North Texas Teen Book Festival Recaps
The free one-day festival promotes reading and celebrates both middle grade and young adult literature. It is hosted by the Irving Public Library and its partners, Friends of the Irving Public Library, local school districts, museums, and other local libraries.
NTTBF23
With over 9000 attendees and 7000+ books sold, NTTBF23 returned to completely in person with a bang! This year also saw the introduction of Increased accessibility with live captioning (provided by VITAC) for all panels, sign language interpretation at select panels, and a sensory escape room.
Click here for the authors and panel schedule.
NTTBF22- Virtual School Day
We went hybrid in 2022. School Day was virtual with tons of great panels. You can still watch our NTTBF22 virtual panels on our YouTube page.
NTTBF22- Festival Day
Back at the Irving Convention Center for the first time since 2020. It was smaller this year but featured some great authors.
NTTBF21
NTTBF 2021 was a weird year! We went all virtual which was an experience to say the least. But, we were able to highlight some really great authors this year. The panels are still live on the festival’s YouTube page too. Take a look!
NTTBF20
NTTBF 2020 marked another year of firsts for NTTBF. Back by popular demand this year was the Middle Ground @ NTTBF, a festival within a festival offering a wide variety of programming and interactive panels for our middle school attendees, and the NTTBF Film Fest. For the first time ever, NTTBF also offered a graphic novel tract, hosted by Raina Telgemeier. The Get Graphic at NTTBF panels feature a full line-up of graphic novelist and tons of interactive audience engagement.
NTTBF19
Celebrating 5 years of NTTBF, this year’s festival was the largest ever with attendance over 15,000 attendees and over 800 educators at Ed Day. Also in celebration of NTTBF’s anniversary, the NTTBF Film Festival was added to the line-up showcasing YA book-to-film adaptations with Q & A sessions with the authors. Partnering with the Alamo Drafthouse, NTTBF showed the Netflix original Dumplin’, Angie Thomas’ The Hate U Give, and Becky Albertalli’s Love, Simon.
NTTBF18
With over 13,000 in attendance, NTTBF18 was a huge success! Educator Day continued to grow too with over 700 registered. Our author line-up featured some of the biggest Middle Grade and YA authors out there, including Dav Pilkey, Cassandra Clare, Angie Thomas, Becky Albertalli, and much, much more.
Click here to see the line-up and pictures.
NTTBF17
2017 saw our biggest turnout yet! We had over 10,000 attend the Festival and over 500 attend Educator Day. Our Educator Day grew to a full day of sessions for attendees and featured over 30 authors presenting on a variety of timely topics. The author line-up increased to over 80 and featured Maggie Stiefvater, Jason Reynolds, Angie Thomas, Veronica Roth, R. L. Stine, and Nicola Yoon.
NTTBF16
In response to feedback from our local educators and librarians, NTTBF16 continued to grow and evolve in 2016. Expanding to the entire Irving Convention Center, we also added in a half day Educator Day proceeding the Festival. 75 authors presented at panels, answered audience questions and signed books. Authors included James Dashner, Holly Black, Libba Bray, Gayle Foreman, and many many more. Again the attendance exceeded our expectations as it grew to 8,000 this year.
NTTBF15
Our inaugural festival took place in March 2015 featuring more than 50 well-known, best-selling, and emerging teen authors like Jenny Han, David Levithan, Gordon Korman, and Stephanie Perkins. The response from the North Texas community was beyond our wildest dreams. We had over 3000 attend and over 20 school districts and public libraries partnering with us.