Louisville Book Festival

Help Us Build a City That Reads

The Louisville Book Festival was created around a simple belief: everyone deserves access to books, stories, authors, and the joy of reading.

What began as a response to inequities in book access has grown into a major community celebration of literacy, bringing together thousands of readers, families, educators, authors, students, and community partners.

Our festival is intentionally accessible. Families can discover new books. Children can meet authors. Aspiring writers can learn from people working in the industry. Readers can hear stories that reflect their lives and stories that help them understand lives different from their own.

We believe books do far more than teach people to read.

Books build empathy.
Books build confidence.
Books build imagination.
Books build opportunity.
Books build Louisville.

 

Why We’re Raising $10,000

Our 2026 Give for Good goal is $10,000. Your gift helps us continue creating meaningful literary experiences for our community, including author programming, literacy outreach, family activities, book access, festival production, and the countless behind-the-scenes expenses required to keep this work going.

The Louisville Book Festival is free and accessible because we believe the opportunity to experience books and meet authors should not depend on what a family can afford.

But free to attend does not mean free to produce. Your support helps make access possible.

What Your Gift Supports

Every contribution at every level helps us:

• Put books and literacy resources into the community
• Bring authors and literary professionals to Louisville
• Create free experiences for children, families, and community members
• Support writers and aspiring authors
• Expand literacy outreach
• Build partnerships with schools and community organizations
• Keep the Louisville Book Festival accessible to the people it was created to serve

Why Literacy?

Literacy touches nearly every part of a person's life. Children who grow up surrounded by books are more likely to succeed in school. Reading helps young people develop empathy, emotional awareness, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills. Literacy affects long-term health, employment opportunities, earning potential, and civic participation.

Sometimes the impact of a book is much simpler. A child finds a character who looks like them. A struggling reader discovers the book that finally makes reading exciting. A young writer meets an author and thinks, maybe I can do this too. Those moments are why we do this work.

Our Story

Before there was a Louisville Book Festival, our founder, Deedee Cummings, was a therapist using books with children in her practice.

Stories helped children talk about feelings they could not always explain. Books created conversations, opened imaginations, and gave young people language for what they were experiencing. Later, through a reading program for adolescents, Deedee discovered something startling: many of the young people participating never once chose a book for themselves. Every book they had ever read had been assigned to them.

That discovery led to a larger question about access to books across Louisville and ultimately helped inspire the creation of the Louisville Book Festival.

Today, that work continues with one guiding belief:

Books are community care. 

You don't have to give a huge amount to become part of this story. Give what you can. Share our campaign. Tell someone why you believe in books. Invite someone to the festival. Building a city that reads will takes all of

Books Build Louisville.
Help the Louisville Book Festival raise $10,000 this Give for Good to expand access to books, authors, literacy experiences, and the joy of reading throughout our community. us.