BooksmART Festival at Dallas Museum of Art

This daylong free festival at the DMA celebrating literature and the arts for families and children of all ages will feature authors and illustrators, artists, workshops, gallery tours, music, and much more. Performances include appearances by children's songwriter and performer Joe McDermott and Faeren, the Austin-based performance group led by Jan Bozarth, author of the popular Fairy Godmother Academy series.

She Is Dallas info: BooksmART Festival will take place on Saturday, June 11, 2011 from 11:00 am – 5:00 pm.   Admission to the Museum and the festival will be free on this day.    The Dallas Museum of Art is located at 1717 North Harwood in Dallas 214-922-1200.   For more information, including a complete schedule of the BooksmART Festival activities, visit the Dallas Museum of Art website.   You can also follow the DMA on Facebook and Twitter.

The Museum's aim with the first annual BooksmART Festival is to provide youth and families with high-quality arts and cultural experiences and opportunities to experience and participate in a wide range of arts forms and activities that stimulate creativity and learning. Visitors will be able to meet authors and illustrators throughout the day, have opportunities to participate in illustration workshops and book signings, hear the authors speak about their work, and join them for story time. The award-winning, multicultural lineup includes New York Times bestselling authors, Caldecott Medal winners, a Coretta Scott King Award winner, an American Library Association's Printz Award winner, and National Book Award nominees. Highlights of the day include appearances by the following:

• Rick Riordan is the number one New York Times bestselling author of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. While at the BooksmART Festival, he will discuss his latest book in The Kane Chronicles series, in which he turns his attention to Egyptian mythology.
• Norton Juster is the author of the beloved children's classic The Phantom Tollbooth, which is celebrating its fiftieth anniversary this year.
• Laurie Halse Anderson is a two-time National Book Award finalist for her books Speak and Chains. Anderson will discuss Forge, the recently released historical fiction book and follow-up story to Chains.
• David Wiesner is a three-time winner of the Caldecott Medal, making him only the second person in the award's history to have won this honor three times. He has also received two Caldecott Honors during his career as an author and illustrator. He will share insight about his popular picture book Art & Max.
• Jerry Pinkney has received a Caldecott Medal, Five Caldecott Honors, and Five Coretta Scott King Awards, has illustrated over 100 titles, and was recently elected to the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame. He will discuss the body of his work, including the Caldecott Medal winner The Lion and the Mouse.

Other authors appearing during the BooksmART Festival include the Mexican author of Dear Primo: A Letter to My Cousin, Duncan Tonatiuh. He will talk about his new picture book Diego Rivera: His World and Ours, which introduces Diego Rivera to young readers. The Dallas Museum of Art will partner with the Crow Collection of Asian Art to present graphic novelist Gene Luen Yang in their galleries. He is the author of American Born Chinese, the first graphic novel ever nominated for a National Book Award and the first to win the American Library Association's Printz Award. Cynthia Leitich Smith is a Native American author who is a member of the Muscogee Creek Nation. Smith writes on a wide variety of subjects and for a wide variety of ages. She will discuss her new book, Blessed, which follows the characters from her previous books Tantalize and Eternal. She will also discuss her books Indian Shoes and Jingle Dancer, which focus on her roots as a Native American. Cuban-American writer and bilingual storyteller Antonio Sacre will discuss his children's books, including The Barking Mouse, a retelling of a Cuban folktale, and A Mango in the Hand. The BooksmART Festival is supported in part by funds from the Hoglund Foundation. The Essilor Vision Foundation will be on-site throughout the BooksmART Festival to provide free vision exams and glasses to attendees who qualify.