Book Fair

Candace Fleming awarded herself the Newbery Medal in fifth grade after scraping the gold sticker off the class copy of The Witch of Blackbird Pond and pasting it onto her first novel—a ten-page, ten-chapter mystery called Who Done It? She’s been collecting awards (her own, not Elizabeth George Speare’s) ever since.

Today, Candace is the versatile and acclaimed author of more than forty books for children and young adults, including the Los Angeles Times Book Prize honored The Family Romanov: Murder, Rebellion, and the Fall of the Russian Empire; Boston Globe/Horn Book Award-winning biography, The Lincolns; the bestselling picture book, Muncha! Muncha! Muncha!; the Sibert-Award-winning Giant Squid; and the beloved Boxes for Katje. She contributed the chapter on Katharine of Aragon to Fatal Throne.

Babette Fraser Hale’s story collection, A Wall of Bright Dead Feathers, received the 2022 Sergio Troncoso Award for Best First Book of Fiction from the Texas Institute of Letters. Her stories previously have been awarded the Meyerson Prize from Southwest Review in 2011, shortlisted for the Texas Institute of Letter’s Catarulla Award, and included among the "Other Distinguished Stories" in Best American Short Stories, 2015. Other work has received a Creative Artist Award from Houston’s Cultural Arts Council and been anthologized.

Until his death last year, she was married to longtime Texas newspaper columnist and novelist, Leon Hale. Her memoir about their relationship, titled This Familiar Heart: An Improbable Love Story, was published by Winedale Publishing in April, 2024.

In addition to writing fiction, she has been a magazine feature writer, columnist, contributing editor, book editor and publisher.

In addition to being an author, Gloria Koster is a longtime children’s librarian. She says “so many of my story ideas come from my years spent listening to kids’ voices and concerns.” Gloria’s most recent title is the hilarious Overdue: The Misadventure of Bob the Book. Earlier published books include The Peanut-Free Café, Mitzi’s Mitzvah, Little Red Ruthie: A Hanukkah Tale, Dance the Hora, Isadora! and The King with a Horse’s Ears. She is over-the-top excited to announce her newest project— a picture book biography of Leonard Bernstein to be published by Calkins Creek/Astra. Gloria is also the author of many early nonfiction books written for the educational market. At home in both the small town of Pound Ridge, New York and Manhattan, Gloria and her husband are the parents of three adult children and four energetic grand kids.

Kate is a best-selling author and artist from Houston, Texas. She studied architecture at Yale and Norwegian boat building through the Mortimer Hays-Brandeis Fellowship, after which she made her way out to Los Angeles to work as a concept artist in animation. She has worked as an artist for studios including Disney, Dreamworks, and Roosterteeth, and is currently working as a location designer at Disney TV Animation. 

Her first middle grade novel, Maple’s Theory of Fun, written and illustrated with Ruthie Prillaman, was recently named a USA Today best-seller. Kate is also the author and illustrator of the nonfiction picture book Sustainable Structures, which was recently selected as a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection. 

In her free time, she enjoys building furniture, biking around LA, and drawing wobbly buildings that look like they might fall down.

Ruthie is a best-selling author, poet, and musician from Potomac, Maryland, whose work approaches her bookish interests with a sense of humor and discovery. Her first middle grade novel, Maple’s Theory of Fun, written with Kate McMillan was published by Aladdin Books, an imprint of Simon and Schuster, and was recently named a USA Today best-seller. 

She has received commissions from choirs and orchestras across the country and recently premiered a new children’s orchestral work with the Utah Symphony called What About the Duck. She is one half of the classically-inflected cosmic folk duo, Small Fools, along with her brother, Nathan. 

She received her BA from Yale and her MFA from USC. She currently lives in Los Angeles, CA, where she writes for film and television. In her spare time, she enjoys sewing, singing, and making Hungarian goulash in her traditional goulash pot.

Eric Rohmann is the Caldecott Medal–winning illustrator of My Friend Rabbit and received a Caldecott Honor for Time Flies. He has both written and illustrated numerous books for children, including Bulldozer’s Big Day, Honeybee, and Bulldozer’s Christmas Dig, all written by Candace Fleming. When he is not writing and illustrating, Eric enjoys traveling, presenting in classrooms, and visiting museums.