Kate DiCamillo

Saturday, October 14, 2023
Fine Arts Stage, 12:00-12:45pm
*This event is ASL interpreted!

Rain Taxi is thrilled to announce that this year’s Twin Cities Book Festival will host the book launch for The Puppets of Spelhorst, an original fairy tale from master storyteller and two-time Newbery Medalist Kate DiCamillo. At this unique event, Kate will discuss this new book (the first in a new series!) and her ceaseless drive to craft literature for young people with her friend and fellow fiction writer Julie Schumacher. (Fun fact: Kate and Julie appeared together at the Twin Cities Book Festival back in 2004!) Readers of all ages are invited to join them and help welcome The Puppets of Spelhorst to the world!

Kate DiCamillo will be signing copies of The Puppets of Spelhorst and other titles purchased at the Festival—get a signing ticket with each DiCamillo book you buy!  Please note that she will not be able to sign books not purchased at this event. The signing will begin at approximately 12:45 in the Progress Center at the Red Balloon booth, directly following the noon Book Launch discussion in the Fine Arts Center. 


About the Book

In The Puppets of Spelhorst, five puppets confront circumstances beyond their control with patience, cunning, and high spirits. Shut up in a trunk by a taciturn old sea captain with a secret, the friends—a king, a wolf, a girl, a boy, and an owl—bicker, boast, and comfort one another in the dark. Individually, they dream of song and light, freedom and flight, purpose and glory, but they all agree they are part of a larger story, bound each to each by chance, bonded by the heart’s mysteries. Illustrated by Julie Morstad, this riveting tale—the first in a new series—will introduce readers to the wonder of a land called Norendy, the latest creation from the boundless imagination of Kate DiCamillo. 

About the Authors

Kate DiCamillo considers herself “an enormously lucky person: I get to tell stories for a living.” One of the most beloved authors of children’s fiction, she has published over 25 books, has won the Newbery Medal, the National Book Award, the Mark Twain Award, and the E. B. White Award (among many others), and has served as the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. Several of her books have been adapted as films, most recently The Magician’s Elephant, which was a Netflix animated original. Kate DiCamillo’s books’ themes of hope and belief amid impossible circumstances and their messages of shared humanity and connectedness have resonated with readers of all ages around the world. 


Julie Schumacher is the author of eleven books, including Dear Committee Members, winner of the Thurber Prize for American Humor; she is the first woman to have won the Thurber Prize. Her most recent books—part of the Dear Committee Members trilogy— are The Shakespeare Requirement and The English Experience, published by Doubleday in August 2023. She is a Regents Professor of Creative Writing and English at the University of Minnesota.