Great Reads from Great Places 2026 Announced

• July 20th, 2026
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The Alabama Center for the Book has selected How Mae Got Moxie  written by Jennifer Hallman and illustrated by Racheal Smithson, to be featured as the Alabama Children’s Great Reads selection, and Praying in the Pine Straw: The Camp-Meeting Experience in Alabama by Robert C. Morgan as the Alabama Adult Great Reads Selection for the 2026 National Book Festival.  

This year the Festival will return to the Washington Convention Center in Washington, DC, on Saturday, August 22nd, and is free for all to attend.  This year marks the 26th anniversary of the Library of Congress National Book Festival. A selection of programs will be live-streamed, and video of all presentations can be viewed online after the Festival concludes.

How Mae Got Moxie  “is an empowering tale of resilience, courage, and self-discovery. Perfect for readers of all ages, this beautifully crafted story takes you on Mae’s journey as she overcomes challenges, finds her inner strength, and learns to embrace her unique voice. Set against a vivid backdrop that evokes inspiration and hope, this book is more than just a story—it’s a call to action to believe in yourself and step boldly into your future. With heartfelt illustrations created in Birmingham, Alabama, and brought to life by a women-led publishing house, How Mae Got Moxie is a testament to the power of creativity, community, and courage.”

–Moxy + Mae

Praying in Pine Straw   “immerses readers in the raw, rollicking, and deeply human world of Alabama’s camp meetings—a Southern tradition where fire-and-brimstone preaching echoed through pine forests and where faith was often accompanied by contradiction. From ‘treeing the Devil’ to ‘holy laughter,’ these revivals blended heartfelt worship with all the complications of human nature. Mule-drawn wagons brought the faithful to rustic camps, where gospel fervor mingled with whiskey traders, local politicians, and opportunists of every kind.  Preachers thundered against sin—even as they sometimes flirted with it themselves. Robert C. Morgan offers a textured portrait of camp meetings as both spiritual experience and cultural spectacle. Praying in the Pine Straw unveils the enduring contradictions of ‘old-time religion’ and its significant influence on Southern culture and faith—a legacy that is both treasured and complex.”

–The University of Alabama Press

Every year, a list of books representing the literary heritage of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, is distributed by the Library of Congress’s Center for the Book during the National Book Festival.  Each book is selected by a Center for the Book state affiliate or state library and most are for children and young readers. Books may be written by authors from the state, take place in the state, or celebrate the state’s culture and heritage. We are proud to select these titles for 2026.

The Alabama Center for the Book supports reading, literacy and other book-related activities in Alabama as well as promotes appreciation of regional writers.  The Center is a founding co-sponsor of the Alabama Writers Hall of Fame.

The Library of Congress’ Center for the Book, established by Congress in 1977 to stimulate public interest in books and reading, is a national force for reading and literacy promotion.  A public-private partnership, it sponsors educational programs that reach readers of all ages through its affiliated state centers, collaborations with nonprofit reading-promotion partners and through its Poetry and Literature Center at the Library of Congress. For more information, visit Read.gov.

Great Reads from Great Places 2025 Announced

• July 3rd, 2025
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The Alabama Center for the Book has selected Bonnie’s Rocket  written By Emeline Lee, and illustrated by Alina Chau, to be featured as the Alabama Children’s Great Reads selection, and Distracted by Alabama: Tangled Threads of Natural History, Local History, and Folklore by Dr. James Seay Brown as the Alabama Adult Great Reads Selection for the 2025 National Book Festival.  

This year the Festival will return to the Washington Convention Center in Washington, DC, on Saturday, September 6th , and is free for all to attend.  This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Library of Congress National Book Festival. A selection of programs will be live-streamed, and video of all presentations can be viewed online after the Festival concludes. 

Bonnie’s Rocket is a tale about a girl whose father works on the Apollo 11 mission. While he works on the moon-landing module far away, Bonnie designs, builds, and tests her own project — with sometimes disastrous results! Inspired by the experiences of the author’s grandfather, who helped design the space suits and life-support systems on the Apollo 11 lunar module, Bonnie’s Rocket celebrates the diverse team that contributed to one of the United States’ greatest achievements. It’s also a heartwarming father-daughter story and a terrific gift for budding engineers and space fans of all ages.

–Lee and Low Books

Distracted by Alabama: Tangled Threads of Natural History, Local History, and Folklore, is a collection of twelve captivating essays about Alabama and the South by Samford University writer and scholar Jim Brown, a former president of the Alabama Folklife Association.
 
During his decades living and teaching in Alabama, Brown followed his curiosity down myriad pathways about Alabama and the region, including the state’s majestic landscape, plants and animals found nowhere else, history, and rich folkways. In the tapestry of Alabama culture, Brown traces the threads of Native American, African slave, and European settler influences, woven over the centuries into novel patterns that surprise and fascinate.  
 
Writing in the voice of a learned companion, Brown reveals insights and stories about unforgettable facets of Alabama culture, such as Sacred Harp singers and African American railroad callers, the use of handmade snares and stationary fish traps to catch river Redhorse and freshwater drum, white oak basket making and herbal medicine traditions, the evolution of the single-pen log cabin into the impressive two-story I-house, and a wealth of other engrossing stories.
 
An instant classic, Distracted by Alabama is a keepsake that readers who love, visit, or are curious about Alabama and Southern culture will return to again and again.

–The University of Alabama Press

Every year, a list of books representing the literary heritage of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, is distributed by the Library of Congress’s Center for the Book during the National Book Festival.  Each book is selected by a Center for the Book state affiliate or state library and most are for children and young readers. Books may be written by authors from the state, take place in the state, or celebrate the state’s culture and heritage. We are proud to select these titles for 2024.

The Alabama Center for the Book supports reading, literacy and other book-related activities in Alabama as well as promotes appreciation of regional writers.  The Center is a founding co-sponsor of the Alabama Writers Hall of Fame.

The Library of Congress’ Center for the Book, established by Congress in 1977 to stimulate public interest in books and reading, is a national force for reading and literacy promotion.  A public-private partnership, it sponsors educational programs that reach readers of all ages through its affiliated state centers, collaborations with nonprofit reading-promotion partners and through its Poetry and Literature Center at the Library of Congress. For more information, visit Read.gov.

The Alabama Center for the Book to Sponsor Event with Award-Winning Nature Writer and Biologist

• August 13th, 2024
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University Libraries and the Alabama Center for the Book are proud to present Dr. R. Scot Duncan, who will discuss his 2024 National Book Festival “Great reads,” Selection, Southern Rivers. 

Join us on Friday, August 23rd, from 2-3:30 PM in the Camellia Room on the 2nd floor of Gorgas Library. Refreshments will also be served. 

https://calendar.ua.edu/event/book-talk-dr-r-scot-duncan-author-of-southern-rivers

“Southern Rivers, by award-winning nature writer and biologist R. Scot Duncan, is a thoroughly crafted exploration of the perilous state of the Southeast’s rivers and the urgent need to safeguard their vitality.” 

-The University of Alabama Press

Great Reads from Great Places 2024 Announced

• June 12th, 2024
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The Alabama Center for the Book has selected The Father Goose Treasury of Poetry: 101 Favorite Poems for Children written by Charles Ghigna, and illustrated by Sara Brezzi, to be featured as the Alabama Children’s Great Reads selection, and Southern Rivers: Restoring America’s Freshwater Biodiversity, by Dr. R. Scot Duncan as the Alabama Adult Great Reads Selection for the 2024 National Book Festival.  This year the Festival will return to the Washington Convention Center in Washington, DC, on Saturday, August 24^th, and is free for all to attend.  The festival theme, “ Books Build Us Up, “ celebrates the importance of books and reading for us all.  A selection of programs will be livestreamed, and video of all presentations can be viewed online after the Festival concludes. 

The Father Goose Treasury of Poetry , is a stunningly illustrated treasury of Charles Ghigna’s  best, most-beloved children’s poems to share with young readers as a first introduction to the joy of language and to the enchanted world of books. Young readers and their families will gain an understanding of the wonder and joy of poetry, as well as a positive look at the natural world around them. In the words of Charles Ghigna, “It is the joyous power of poetry that turns listeners into readers and readers into writers.”

–Schiffer Publishing

Southern Rivers, by award-winning nature writer and biologist R. Scot Duncan, is a thoroughly crafted exploration of the perilous state of the Southeast’s rivers and the urgent need to safeguard their vitality. The region’s rivers are the epicenter of North American freshwater biodiversity and are the top global hotspot for important aquatic animals including mussels, turtles, snails, crayfish, and fish, many of which have made important contributions to southern life and culture. Duncan explains the task of managing southeastern rivers and how river water quality affects the daily lives of the millions who hold these historic waterways dear. He shows how managing rivers wisely can meet the needs of biodiversity and humanity both.  

–The University of Alabama Press

Every year, a list of books representing the literary heritage of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, is distributed by the Library of Congress’s Center for the Book during the National Book Festival.  Each book is selected by a Center for the Book state affiliate or state library and most are for children and young readers. Books may be written by authors from the state, take place in the state, or celebrate the state’s culture and heritage. We are proud to select these titles for 2024.

The Alabama Center for the Book supports reading, literacy and other book-related activities in Alabama as well as promotes appreciation of regional writers.  The Center is a founding co-sponsor of the Alabama Writers Hall of Fame.

The Library of Congress’ Center for the Book, established by Congress in 1977 to stimulate public interest in books and reading, is a national force for reading and literacy promotion.  A public-private partnership, its sponsors educational programs that reach readers of all ages through its affiliated state centers, collaborations with nonprofit reading-promotion partners and through its Poetry and Literature Center at the Library of Congress. For more information, visit Read.gov.

Alabama Writers Hall of Fame Class of 2025 Announced

• May 6th, 2024
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The 2025 class inductees include Ace Atkins, Frye Gaillard, Joy Harjo, Janice Harrington, Robert McCammon, and Dr. Sue Walker. Authors C. Eric Lincoln and Brad Watson will be inducted posthumously. 

2023 inductee Daniel Wallace is slated to serve as Master of Ceremonies. More information will be provided in the coming months. The Alabama Center for the Book and the Alabama Writers’ Forum would like to congratulate the members of the 2025 class. 

For press inquiries please contact please contact Richard Evans, Executive Director of the Alabama Writers’ Forum, at RichardEvans@writersforum.org  or Michael Pearce, Director of the Alabama Center for the Book, at pearc007@ua.edu . 

A Girl Like Me, by Angela Johnson & Unloose My Heart, by Marcia Edwina Herman-Gidden, Chosen as the 2023 Alabama Great Reads Selections

• June 13th, 2023
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The Alabama Center for the Book has selected A Girl Like Me  written by Angela Johnson, and illustrated by Nina Cruz, to be featured as the Alabama Children’s Great Reads selection, and Unloose My Heart , by Marcia Edwina Herman-Giddens as the Alabama Adult Great Reads Selection for the 2023 National Book Festival.  This year the Festival will return to the Washington Convention Center in Washington, DC, on Saturday, Aug. 12, and is free for all to attend.  The festival theme, “Everyone Has a Story,” celebrates the storyteller in us all.  A selection of programs will be livestreamed, and video of all presentations can be viewed online after the Festival concludes. 

A Girl Like Me  is a picture book that, “brings together a poem by acclaimed author Angela Johnson and Nina Crews’ distinctive photocollage illustrations to celebrate girls of color.”  It was created to, “Empower young readers to embrace their individuality, reject societal limitations, and follow their dreams.”

–Lerner Publishing

Unloose My Heart  is a, ”deeply personal memoir that unearths a family history of racism, slaveholding, and trauma as well as love and sparks of delight.  Marcia Herman’s family moved to Birmingham in 1946, when she was five years old, and settled in the steel-making city dense with smog and a rigid apartheid system.  Marcia, a shy only child, struggled to fit in and understand this world, shadowed as it was by her mother’s proud antebellum heritage.  Later in life, Herman-Giddens resumed a search to find out what she did not know about her family history.  Unloose My Heart interweaves the story of her youth and coming of age in Birmingham during the Civil Rights Movement together with this quest to understand exactly who and what her maternal ancestors were.  More than a memoir set against the backdrop of Jim Crow and the civil rights struggle, this is the work of a woman of conscience writing in the twenty-first century.  Haunted by the past, Unloose My Heart is a journey of exploration and discovery, full of angst, sorrow, and yearning.”

–The University of Alabama Press

Every year, a list of books representing the literary heritage of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, is distributed by the Library of Congress’s Center for the Book during the National Book Festival.  Each book is selected by a Center for the Book state affiliate or state library and most are for children and young readers. Books may be written by authors from the state, take place in the state, or celebrate the state’s culture and heritage.

The Alabama Center for the Book supports reading, literacy and other book-related activities in Alabama as well as promotes appreciation of regional writers.  The Center is a founding co-sponsor of the Alabama Writers Hall of Fame.

The Library of Congress’ Center for the Book, established by Congress in 1977 to stimulate public interest in books and reading, is a national force for reading and literacy promotion.  A public-private partnership, its sponsors educational programs that reach readers of all ages through its affiliated state centers, collaborations with nonprofit reading-promotion partners and through its Poetry and Literature Center at the Library of Congress. For more information, visit Read.gov.

Tickets Available Online for the Alabama Writer’s Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony and Dinner 3/10/23

• January 24th, 2023
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TUSCALOOSA, Ala.  — Eight distinguished authors will be inducted into the Alabama Writers Hall of Fame at The University of Alabama’s Bryant Conference Center on Friday, March 10th, 2023.  

The Alabama Center for the Book and the Alabama Writers’ Forum would like to congratulate the inductees. Members of the 2023 class include: Tom Franklin, Trudier Harris, Angela Johnson, Howell Raines, Michelle Richmond, and Daniel Wallace. Authors Eugene Walter and Kathryn Tucker Windham will be inducted posthumously. 2020 inductee Carolyn Haines is slated to serve as Master of Ceremonies.  

To purchase tickets online, or to sponsor an inductee table that seats 10 people, visit the link below.

Alabama Hall of Fame Dinner – AL Writers Hall of Fame Dinner and Induction (ua.edu) 

For press inquiries, please contact Jeanie Thompson, Executive Director of the Alabama Writers’ Forum, at jeaniethompson@writersforum.org  or Michael Pearce, Director of the Alabama Center for the Book, at pearc007@ua.edu .

Past Is Present: A Conversation in Poetry

• August 26th, 2022
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University Libraries, and the Alabama Center for the Book Present on September 9th, 2022 in the Camellia Room of Gorgas Library: Past Is Present; A Conversation in Poetry. Past Is Present is a unique event featuring three poets, Ashley M Jones, Poet Laureate of the State of Alabama, Jaqueline Allen Trimble, chairperson of Languages and Literatures at Alabama State University, and Kwoya Fagin Maples, Assistant Professor in the Department of English at the University of Alabama. The poets will have an improvisational conversation in which they can only use their poetry to communicate with one another. Following the conversation, the poets will debrief the exercise, and take questions from the audience.  

African Town, by Charles Waters and Irene Latham, Chosen as the 2022 Alabama Great Reads Selection

• July 15th, 2022
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The Alabama Center for the Book has selected African Town, by Charles Waters and Irene Latham, to be featured as the Alabama Great Reads selection for the 2022 National Book Festival. This year’s theme is, “Books Bring Us Together.”

The Library of Congress National Book Festival is an annual literary event that brings together best-selling authors and thousands of book fans for author talks, panel discussions, book signings and other activities. The 22nd Library of Congress National Book Festival will be held Labor Day weekend, returning this year to the Washington Convention Center on Saturday, September 3rd. A selection of programs will be livestreamed, and video of all presentations can be viewed online after the Festival concludes. 

African Town is a novel-in-verse, chronicling the story of the last Africans brought illegally to America in 1860.

“In 1860, long after the United States outlawed the importation of enslaved laborers, 110 men, women and children from Benin and Nigeria were captured and brought to Mobile, Alabama aboard a ship called Clotilda. Their journey includes the savage Middle Passage and being hidden in the swamplands along the Alabama River before being secretly parceled out to various plantations, where they made desperate attempts to maintain both their culture and also fit into the place of captivity to which they’d been delivered. At the end of the Civil War, the survivors created a community for themselves they called African Town, which still exists to this day. Told in 14 distinct voices, including that of the ship that brought them to the American shores and the founder of African Town, this powerfully affecting historical novel-in-verse recreates a pivotal moment in US and world history, the impacts of which we still feel today.”

–Penguin Random House

Every year, a list of books representing the literary heritage of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, is distributed by the Library of Congress’s Center for the Book during the National Book Festival.  Each book is selected by a Center for the Book state affiliate or state library and most are for children and young readers. Books may be written by authors from the state, take place in the state, or celebrate the state’s culture and heritage.

The Alabama Center for the Book supports reading, literacy and other book-related activities in Alabama as well as promotes appreciation of regional writers.  The Center is a founding co-sponsor of the Alabama Writers Hall of Fame.

The Library of Congress’ Center for the Book, established by Congress in 1977 to stimulate public interest in books and reading, is a national force for reading and literacy promotion.  A public-private partnership, its sponsors educational programs that reach readers of all ages through its affiliated state centers, collaborations with nonprofit reading-promotion partners and through its Poetry and Literature Center at the Library of Congress. For more information, visit Read.gov.

2022 Alabama Writers Hall of Fame Dinner and Induction Ceremony Rescheduled for 2023

• March 9th, 2022
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TUSCALOOSA, Ala.  — Eight distinguished authors will be inducted into the Alabama Writers Hall of Fame at The University of Alabama’s Bryant Conference Center on Friday, March 10th, 2023. Originally scheduled for June 6th, 2022, the Alabama Writers Hall of Fame Planning Committee decided that it would be in everyone’s best interest to reschedule the induction gala.

Michael Pearce, Director for the Alabama Center for the Book, noted in making the change, “We apologize for the inconvenience, but we are thinking of the health of our inductees and attendees, and the overall quality of the services we can provide.  We also want to ensure that the Alabama Writers Hall of Fame induction ceremony is a well-attended and meaningful evening for our inductees.”

The Alabama Center for the Book and the Alabama Writers’ Forum would like to congratulate the inductees. Members of the 2023 class include: Tom Franklin, Trudier Harris, Angela Johnson, Howell Raines, Michelle Richmond, and Daniel Wallace. Authors Eugene Walter and Kathryn Tucker Windham will be inducted posthumously. 2020 inductee Carolyn Haines is slated to serve as Master of Ceremonies. More information will be provided in the coming months.  

For press inquiries please contact please contact Jeanie Thompson, Executive Director of the Alabama Writers’ Forum, at jeaniethompson@writersforum.org  or Michael Pearce, Director of the Alabama Center for the Book, at pearc007@ua.edu .