Children’s book celebrates the Minnesota State Fair

“The Great Get-Together” is a new children’s book all about Minnesotans’ favorite event: the State Fair.

“It starts out where the fields are empty and the pools are empty and somebody asks, ‘Where is everyone?'” author Karlyn Coleman said. “And then you kind of follow this little bird and then you see everybody going through the ticket stand and like, where’s everybody going?”

Of course, they’re all at the Minnesota State Fair. Coleman and illustrator Cori Doerrfeld both grew up going to the Fair.

“After the pandemic when I went to the fair, just how beautiful it was to see urban farmers and rural farmers and artists and 4Hers and everybody just gathered together again,” Coleman said.

She said she wrote the book to celebrate both the State Fair and Minnesota as a state.

“It’s the one place that people from all over can agree that they find delight in,” Coleman said. “Whether they’re a foodie or whether they’re looking for machinery or whether they just love the art. So I mean, where else do you get to have everybody find delight and joy in one place?”

She has memories of spending hours on Machinery Hill with her son, and she always has to leave with a cold glass of milk and a bucket of Sweet Martha’s cookies.

Coleman will be at the State Fair Aug. 30 in the Alphabet Forest with her book and a craft for kids.

The book can be bought through the Minnesota Historical Society and at the Zenith Bookstore locally.