Jeff Kinney to Keynote 2026 New Hampshire Book Festival for Kids

Jeff Kinney, author of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, has been named the 2026 Keynote for Schoolchildren at the New Hampshire Book Festival, according to the festival's official announcement. Kinney will appear at the Capitol Center for the Arts in Concord on Friday, October 2, 2026.

The festival has also confirmed that Kinney will return separately as Family Keynote, per its homepage.

The October 2 appearance is a dedicated school-day event, with The Concord Insider reporting that it regularly draws more than 1,000 students, teachers, and parent chaperones, making it one of the festival's signature programming highlights. Tickets for the keynote are available through the Capitol Center for the Arts, which lists the event at The Chubb Theatre beginning at 10:30 AM.

Patch also confirmed the school-day framing of the appearance, noting it is specifically oriented toward young attendees.

Kinney is the author of 31 Diary of a Wimpy Kid books, as the festival's announcement states. His most recent title is Partypooper, the 20th numbered entry in the series, published in January 2026 according to the New York Times.

Kinney began his career as a software engineer before creating the Wimpy Kid character — middle schooler Greg Heffley — for the browser game site Funbrain. The first book followed and, as The Guardian describes, immediately became a sensation.

Every copy of Partypooper bears the phrase "Over 300 million books sold," a figure The Guardian notes dwarfs the album sales of major music acts.

Now 54, Kinney has expanded well beyond publishing — scripting films, opening a bookshop, and making plans connected to his hometown, according to The Guardian's profile. Despite the scale of his commercial success, Kinney describes himself as an introvert by nature.

"I'm a writer. I chose that profession because I'm an introvert," he told The Guardian. "So it's a weird thing to be on stage, but these days, if you're a children's writer, you also need to learn to be an entertainer."

His live appearances bear that out. The Guardian's account of a recent UK tour stop describes sold-out shows with walk-on characters, audience participation, and crowds of up to 800 children and parents — a far remove from a standard author signing.

The New Hampshire Book Festival's Keynote for Schoolchildren slot places a major author in front of a large, captive school-age audience during the festival week, giving the programming a distinctly educational anchor. Kinney's Diary of a Wimpy Kid series — combining diary-style text with hand-drawn illustrations — has been widely noted for its appeal to readers who might otherwise resist longer or more text-heavy titles, a point The Guardian's profile reinforces in describing the books as drawing in children "reluctant to delve into, say, bricklike, lore-heavy fantasy series."

For an assessment of the books themselves, see LuvemBooks' review of Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

The festival's website indicates Kinney will appear in two separate capacities — the school-day keynote on October 2 and a Family Keynote slot — though full scheduling details for the broader festival weekend have not yet been published. Prospective attendees and school groups can monitor the NH Book Festival site and the Capitol Center for the Arts for ticketing and logistical updates as October approaches.