15th Annual Takoma Park Book Fair
When
December 5-15, 2025
Where
We’re going VIRTUAL this year!
The Takoma Park Book Fair is an annual celebration of local authors and the vibrant literary community of the Takoma Park/Greater DC area. This year, the event will be held entirely online, offering readers an opportunity to discover new books from a wide range of genres, order unique holiday gifts, and connect from anywhere. It is a welcoming, community-driven space supporting independent writers throughout the year.
Featured Books
101 Hours in a Zeppelin: Ernst August Lehmann and the Dream of Transatlantic Flight, 1917
Author: Robert Pohl
Based on previously unpublished letters of Robert Wichard Pohl, the book describes the first flight of over 100 hours by an airship, paving the way to transatlantic flight. Additional books:…
Baking Bread with Jiddo
Author: Carrie Maslen
Baking Bread with Jiddo follows a young girl on her annual visit to her grandfather’s house (Jiddo is grandfather in Arabic), where they bake Arabic bread together. The story is…
Beyond Fear and Suspicion: The New Americans in Little Ethiopia
Author: Vicky Pinpin-Feinstein
Beyond Fear and Suspicion braids the stories of refugees, asylum seekers, students, and diversity visa recipients through forced exits out of their native land, all while still reeling from the…
Breaking into Sunlight
Author: John Cochran
Breaking into Sunlight is an award-winning debut middle-grade novel with universal themes about a dad’s addiction, a mom’s decision, a son’s devotion – and the friends who help them find…
Capital Ties
Author: A. J. Campbell
If Sex and the City had moved to Washington D.C., it would look like this smart, spicy, and politically charged collection of stories. Capital Ties is five-chili-pepper-hot and feminist to its core, a collection of twenty-six sharp, seductive…
Challenging Pregnancy: A Journey Through the Politics and Science of Healthcare in America
Author: Genevieve Grabman
Based on the author’s harrowing experience with a pregnancy complicated by twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome, this book describes how American healthcare is shaped more by politics than by patients’ wants and…
Detour Ahead
Author: Pamela Ehrenberg and Tracy López
Set in Washington, D.C., this National Jewish Book Award finalist uses alternating chapters of prose and verse to depicts the friendship between Gilah, a neurodivergent Jewish girl preparing for her…
Discovering the Spiritual Wisdom of Trees
Author: Beth Norcross and Leah Rampy
Drawing on both science and spirituality, Discovering the Spiritual Wisdom of Trees invites the reader into a deep mutual relationship with trees whose wisdom provides comfort, resilience, guidance, and hope during…
Dream Street
Author: Tricia Elam Walker
Dream Street is a celebration of growing up in a community that nurtures the dreams of young people. Additional book: Nana Akua Goes to School
Fantastic Flora: The World’s Biggest, Baddest, and Smelliest Plants
Author: Ann McCallum-Staats
From deadly nightshade to the flying duck orchid, discover how some of the biggest, baddest, smelliest, and strangest plants around the globe earn their reputation as masters of survival.
Find Me in the Time Before, Edge of Yesterday series Book IV
Author: Robin Stevens Payes
When one moment shifts the entire history of the world. An accidental jump to the wrong year lands Charley in prison at the Bastille—with no way back. Additional books in…
Groundcover Revolution: How to use sustainable, low-maintenance, low-water groundcovers to replace your turf
Author: Kathy Jentz
Groundcover Revolution includes 40 in-depth profiles of plants that are perfect choices for replacing a grass lawn. There are options for sun, for shade, for dry and wet sites, and for various…
Here’s How You Fly
Author: Michael Adams
Here’s How You Fly: When Josh Marshall winds up in an adolescent rehab facility, he has no choice but to confront all the anger and fear that tortures him and…
Hotel Cuba
Author: Aaron Hamburger
From the award-winning author of The View from Stalin’s Head, a stunning novel about two sheltered Russian Jewish sisters, desperate to get to America to make a new life, who…
Kindergarten at 60: A Memoir of Teaching in Thailand
Author: Dian Seidel
Part travel memoir and part second act story, this award-winning retirement tale offers a unique perspective on contemporary Thailand and introduces readers to an unforgettable cast of characters. Join the…
Let’s Play Outside
Author: Pat Rumbaugh
“This book is a testament to the joys and wonder of outdoor play. The photographs are stunning and the perfect accompaniment to the text. This book encourages those who live…
Mama’s Chicken & Dumplings
Author: Dionna L. Mann
Life is good in Charlottesville’s Vinegar Hill neighborhood except for the empty seat at her family’s table, so Allie devises a Man-For-Mama plan, determined to win over her choice with…
Measuring Soft Power in International Relations
Author: Irene Wu
Soft power typically gets short shrift in foreign policy strategy because it is considered difficult to measure. To what degree do student-exchange programs matter to international politics? How exactly does a…
My Little Red Bear
Author: Keisha McGeachy
My Little Red Bear is a story about a little girl named Kiara who goes to a fair with her mother and has a dispute with a little boy Dillon…
Not Child’s Play: An Anthology on Brother-Sister Incest, Second Edition
Author: Risa Shaw
Not Child’s Play is a courageous anthology of survivors voices that dismantles the veil of silence surrounding the pervasive issue of sibling sexual abuse/incest.
One Step Forward
Author: Marcie Flinchum Atkins
One Step Forward is a young adult historical fiction novel-in-verse about the youngest suffragist imprisoned at Occoquan Workhouse for protesting in front of the White House for the right to…
Patapsco: Life along Maryland’s Historic River Valley
Author: Alison Kahn
Patapsco: Life along Maryland’s Historic River Valley, with photographs by Peggy Fox and foreword by Robert Coles, is a collection of compelling oral history narratives, evocative essays, and stunning images…
Peacocks on the Streets
Author: Michele Wolf
Peacocks on the Streets explores what is wild and unpredictable in our lives — both what slams us and what uplifts us — and how we find the resolve to…
Q&A for the End of the World
Author: Kim Roberts & Michael Gushue
Q&A for the End of the World is a series of poems about science fiction movies from the 1950’s and 1960’s, including such classics as Godzilla and The Day the Earth Stood Still. Written…
Remember Me Singing: A Catoctin Mountain Alphabet
Author: Nancy Arbuthnot
A book of 26 informative poems and watercolor illustrations of the fauna, flora and cultural artifacts in Catoctin Mountain Park near Frederick, MD, inspired by the author’s time there as…
Remembering the Future: Reflections on Ugandan Culture in Changing Times
Author: Christopher Conte
In Remembering the Future, a dozen accomplished Ugandan writers the impact of colonialism and globalization on health, justice, governance, spirituality, language, family, the arts and more. The book is a…
Song of the Samurai
Author: C. A. Parker
Inspired by the true story of shakuhachi master Kurosawa Kinko, a lone samurai monk journeys across Edo-period Japan, encountering merchants, rōnin, courtesans, spies, warriors, hermits, and spirits on a quest…
Southern Beauty: Race, Ritual, and Memory in the Modern South
Author: Elizabeth Bronwyn Boyd
As seen in HBO Max’s “Bama Rush,” Elizabeth Boyd’s Southern Beauty: Race, Ritual & Memory in the Modern South (UGA Press, 2022) reveals how the performances of young White southern women in…
Spellbinders: The Not-So-Chosen One
Author: Andrew Auseon
How far would you go to play the hero? One seventh grader gets way more than he bargained for when he is swept into the fantasy quest of his gaming…
Still Life With Timex
Author: Elisabeth Murawski
Still Life with Timex is a book of poems that explore the unsightly aspects of grief and the survivor’s guilt of outliving a child.
Strange Shape of Love
Author: Herta B. Feely
In this twisted story of revenge porn, an aspiring reporter (in London) has two weeks to find the person who has threatened to post five nude photos of her online…
Tail Tale Too
Author: Christine Kessides
In a sequel to A Tall Tale, Wally is back, and with the help of the Tailor (and against advice of snake buddy Snoo), again tries on tails to tackle…
Teaching with Heart
Author: Megan Scribner & Sam Intrator
In Teaching with Heart: Poetry that Speaks to the Courage to Teach a diverse group of ninety teachers describe the complex of emotions and experiences of the teaching life – joy,…
The Adventures of Backpacker Billy and Shave in Zion National Park
Author: Thomas Lehrich
The Adventures of Backpacker Billy and his trusty dog, Shave, continue in Utah’s Zion National Park with spotty the owl and Ranger Richard. Readers age 2-7 learn about the spotted…
The Armillary Papers
Author: Scot Ehrhardt
The Armillary Papers is a combination novel-in-verse and escape room–strangely formatted pages, document inserts, and hidden messages call the reader to solve the mystery of a curious book found in a…
The Bad Girls Club: Promises of a Spirituality-Based Recovery
Author: Karen Marginot
Join Karen as she journeys through “better living through chemistry,” bottoming out with substance use disorder, and finding healing, peace, purpose, and joy through doing the work of applying spiritual…
The Falls
Author: Janet R. Macreery
The Falls: While living with her father in a remote fishing camp for the summer of 1953, eleven-year-old Monty must navigate her fear of bears, the challenges of living among…
The Founding Farmers Cookbook, Third Edition: 100 Recipes from the Restaurant Owned by American Family Farmers
Author: Nevin Martell
With origins in the nation’s capital, Founding Farmers offers delicious food & drink made from scratch, with ingredients sourced primarily from American family farms, ranches, and fisheries. Now, you can…
The House of Plain Truth
Author: Donna Hemans
The House of Plain Truth is a lush, evocative story about a fractured Jamaican family and a daughter determined to reclaim her home. When Pearline receives grave news about her…
The Others
Author: T.C. Weber
In The Others, a marine biologist discovers a secret civilization of amphibious hominids off the Florida Keys and must stop a plot by a rogue cabal to destroy humanity. Additional books: The…
The Singing Stick
Author: Phyllis Cole-Dai
As a fierce nor’easter bears down on her Massachusetts town, Fiona Richter places a frantic 911 call: her husband, Simon, eighty years old and suffering from dementia, has gone missing…
The West House
Author: Erik Dussere
The West House is a literary mystery set in rural Connecticut, The West House is about a recent college graduate’s dull summer job and the interesting things he learns when he starts…
The Wind Smoked My Pipe
Author: Larry Glass
The Wind Smoked My Pipe is a series of short (and not so short) stories, most set at the author’s farm in western Maryland across 200 years.
The Year of the Tsunami
Author: Derrick Credito
The Year of the Tsunami is an internationally-set coming of age story about a twenty-five year old American traveler who scribes a Torah in Amsterdam, where his grandparents lived in hiding…
Wanda Hears the Stars, A Blind Astronomer Listens to the Universe
Author: Amy S. Hansen
Wanda Hears the Stars is a nonfiction picture book biography of astrophysicist Wanda Díaz Merced and how losing her sight didn’t stop her from studying the stars. The book has won…
Wasn’t That A Time: A Cultural Activist Love Letter For The Next Generation
Author: Susie J. Erenrich
Wasn’t That A Time is part roadmap for educators, organizers, activists, and rabble-rousers – it is part tribute to all the folks whose shoulders I stand upon – and it is…
We Are Your Children Too: Black Students, White Supremacists, and the Battle for America’s Schools in Prince Edward County, Virginia
Author: P. O'Connell Pearson
The compelling story of the 1951 student strike and lawsuit, part of Brown v Board of Education, that led to massive resistance and the five-year closing of Prince Edward County’s public…
We Who Grieve
Author: Richard Stack
We Who Grieve is a comforting companion for those in the throes of grief. The book provides guidance to process bereavement for a wide range of reasons and relationships, including suggestions…
When Liberty Enslaves
Author: Jerry Aveta
When Liberty Enslaves is an award winning look at how faith and politics shaped our history, impacts our present, and reveals our future. It is a book about how we got…
Wrangling the Doubt Monster: Fighting Fears, Finding Inspiration
Author: Amy L. Bernstein
The award-winning book that encourages creative people to acknowledge their doubts while pushing forward with artistic pursuits. A must-read for anyone seeking to harness the chaotic energy of doubt and…
Zamzam
Author: Karen Leggett
Zamzam is a young boy with grandparents in Egypt and America. He learns the cultural similarities and differences between these countries, but also realizes that the most important experiences are…
Zig Zag Zeph
Author: Meg Edson
Zig Zag Zeph: Zeph is a cat who was born with Cerebellar Hypoplasia which means he has no coordination and walks in zig zags. However, he is joyful cat who…
