction from the Romance Writers of America, the NH Literary Award for Outstanding Literary Merit and esteemed Sarah Josepha Hale Award. She was the recipient of the 2024 Free Speech Defender Robie Harris Author Award from the National Coalition Against Censorship. She holds honorary doctor of letters degrees from Dartmouth College and the University of New Haven. She is a patron of the Carole Shields Prize for Fiction which is awarded to female fiction writers. She is a member of the Board of Trustees for PEN America. Picoult lives in New Hampshire with her husband. They have three children and two grandchildren.
Jodi Picoult will deliver the NHBF Keynote on Friday night. Tickets are on sale now.
This author is scheduled to appear at the NH Book Festival which will be held at the Capitol Center for the Arts & NHBF Festival Village on South Main Street in Concord, NH on October 2-3, 2026.
8/13/26
Mark Your Calendar!
Over the next couple months, Book Notes NH will be featuring the MANY authors who will be part of the 3rd annual NH Book Festival. which will be held at the Capitol Center for the Arts & NHBF Festival Village on South Main Street in Concord, NH on October 2-3, 2026.
Most of the festival programs are scheduled for Saturday, October 3 and will be free for everyone to attend.
The following events require paid tickets to attend. These events help to fund the free Saturday programming at the festival.
On Friday morning, the festival kicks off with Jeff Kinney (New York Times bestselling author of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series) giving the Children's Keynote (which is sold out!).
Jodi Picoult, New York Times bestselling author of twenty-nine novels (and a New Hampshire resident!), will give the Festival Keynote at 7pm, Friday, October 2, 2026. Tickets for this event are on sale now.
On Saturday night, at 6:30 pm, Jeff Kinney will be giving the Family Keynote. Tickets for this event are on sale now.
All keynote speaker events will be held at the Capitol Center for the Arts in Concord, NH.
8/10/26
Book of the Week (8/10/2026)
Embark on a guided tour of 30 of the most dangerous and mysterious locations that we simply cannot stay away from.
Have you ever visited a forest or an abandoned building and gotten a bad vibe? There are places that are rife with rumors of hauntings, monsters, and sinister phenomena that can’t be explained. And there are just as many sites that are the confirmed home of disasters, murders, and man-made mistakes. Everyone’s heard about the Bermuda Triangle, but do you know these chilling sites?
Roopkund: There's a lake tucked high in the frozen Himalayan Mountains . . . and it's full of skeletons.
Mount Shasta: This mysterious mountain in California inspired the I AM cult and is said to host UFOs, bigfoots, and lizard people.
Nahanni National Park: Called the "Valley of the Headless Men", this national park in northern Canada is famous for legends of a hidden gold mine . . . and a series of decapitated miners.
Pine Barrens: Best known as the home of the Jersey Devil, this desolate pine forest has also hosted pirates, the mafia, and moonshiners.
Ciudad Blanca: This fabled pre-Columbian "Lost City of the Monkey God" in Honduras doesn't want to be found, and explorers seeking it have met violent ends. --Publisher's blurb
About the author:
J.W. Ocker is a nationally bestselling, Edgar-winning author of macabre travelogues, spooky kids books, and horror novels. His books include A Season with the Witch, Twelve Nights at Rotter House, The Black Slide, and The United States of Cryptids. He is originally from Maryland but has lived in New Hampshire for almost two decades.
Join J.W. at Toadstool Bookshop in Keene, NH on Sat., August 22, 2026 at 2:00 pm where he will be presenting and signing his newest book!
8/7/26
Ladybug Nominee Profile
Don't Trust Fish by Neil Sharpson and Dan Santat (Dial Books, 2025)
Why, dear reader, must you NEVER EVER trust fish?
1) They spend all their time in the water where we can’t see them.
2) Some are as big as a bus—that is not okay.
3) We don't know what they're teaching in their "schools."
4) They are likely plotting our doom.
This nature-guide-gone-wrong is a hilarious, off-the-rails exploration of the seemingly innocent animals that live in the water.
About Neil Sharpson
Neil Sharpson lives in Dublin with his wife and their two children. Having written for theater since his teens, Neil transitioned to writing novels in 2017, adapting his play The Caspian Sea into When The Sparrow Falls. A huge fan of animation, Neil writes Unshaved Mouse, a comedic review blog mostly focusing on animated film and comic book movies. His website is: https://unshavedmouse.com/
About Dan Santat
Dan Santat is the National Book Award-winning, Caldecott Medal–winning, and New York Times–bestselling author and illustrator of The Adventures of Beekle: The Unimaginary Friend and the road trip/time travel adventure Are We There Yet? His artwork is also featured in numerous picture books, chapter books, and middle-grade novels, including Dav Pilkey's Ricky Ricotta series. Dan lives in Southern California with his wife, two kids, and many, many pets. His website is: https://sites.google.com/g.risd.org/dansantat/home
Activities & Links
- Check out this Read Aloud with the author: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aq5p9R1FVWI
- Here's an interview with Dan Santat, illustrator of "Don't Trust Fish": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZS6SmqNRsg
- Check out these activity sheets with facts about fish: https://kidsactivitiesblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Fish-Facts-Coloring-Pages.pdf
- Writing exercise: Have students write a funny paragraph convincing others why fish cannot be trusted based on the book's silly premise.
- Here's a link to free fish coloring pages: https://mondaymandala.com/fish-coloring-pages/
Suggestions for Further Reading
- Check out the other 2026 Ladybug Longlist titles featuring Swimming Creatures at: https://nhbookcenter.blogspot.com/2026/02/ladybug-longlist-swimming-creatures.html
- Parrotfish Has a Superpower by Jill Esbaum, a 2025 Ladybug Longlist title and Memoirs of a Goldfish by Devin Scillian and Tim Bowers, a 2011 Ladybug winning title are both fun books about fish that you can count on.
- For more books written or illustrated by Dan Santat, consider Built to Last by Minh Lê and Dan Santat, a 2025 Ladybug Longlist title, A New Day by Brad Meltzer and Dan Santat, a 2024 Ladybug Longlist title and After the Fall (How Humpty Dumpty Got Back Up Again) by Dan Santat, a 2018 Ladybug Nominee Finalist.
This is one of nine titles nominated for the 2026 Ladybug Picture Book Award.
We
will be posting information about a different nominee each Friday
throughout the summer and will issue a pdf voters guide featuring all
the titles by Labor Day.
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