Brooke Shields

Brooke Shields is an actor, model, author, and entrepreneur. After beginning her professional career as a model at only eleven months of age, Brooke has graced the covers of hundreds of magazines. Her extensive film career includes starring roles in Pretty Baby, Blue Lagoon, and Endless Love, and her critically acclaimed television work includes the lead role in NBC’s hit sitcom Suddenly Susan, as well as numerous guest-starring roles on a wide range of hit shows. Brooke is also the New York Times bestselling author of several books, including The Brooke Book, On Your Own, and Down Came the Rain: My Journey Through Postpartum Depression, as well as multiple children’s books. She will release her next book, Brooke Shields Is Not Allowed to Get Old, in January 2025.

Jessamine Chan

Jessamine Chan is the author of The School for Good Mothers, which was a New York Times bestseller, a Read with Jenna/TODAY Show Book Club pick, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize and the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, longlisted for the PEN/Hemingway Award and the Carnegie Medal, and one of Barack Obama’s Favorite Books of 2022. Translations in 20 languages have been published or are forthcoming. She lives in Chicago with her family.

Kirsten Miller

Kirsten Miller is the author of multiple books, including Lula Dean’s Little Library of Banned Books, The Change, and the groundbreaking series of young adult books starring Kiki Strike. Her first novel for adults, The Change, was a Good Morning America Book Club pick for May 2022, and her 2024 release, Lula Dean’s Little Library of Banned Books, was selected by Jenna Bush Hager as one of her top five books to read in summer 2024. Born and raised in a small town in North Carolina, she now lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Lauren Bush Lauren

Lauren Bush Lauren is the Founder and CEO of FEED, an impact-driven brand founded upon the belief that food is a universal human right. Every FEED product sold provides school meals to children through direct donations to our on-the-ground partners. Since 2007, FEED has helped provide over 125 million school meals around the world and here in the U.S. For her work with FEED, Lauren has received multiple awards, including Fortune magazine’s Most Powerful Women Entrepreneurs in 2009 and Inc. magazine’s 30 Under 30 in 2010. In 2015, she was named a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader. Lauren resides in New York City where she also serves on the Board of Directors for the Food Bank for NYC. Outside of work, Lauren’s most important role is as Mama to three boys – James, Max, and Rocky.

Abigail Quammen, Miss New York 2024

Abigail Quammen is dedicated to sharing the message that the most powerful way to impact, empower, and inspire others is through the gift of reading. At age 16, her experience volunteering at a Barbara Bush Foundation event inspired her to fully dedicate herself to literacy advocacy. Since then, she has tutored dozens of students one-on-one and organized book drives that have provided over 10,000 books to children nationwide. As Miss New York 2024, she created and leads Read to Succeed, an initiative that establishes literacy-rich environments for students in New York City and beyond. She looks forward to advocating for literacy as a fundamental human right on the national stage when she competes for the title of Miss America in January 2025.

Ali Velshi, Emcee

Ali Velshi is an award-winning journalist, host of Velshi and Chief Correspondent for MSNBC, and a weekly economics contributor to NPR’s Here And Now. He has covered multiple U.S. midterm and presidential elections and significant news stories around the globe, including extensive reporting from Israel during the war with Israel and Hamas, Ukraine and across Central and Eastern Europe during the Russian invasion, the Syrian refugee crisis from Turkey and Jordan, and the Iran Nuclear Deal in Tehran. He hosts the Velshi Banned Book Club on MSNBC, and the Velshi Banned Book Club podcast. Velshi is known for his immersive on-the-ground reporting and his interactive discussions with small groups, which form part of his ongoing series, Velshi Across America. He previously worked as an anchor and correspondent for Al Jazeera America and CNN. He has been nominated for multiple Emmy Awards, and he is the recipient of two National Headliner Awards and a Society of Professional Journalists Sigma Delta Chi Award.