Two books selected to represent Louisiana at 2025 National Book Festival

Paul Siefken’s “Vernon Poche & the Ghosts of New Orleans” and Ken Wells’s “Gumbo Life: A Journey Down the Roux Bayou” to be featured as state’s “Great Reads” September 6 in Washington, DC

BATON ROUGE, La. –  Lieutenant Governor Billy Nungesser and the Louisiana Center for the Book in the State Library of Louisiana are pleased to announce the two books representing the state’s rich literary heritage at the National Book Festival in Washington, DC, on September 6, 2025.

The Center for the Book in the Library of Congress in Washington annually asks its Affiliate Centers for the Book (representing each of the 50 states, the District of Columbia and major U.S. territories) to select a “Great Reads” book for Young Readers and one for Adult Readers that represents its literary heritage. The author or illustrator may have been born or lives there, or the setting of the book is within the state or territory.

Each year, Affiliate Centers come to Washington for the National Book Festival and participate in the Roadmap to Reading, a giant space at the Washington Convention Center where each Affiliate booth features its “Great Reads” books and provides information about their states or territories for thousands of book lovers from across the nation.

“Louisiana not only has the best food and music, we are blessed to also be home to outstanding authors who craft everything from excellent children’s books to the latest political page turners. Each year, the State Library of Louisiana highlights more than 200 Louisiana authors during the Louisiana Book Festival, rated one of the Top 10 Literary Festivals you can attend. It’s always a pleasure to be able to promote Louisiana literary heritage on the national stage,” said Lieutenant Governor Billy Nungesser.

The 2025 Louisiana young readers “Great Reads” selection is Paul Siefken’s Vernon Poche & the Ghosts of New Orleans, the story of the young friends Vernon and Alisha who search for a way home through the ruins of Hurricane Katrina while interacting with the ghosts who remain haunting the empty streets.

Siefken grew up in New Orleans, down the street from Bayou Saint John, where he and his siblings rode bikes along the levee. He was living in Washington, D.C., when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. His parents, siblings, and extended family were among the thousands who evacuated after the flood. Now living in Pittsburgh, Siefken and his family visit New Orleans to enjoy family time and take in the food, music, and history of the city. Siefken has worked in children’s television for 28 years at Cartoon Network and PBS KIDS and as president of Fred Rogers Productions. He has written chapter books for Cartoon Network series The Powerpuff Girls and Samurai Jack and has had several short plays produced in New York. Vernon Poche & The Ghosts of New Orleans is his first novel.

The 2025 Louisiana adult readers’ “Great Reads” selection is Ken Wells’s Gumbo Life: A Journey Down the Roux Bayou. In this culinary memoir, Wells shares his lifelong quest to explore the roots and mysteries of gumbo and how it has become one of the world’s most beloved dishes.

Wells grew up in the bayous of South Louisiana, second of six sons of an alligator-hunting father and a Cajun-French-speaking mother and gumbo chef extraordinaire. He is a Pulitzer-Prize finalist (The Miami Herald), editor of two Pulitzer-Prize-winning projects (The Wall Street Journal), and winner of the Harry Chapin book award for his narrative non-fiction work The Good Pirates of the Forgotten Bayous. He is the author of six novels set in the Louisiana bayous, including the coming-of-age classic, Meely LaBauve and young-adult adventure tale Swamped! In between visits to Louisiana, Wells divides his time between Chicago and a log cabin in the wilds of Maine.

This year’s National Book Festival is Saturday, September 6, 2025. For more information, visit the Library of Congress National Book Festival webpage.

The Louisiana Center for the Book was established in the State Library of Louisiana in 1994. Its mission is to stimulate public interest in reading, books, literacy, and libraries and to celebrate Louisiana’s rich literary heritage. It is the official state affiliate of the Library of Congress Center for the Book.

The Center for the Book in the Library of Congress in Washington works with its 56 Affiliate Centers for the Book (the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam, and Northern Marianas) to fulfill each Center’s mission of promoting literacy and the literary arts, supporting libraries and lifelong learning, and celebrating our nation’s diverse literary heritage at home and nationwide.

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