Prior Events and Celebrations

2025 Scholastic Celebration

Keynote Speaker Alicia D. Williams

The 2024-2025 Scholastic Celebration featured keynote speaker Alicia D. Williams, a highly acclaimed author known for her poignant and impactful middle grade novels and picture books. Williams's work often explores themes of identity, self-discovery, grief, and the complexities of growing up.

She is the author of Mid-Air, which was longlisted for the National Book Award. She is also widely recognized for her Newbery Honor-winning novel, Genesis Begins Again, which also received Kirkus Prize honors, was a William C. Morris Award finalist, and for which she won the Coretta Scott King - John Steptoe Award for New Talent.

In addition to her novels, Alicia D. Williams has penned several beloved picture books, including Jump at the Sun, Nani and the Lion, and The Talk, the latter of which was a Coretta Scott King Honor book. An oral storyteller in the African American tradition, she currently resides in Charlotte, North Carolina. Click here to learn more about Alicia D. Williams and her books.

Experience her inspiring keynote address from the 2024-2025 Scholastic Celebration by watching the video below:

Click here for the 2025 Scholastic Regional Awards Celebration You Tube video.

Click here for the 2024-2025 Scholastic Award Winners

Connecticut Student Writers 2024 (Virtual) Recognition Night

EIH

Emily Inouye Huey

Emily Inouye Huey writes historical fiction for children and teens. Her first novel, BENEATH THE WIDE SILK SKY, won the Society of Children’s Books Writers and Illustrators’ Golden Kite Award and the Malka Penn Award for Human Rights in Children’s Literature. Her first picture book, WAT KEPT PLAYING, releases in 2024. Emily holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Lesley University and is a former teacher.

Emily is Japanese American and her work often draws on her family’s experiences. During World War II, the Inouye family was forcibly removed from their homes and farms in California and Washington State. Her grandparents, Charles and Bessie, met and married in an incarceration site at Heart Mountain, Wyoming. Her father was born in the prison hospital. When the war ended, the family was sent to Utah, where they started over and where Emily still lives, now with her husband and four children.

Besides books, Emily’s passions include education, the arts, the outdoors, and her family.

https://emilyhuey.com/about/