The Big Family Book Club 2025

This summer, the book that you and your whole family can enjoy is The Puppets of Spelhorst by Kate DiCamillo! In the book club, you’ll read the book with your family and complete activities. All families receive a FREE copy of the book and, if you register soon, postcards in the mail with activities and discussion questions. Books are available for pick up on a first come, first served basis while supplies last. Please note that you must pick up the book in person at your home library — we do not mail out the books.

Register Now

Registration is now open! You can register in person, over the phone, or through our online form until we reach capacity. (You can register for the children’s Summer Reading Program on the same form!) The program runs June 1st to July 31st.

On top of an open book, illustrations expand of mountains, ships, and forests. Text reads StoryFest 2025 with the logo for the Morgantown Public Library System.

StoryFest bonus! If you register at StoryFest on Saturday, June 7th, you get a special edition Spelhorst trunk to go along with your copy of the book! If you registered already, you can still pick up the trunk at the event. Keep in mind that quantities are limited and exclusive to StoryFest.

You must be registered to receive a FREE copy of the book. You must pick up your book in-person at any of our locations while supplies last. (Books are available for pick up on a first come, first served basis while supplies last.)

Copies of The Puppets of Spelhorst are also available through our digital library on Libby as an e-book and an audiobook.

*To receive postcards in the mail, you must register for the Big Family Book Club by June 15*

The Book — The Puppets of Spelhorst by Kate DiCamillo

The Puppets of Spelhorst book cover showing five puppets: an owl, a boy, a girl, a king, and a wolf.

Shut up in a trunk by a taciturn old sea captain with a secret, five 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. When at last their shared fate arrives, landing them on a mantel in a blue room in the home of two little girls, the truth is more astonishing than any of them could have imagined.

A beloved author of modern classics draws on her most moving themes with humor, heart, and wisdom in the first of the Norendy Tales, a projected trio of novellas linked by place and mood, each illustrated in black and white by a different virtuoso illustrator. A magical and beautifully packaged gift volume designed to be read aloud and shared, The Puppets of Spelhorst is a tale that soothes and strengthens us on our journey, leading us through whatever dark forest we find ourselves in.

About the Author

Kate DiCamillo is a white woman with short light gray hair, black-rimmed glasses on top of her head, wearing a light floral collared shirt.

Kate DiCamillo is the author of Because of Winn-Dixie (a Newbery Honor book), The Tiger Rising (a National Book Award finalist), and The Tale of Despereaux (a Newbery Medal Winner).

She recently completed a series of early chapter books about a pig named Mercy Watson. The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane was the winner of the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award.

Kate lives and writes in Minneapolis, Minnesota, but she spent much of her childhood in Florida.

Find her online at katedicamillo.com or on Facebook.

The Big Family Book Club is supported by the Shelley A. Marshall Foundation Fund.