Caldecott Winner Bryan Collier to Headline 2021 Chesapeake Children’s Book Festival

Bryan Collier

Children’s book author and illustrator Bryan Collier will give the keynote address at this year’s Chesapeake Children’s Book Festival, hosted by the Talbot County Free Library on Saturday, June 12 from 9 a.m. – 2 p.m.

If you’ve ever seen Collier’s work, you know why his impressive list of prizes includes four Caldecott Honors and six Coretta Scott King Illustrator Awards.  Books authored and/or illustrated by Collier include We Shall Overcome; Fifty Cents and a Dream: Young Booker T. Washington; All Because You Matter; By and By: Charles Albert Tindley, the Father of Gospel Music; Hey Black Child; 5 O’Clock Band; Thurgood; The Watcher; Clemente!; Rosa; Dave the Potter; Martin’s Big Words: The Life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; I Too Am America; and Uptown.  Collier’s illustrations, which often combine both watercolor and collage, are the stuff of dreams.  They stay with you long after you’ve set aside one of his books.

And Collier’s keynote address will doubtless stay with you long after this year’s Chesapeake Children’s Book Festival as well.  Collier is a great storyteller, and the story he tells of growing up in Pocomoke City—a child who took inspiration from his grandmother’s quilts and went on to graduate with honors from the illustrious Pratt Institute—is one that should encourage all young people to find and follow their dreams.

The Chesapeake Children’s Book Festival will take place at the Easton branch of the Talbot County Free Library on Saturday, June 12, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.  This year’s is an outdoor, in-person event, first-come, first-served, with a limited number of attendees.  The event will also be live-streamed as part of the virtual component of the festival.  Bryan Collier will speak twice, at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m.

For more information, visit chesapeakechildrensbookfestival.com.