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Author Book Launch: Rex Ogle, Fruitcake: A Graphic Novel - 13 Apr 2026
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Note: If you preorder the book it may be picked up at Talking Animals on or after April 7, or at the April 13 event! Books will be available at the event for purchase!
A pitch-perfect middle-grade graphic memoir about crushes, coming out, and finding the courage to be yourself.
Eighth grade isn't off to a great start. Everyone but Rex seems to be coupling up, and he's starting to feel like an outsider... until he meets Charlotte. She's fearless, smart, pretty, and she likes him back. But as great as Charlotte is, there's someone Rex can't stop thinking about.
Drew is Rex's childhood best friend, so when he kisses Rex, all kinds of new feelings begin to stir. Though at school, Drew acts like he doesn't even know Rex, making those feelings turn really confusing really fast. And with all the strong opinions Rex hears at home and at church, he questions his own worth and what his affections actually mean. Rex wants to be more like his new friend, Nina, and not care what others think, but being himself seems impossible. When did middle school get so confusing?!
REX OGLE is an award-winning author of more than a hundred books, comics, graphic novels, and memoirs—most notably Free Lunch (winner of the ALA/YALSA award for Excellence in Non-Fiction), Abuela Don’t Forget Me (ALA/YALSA award for Excellence in Non-Fiction finalist), Road Home (a Micheal Printz Honor and Stonewall Honor book), and middle grade graphic novels Four Eyes and Pizza Face.