Tucson Festival of Books

Home Meets Heart: The Gifts of Family


Children's connections to different family members are a source of hugs, history, belonging, and confidence. Families, both biological and found, offer children the gifts they need to live happy, fulfilled lives.


Panelists
Steph Littlebird

Steph Littlebird is an artist, author, curator and enrolled member of Oregon's Grand Ronde Confederated Tribes. Littlebird is known for her vibrant graphic imagery combining the traditional styles of her Indigenous ancestors with contemporary illustration aesthetics....

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Cynthia Harmony

Cynthia Harmony is a bilingual children's author and educational psychologist, originally from Mexico City. Her most recent titles include "Apapacho Love," "Heart," and "Forest en Familia/El Bosque en Familia....

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Cynthia Leitich Smith

Cynthia Leitich Smith writes books for all ages, including "Here Come the Aunties," "Jingle Dancer," "Sisters of the Neversea," the Blue Stars series, "Rain Is Not My Indian Name," and "Hearts Unbroken....

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Pasha Westbrook

Pasha Westbrook, a multiracial writer and a Chickasaw and Choctaw Freedmen descendant, is the author of "Braided Roots." Westbrook lives among the Arizona cacti with her husband and three beautiful boys....

Arizona author Instagram


Books:
You Are the Land
Steph Littlebird
Children
Penguin Group
February 2026
ISBN 9798217003495
32 pages
Buy now

Here Come the Aunties!
Cynthia Leitich Smith
Children
HarperCollins Publishers
February 2026
ISBN 9780063374690
32 pages
Buy now

Apapacho Love
A Story About Hugs from the Heart
Cynthia Harmony
Children
Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
January 2026
ISBN 9780374391836
32 pages
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Braided Roots: the Interweaving of History, Family, and a Father's Love
Pasha Westbrook
Children
Scholastic, Incorporated
January 2025
ISBN 9781339015385
40 pages
Buy now