The Savannah Book Festival (SBF) hosted an SBF@Schools event for Savannah Chatham County public middle school students on Friday, May 14^th.  This virtual event featured New York Times bestselling, award-winning, middle school author James Ponti.  Ponti engaged with students virtually at various local public middle schools, sharing his own journey of reluctant reader to Nickelodeon and Disney scriptwriter to award-winning author.  During Ponti’s three different sessions with local students, he focused on different topics specific to the students’ curriculum: writing and literature, STEM and history. 

Since its inception in 2010, Savannah Book Festival’s SBF@Schools program has brought bestselling authors into local classrooms to give Savannah’s students a chance to learn about the writing life.

“SCCPSS is so grateful to continue our relationship with SBF” says Tammy Kemp, Lead Program Manager - Instructional Technology and Media Services of SCCPSS, “over the past several years SBF has provided talented authors to meet with our students as well as copies of the author’s book to give to the students and add to our library collections. Talking to an accomplished author and asking questions about the process are opportunities that many of our students would not have otherwise. We were super excited for this year’s author presentation with James Ponti.” 

Due to the global pandemic, the 2021 Savannah Book Festival pivoted to virtual events only and SBF is pleased to continue providing access to nationally recognized authors to our school system during this challenging year. 

SBF received a grant through the City of Savannah’s Arts and Cultural Enrichment Program that contributed to the purchase of 1200 copies of James Ponti’s latest book, City Spies Golden Gate, which were provided to the students participating in the program.  The books were purchased with the assistance of E. Shaver, Bookseller, through an educational program providing discounts on books purchased for schools. 

The Savannah Book Festival Inc. (SBF) is an independent, non-profit corporation committed to encouraging literacy and the love of books. For more information, please contact Executive Director Erika Dongre at 912.598.4040, [email protected] or visit www.savannahbookfestival.org.