In addition to its string of livestreamed events, the 2020 Boston Book Festival is hosting several outdoor activities in October for in-person visitors.
The festival’s annual Book Hunt Oct. 1 and 2 offers the chance to search for free books, authored by festival presenters, hidden around Boston and other towns. Follow the organization on Twitter and Instagram (@bostonbookfest) for clues to the hidden treasures’ whereabouts. This year, the festival has involved a wider range of towns in its adventure. That means bibliophiles can also follow these institutions for clues: Walden Woods Project (@TheWaldenWoods), Louisa May Alcott’s Orchard House (@LouisaMayAlcott), the Emily Dickinson Museum (@DickinsonMuseum); the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art (@carlemuseum); Herman Melville’s Arrowhead (@Arrowhead1850), Edith Wharton’s The Mount (@TheMountLenox), and the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center in Connecticut (@HBStoweCenter).
Via the festival’s Story Walks project, families can pick up a map at Frugal Bookstore in Roxbury to see which of the neighborhood’s stores have displayed pages of Kwame Alexander’s Caldecott Medal-winning children’s book, “The Undefeated.” Or they can go to Downtown Crossing to peruse the pages of Oge Mora’s “Saturday,” displayed in storefronts. Additional activities, including a giveaway from J.P. Licks, will be stationed along each route. Both walks will be up and running for the length of the festival. Maps will also be available at bostonbookfest.org/story-walks/.
While in Downtown Crossing, stop by the window at 27 School St. to read 10 memorable submissions to the festival’s At Home Community Writing project. Each mini essay captures a slice of life, however ordinary, during the pandemic from local residents.
Learn more at www.bostonbookfest.org.
Diti Kohli can be reached at diti.kohli@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter at @ditikohli_.