Inprint Cool Brains!: Kate DiCamillo

Start: Oct 18 2009 3:00 pm

Inprint's Cool Brains! Series presents celebrated children's author Kate DiCamillo at Pershing Middle School for a presentation and booksigning. This event is free and open to the public.

The Magician’s Elephant, written for elementary school kids, tells the story of an orphan boy who asks a traveling fortune-teller whether his sister still lives and how he might find her. The man’s strange answer -- it involves an elephant -- sets in motion curious and wonderful events. “This book, these characters, undid me, just opened up my heart in a totally new way,” DiCamillo says. She hopes that when readers finish it “they will be more inclined to hope and believe in the impossible.”

This new fable, illustrated by Yoko Tanaka, is DiCamillo’s fifth book. She made a roaring debut in 2000 with Because of Winn-Dixie, which became a runaway bestseller and earned her a Newbery Honor. Her third novel, The Tale of Despereaux, about a tiny mouse driven by love to perform heroic deeds, won the Newbery Medal and inspired a well-received animated movie.

DiCamillo was born in Philadelphia, raised in Florida, and now lives in Minneapolis. She describes herself as short and loud, and says she hates to cook but loves to eat. She's single and childless but has lots of friends and is aunt to “three lovely children (Luke, Roxanne, and Max) and one not so lovely dog (Henry).” She faithfully writes two pages a day, five days a week. She likes to quote E.B. White, who once said, “All that I hope to say in books, all that I ever hope to say, is that I love the world.” Says Kate: “That’s the way I feel, too.”

Cool Brains! Inprint Readings for Young People is presented by Inprint, a Houston-based nonprofit dedicated to inspiring readers and writers. CoolBrains! receives generous underwriting support from the H-E-B Tournament of Champions and in-kind support from Continental Airlines, as well as other support from the Texas Commission on the Arts and The City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance, and promotional support from the Harris County Public Library, Houston Independent School District Library Services, and Houston Public Library.