Tucson Festival of Books

Flights of Imagination and Discovery


Immerse yourself in flights of imagination and discovery in three visually stunning and creative picturebooks. In one, a playful cat journeys through multiple pieces of art, while in another a boy finds companionship as he searches for a lost orange balloon. The third is a love poem to the desert as two children follow the blazing trail of sundust.


Panelists
Bruce Handy

Bruce Handy is a journalist, critic, humorist, and children’s author whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, The New York Times, and The Atlantic. His book "Wild Things: The Joys of Reading Children’s Literature as an Adult" was published in 2017....

Brian Lies

Brian Lies is The New York Times bestselling creator of “Bats at the Beach,” “Bats at the Library,” “Bats at the Ballgame,” “Bats in the Band,” and the Caldecott Honor book “The Rough Patch....

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Zeke Peña

Zeke Peña is a Xicano storyteller and professional doodler from El Paso, TX, the Sun City. His author-illustrator debut, "Sundust" is a love poem to desert culture and won a Caldecott Honor Award....

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Books:
Balloon
Bruce Handy
Children
Chronicle Books LLC
October 2025
ISBN 9781797215044
44 pages
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Cat Nap
Brian Lies
Children
HarperCollins Publishers
September 2025
ISBN 9780062671288
48 pages
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Sundust
Zeke Peña
Children
Penguin Group
August 2025
ISBN 9780593700112
48 pages
Buy now