2025 Swiacki Children's Literature Festival

The 2025 Swiacki Children's Literature Festival will feature will feature author Lesa Cline-Ransome & illustrator James E. Ransome.

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Public Schedule of Events

All Events Occur in the McCarthy Center

3-5 pm: Welcome 
3-7 pm: Exhibit (Mazmanian Gallery)
3-6 pm: Book Sales (1839 Room)
3:30-5 pm: Book Signing (Mazmanian Gallery)
4:30-5:30 pm: Pat Keogh Memorial Workshop:  "What's New in Children's Literature" with Samantha Westall & Laura Hudock (Forum)
5:30-7:30 pm: Buffet Dinner and The Mary Burns Memorial Lectures: Lesa Cline-Ransome and James E. Ransome (Forum)

A Zoom webinar option is also available for both the Pat Keough Memorial Workshop and the Mary Burns Memorial Lectures.

About the Speakers

Lesa Cline-Ransome is the acclaimed author of numerous award-winning picture books that celebrate in story, Satchel Paige, an ALA Notable Book and a Bank Street College Best Children’s Book of the Year, Major Taylor: Champion Cyclist, Young Pele: Soccer’s First Star, Words Set Me Free: The Story of Young Frederick Douglass, Benny Goodman and Teddy Wilson, My Story, My Dance, Just a Lucky So and So: The Story of Louis Armstrong, Germs: Fact and Fiction, Friends and Foes, Game Changers: The Story of Venus and Serena Williams, The Power of Her Pen: The Story of Groundbreaking Journalist Ethel Payne and Not Playing by The Rules: 21 Female Athletes Who Changed Sports. Her verse biography of Harriet Tubman, Before She Was Harriet, received five starred reviews, was nominated for an NAACP image award, and received a Coretta Scott King Honor for Illustration. Her debut middle-grade novel, Finding Langston, was the 2019 winner of the Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction and received the Coretta Scott King Award Author Honor. Leaving Lymon and Being Clem, both named Kirkus Best Books, completed the Finding Langston series. Lesa’s debut Young Adult novel, For Lamb, is based in Jim Crow Mississippi.

A MacDowell Fellow and 2022 NAIBA Legacy recipient, Lesa has received numerous honors and awards including the NAACP Award, Kirkus Best Book, New York Public Library Best Book, SLJ Best Book, ALA Notable, CBC Choice Awards, two Top 10 Sports Books for Youth, and an Orbis Pictus Recommended Book. She is currently an SCBWI Advisory Council Member and host of KidLitTV's Past Present: Giving Past Stories New Life. She lives in the Hudson Valley region of New York with her husband and frequent collaborator.  They are parents of four incredible humans.

Author website: https://www.lesaclineransome.com/

The Children’s Book Council named James E. Ransome as one of seventy-five authors and illustrators everyone should know. Currently a member of the Society of Illustrators, Ransome has received both the Coretta Scott King Award for Illustration and the IBBY Honor Award for his book, The Creation. He has also received a Coretta Scott King Honor Award for Illustration forUncle Jed’s Barbershop which was selected as an ALA Notable Book and is currently being shown as a feature on Reading Rainbow. How Many Stars in the Sky? and Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt were also Reading Rainbow selections. PBS’s Storytime featured his book, The Old Dog. Ransome has exhibited works in group and solo shows throughout the country and received The Simon Wiesenthal Museum of Tolerance award for his book, The Wagon. In 1999 Let My People Go received the NAACP Image Award for Illustration and Satchel Paige was reviewed in Bank Street College of Education’s “The Best Children’s Books of the Year.” In 2001, James received the Rip Van Winkle Award from the School Library Media Specialists of Southeast New York for the body of his work.  How Animals Saved the People received the SEBA (Southeastern Book Association) Best Book of the Year Award in 2002 and the Vermont Center for the Book chose Visiting Day as one of the top ten diversity books of 2002.  In 2004 James was recognized by the local art association when he received the Dutchess County Executive Arts Award for an Individual Artist.  He has completed several commissioned murals for the Children’s Museum in Indianapolis, The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the Hemphill Branch Library in Greensboro, NC. He created a historical painting commissioned by a jury for the Paterson, NJ Library and a poster for the 50th Anniversary Celebration of Brown vs the Board of Education.  His traveling Exhibit, Visual Stories has been touring the United States since 2003.  His work is part of both private and public children’s book art collections.

Author Website: https://jamesransome.com/ 

Festival History

The Swiacki Children's Literature Festival at Framingham State University is an annual celebration of children's books featuring renowned authors and illustrators in the field. The event includes book signings, lectures and workshops sharing the latest developments in the craft. The event launched in 1986 as the David McCord Children's Literature Festival, sponsored by the Nobscot Reading Council. Framingham State has hosted the festival since its inception and began coordinating the event in 2006.

In 2014, the festival was renamed the Swiacki Children's Literature Festival at Framingham State University in recognition of the efforts and support of alumnae donors, Nancy and Janina Swiacki.

Past Featured Authors and Artists

2024: Duncan Tonatiuh and Ibi Zoboi
2023: Ekua Holmes and Dashka Slater
2022: Raul the Third and Erin Entrada Kelly
2021: Sophie Blackall and Javaka Steptoe with Special Guest: Kate DiCamillo
2020: Joseph Bruchac and Melissa Sweet
2019: Nikki Grimes and David Wiesner
2018: Matt De La Pena and Wendell Minor
2017: Andrea Pinkney and Brian Pinkney
2016: Jason Chin and Steve Sheinkin
2015: Jane Yolen
2014: Steve Jenkins and Mark Teague
2013: Beth Krommes and Stephen Krensky
2012: Jerry Pinkney and Joyce Sidman
2011: Jeanne Birdsall
2010: Grace Lin, Leda Schubert, Jimmy Gownley and Nick Abadzis
2009: Molly Bang
2008: Barbara Lehman
2007: Steven Kellogg
2006: John Lechner & Gordon Morrison

This program is funded in part by a grant from the Framingham Cultural Council, a local agency which is supported by the Mass Cultural Council, a state agency.

Additional funding provided by Arts & Ideas at Framingham State University and the Nobscot Reading Council.