College of Arts & Sciences

Featured Author Selected For May 14 Program   

 Andrea Cheng

Andrea Cheng will be the featured author for BookFest 2010 to be held Friday, May 14 at Northern Kentucky University.

Cheng, who lives in Cincinnati, has written books for students of all ages. Her first published work was a picture book, Grandfather Counts. She has also written six novels for middle grade students and a young adult novel.

Cheng's parents were Hungarian immigrants who settled in Cincinnati. She received
a BA in English from Cornell University and later returned to Cornell to study Chinese and received a MS in linguistics. While she was in college, she met her future husband, Jim, who is the son of Chinese immigrants.

In addition to writing children's books, Cheng teaches English as a Second Language at Cincinnati State Technical and Community College. More information is available on her website.

BookFest 2010 reading list

To attend BookFest 2010, students in grades 5-6 and grades 7-8 are required to read books selected for their grade level that were written by Andrea Cheng and other authors. The students will then come to NKU to participate in discussions, workshops and contests about reading and writing.

To get a better idea of what happens at BookFest, take a look at the 2008 schedule.   

The date for BookFest 2010 is Friday, May 14. Here is the reading list for the program:

Fifth and Sixth Grades

  • Honeysuckle House by featured author Andrea Cheng (paperback)

  • Swindle by Gordon Korman (paperback)

  • The Lightning Thief  by Rick Riordan (paperback)

  • The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart (paperback)

  • The Homework Machine by Dan Gutman (paperback)

  • The Boy Who Saved Baseball by John H. Ritter (paperback)

Seventh and Eighth Grades

  • Marika by featured author Andrea Cheng (paperback)

  • The Book Thief  by Marcus Zasak (paperback)

  • All Shook Up by Shelley Pearsall

  • H.I.V.E.: The Higher Institute of Villainous Education by Mark Walden (paperback)

  • Scribbler of Dreams by Mary Pearson (paperback)

  • Peeled  by Joan Bauer (paperback)

For a printout of the BookFest 2010 reading list, click here