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Authors in the Schools
These events are only available to children in the Chippewa Valley school districts and are not open to the public. Authors make private presentations to school audiences at various grade levels. Please spread the word about these amazing opportunities by sharing this information with your child's school. We thank participating schools and other donors for supporting our Authors in the Schools program. During our 2019 festival, 11 authors gave 36 presentations in 27 schools.
2021 Authors in the School Photo Gallery
Our 2021 Authors in the Schools
KATE ALLEN
Kate Allen grew up in Massachusetts and lives in Minneapolis, MN, with her family. Her first novel, The Line Tender, was a national bestseller, earned seven starred reviews, and won the Minnesota Book Award, middle grade literature.
JOHN COY
John Coy is the author of young adult novels, the 4 for 4 middle-grade series, and nonfiction and fiction picture books including Night Driving, Two Old Potatoes and Me, Hoop Genius, If We Were Gone, Dads, and My Mighty Journey: A Waterfall’s Story. He has received numerous awards for his work including a Marion Vannett Ridgway Award, a Charlotte Zolotow Honor, a Bank Street College Best Book of the Year, and the Burr/Worzalla Award for Distinguished Achievement in Children’s Literature.
He lives by the Mississippi River in Minneapolis.
SARA FABINY
Sarah Fabiny grew up in Wisconsin, went to college on the east coast, lived in London and New York City (twice), and is now back "home." Before devoting herself to full-time freelance writing and editing, she worked in the children's book publishing industry for over 35 years, most recently as Associate Publisher and Editorial Director at Penguin Random House. She has written over 50 children's books, everything from board books for babies and toddlers, to activity books for middle schoolers, to first biographies for grade schoolers. Some of her most recent books are Who Was A. A. Milne?, Who Was Ida B. Wells, and What Is NASA? Sarah just turned in the manuscript for Who Was Georgia O'Keeffe?
LYNNE JONELL
Lynne Jonell is an author (and occasional illustrator) of seventeen books for children. From picture books to middle-grade novels, her books all have an element of fantasy: magical hamsters, talking cats, kid-sized planes with a secret fuel, rodents with special powers, and more. Her first novel, Emmy and the Incredible Shrinking Rat, won the Minnesota Book Award; her latest book, Time Sight, is a historical time-travel set at Castle Menzies in Scotland, the castle of her grandfather’s clan. Recipient of a Hawthornden Castle Fellowship, her essays have appeared in School Library Journal and Publishers Weekly. She lives in Plymouth, Minnesota, with her husband.
KATE MOORE
Kate Moore is the New York Times bestselling author of The Radium Girls, which won the 2017 Goodreads Choice Award for Best History, was voted U.S. librarians’ favorite nonfiction book of 2017, and was named a Notable Nonfiction Book of 2018 by the American Library Association. It was named as one of the Best Children’s Books of the Year (ages 14 and up) by the Bank Street College of Education. A British writer based in London, Kate writes across a variety of genres and has had multiple titles on the Sunday Times bestseller list.
PATRICIA HRUBY POWELL
Patricia Hruby Powell, formerly a dancer, storyteller, and librarian, is the author of three Junior Library Guild Selections, Struttin’ With Some Barbecue: Lil Hardin Armstrong Becomes the First Lady of Jazz (Charlesbridge 2018), CBC Best Book and Society of Midland Authors Nonfiction Award; Josephine: The Dazzling Life of Josephine Baker (Chronicle 2014), which garnered Sibert, Boston Globe, Horn Book, and Bologna Ragazzi Honors as well as a Coretta Scott King Honor for Illustration; and Loving vs. Virginia (Chronicle 2017), Arnold Adoff Poetry Honor. Lift As You Climb: The Story of Ella Baker (Simon & Schuster 2020) to be released on June 9, 2020; and a Women’s Suffrage project (Chronicle 2020)
DEAN ROBBINS
Dean Robbins is a veteran journalist, former teacher, and the award-winning author of the nonfiction children’s picture books Two Friends: Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass (Scholastic); Miss Paul and the President: The Creative Campaign for Women’s Right to Vote (Knopf); Margaret and the Moon: How Margaret Hamilton Saved the First Lunar Landing (Knopf); and The Astronaut Who Painted the Moon: The True Story of Alan Bean (Scholastic). His books have been featured on Public Radio International and chosen for best-of-the-year honors by Smithsonian, Space.com, the Cooperative Children’s Book Center, and the Children’s Book Council, among others.
STUART STOTTS
Stuart Stotts is an author, musician, and storyteller. For more than thirty years Stuart has traveled throughout the U.S. and often further delighting audiences with music and story. Stuart also leads professional development for teachers. Stuart's books include Curly Lambeau: Building the Green Bay Packers, Beyond Nice: Nurturing Kindness in Young Children, Dancing on the Wall, a novel about the fall of the Berlin Wall, and Who is My Neighbor, a book about the stained glass windows of Chartres Cathedral.
KAO KALIA YANG
Kao Kalia Yang is the author of the award-winning books, The Latehomecomer, The Song Poet, What God is Honored Here?: Writings on Miscarriage and Infant Loss By and For Native Women and Women of Color, and the children's picture book A Map Into the World. In 2020, Ms. Yang will publish two more children's books, The Shared Room, and The Most Beautiful Thing, and a collective memoir titled Somewhere in the Unknown World.
