Join Us At the National Book Festival on September 6, 2025.
Details for the 25th annual Library of Congress National Book Festival:
- Location: Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C
- Date: Saturday, September 6, from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. (doors open at 8:30 a.m.)
- The event is free and open to the public.
A selection of programs will be livestreamed online and videos of all programs will be available shortly after the Festival.
About the Festival
The Maryland Center for the Book is one of 56 Affiliates of the Library of Congress Center for the Book, joining other affilaites in each of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam and Northern Marianas. These affiliates carry out the center’s mission of promoting books, reading, libraries and literacy, as well as their local literary heritage.
During the 2025 National Book Festival, on Saturday, September 6, each Affiliate Center has a table at the Festival’s Roadmap to Reading in the Washington Convention Center. Attendees can visit each state and territory table and learn about their state’s literature, including their “Great Reads” selections. Both books will be featured and sold at the Festival’s bookstore. This activity has been a part of the festival since 2002.
Discover Great Places Through Reading
The Maryland Center for the Book, a program of the Maryland Humanities, has selected two books as the “Great Reads from Great Places” for the 2025 National Book Festival of the Library of Congress.
As an affiliate of the Library of Congress, Maryland Center for the Book selects two titles each year in the Adult and Kids categories as a representation of the state’s literary heritage or talent.
Follow the Roadmap to Reading
Maryland Humanities will be representing our state at the National Book Festival at the Roadmap to Reading.
Take a literary trip around the country by visiting the Roadmap to Reading, sponsored by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). The Roadmap to Reading will feature tables with representatives from 54 Centers for the Book: one for each state as well as tables for the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and the Northern Marianas.
Pick up a Great Reads from Great Places brochure and visit each table in the Roadmap to Reading to explore each state’s great reads and receive a unique ink stamp; those who collect all of the stamps can receive a special giveaway at the IMLS booth!
“Great Reads from Great Places” Selections
Each year, each local Center for the Book or state library selects a children’s and adult book to represent that state at the National Book Festival in the Great Reads from Great Places list.
2025 Adult Selection
Kin: Rooted in Hope
Author: Carole Boston Weatherford
Art: Jeffery Boston Weatherford
Hybrid in form, and even more expansive in what it has to say, Kin: Rooted in Hope is a book created by, and about, a Black family and its generations.
Poet and children’s author Carole Boston Weatherford and her son, artist Jeffery Boston Weatherford, collaborated on this book that gives voice to their earliest enslaved ancestors back to the founding of Maryland. With each poem and its accompanying illustration, Carole and Jeffery tell their family story through each of their kin and the world they lived in: the Chesapeake Bay, the plantation house, Frederick Douglass, Harriett Tubman, and more. The selection committee was enthralled by how Kin uses art and poetry to illuminate what can’t be said by historical records (when they are available), in a vital story that is about Maryland’s past and its present.
2025 Youth Selection
Rap it Up!
Authors: Carole Boston Weatherford & Jeffery Boston Weatherford
Art: Ernel Martinez
From scribbling words on the page to spitting rhymes on the mic, a joyful narrator guides readers through the emotions, literary techniques, structures and motifs that help make rap so amazing. With vibrant illustrations that leap off the page, this book urges readers to believe in themselves and the power of their creativity.
About the Authors and Illustrators
The daughter of a printer, Carole Boston Weatherford was practically born with ink in her blood. She began writing at age 6 and soon after saw her poems in print. Her 80-plus books have garnered 2 NAACP Image Awards and 18 American Library Association Youth Media Awards, including a Newbery Honor, Coretta Scott King Award and 4 Caldecott Honors. Her career achievements have been recognized with the North Carolina Award for Literature, the Nonfiction Award from the Children’s Book Guild and induction into the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame. A retired English professor, she lives in Maryland.
Author photo credit: Gerald Young
Jeffery Boston Weatherford was born with such distinctive hands that his grandmother predicted he would grow up to do important work. She was right! An award-winning illustrator, Jeffery has collaborated with Carole on 3 books. He was a Romare Bearden scholar at Howard University where he earned a Master of Fine Arts degree. Also a performance poet and fine artist, Jeffery has performed or exhibited in the U.S., West Africa and the Middle East. He lives in North Carolina.
Author photo credit: Gerald Young
Ernel Martinez was born in Belize and raised in Los Angeles and Detroit. His introduction to art was through the underground world of graffiti. He enjoys creatively finding ways to give underserved communities the tools to tell their stories through art making.
The National Book Festival Roadmap to Reading is made possible by the generous support of the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the National Endowment for the Humanities with additional support from Chief Officers of State Library Agencies.
