Ogden School Foundation

10/09/2026

Thank you to everyone who let us take their photo at our Fall Author Event last week. It's always a party in the community photo area! Tag your friends if you see them!

10/09/2026

10/07/2026

“Because I couldn’t go into another world in real life, I started doing it in my head,” he said. “I started making up my own fantasy stories. And one thing I learned about fantasy is inside a fantasy story — with monsters and make-believe and magic — I can still sometimes say true things, or even important things, which, to me, that’s a fun part of my job.”

Another great article in the Standard-Examiner today.

Editor’s Note: This is the second of two stories covering the Ogden School Foundation’s annual Fall Author Event. OGDEN — The Ogden School District has had a double shot of authors to help celebrate the annual Ogden School Foundation Fall Author Event. After featuring Ann Patchett at the Fall ...

10/06/2026

The literacy excitement continued today as more than 900 students from across the Ogden School District gathered for an assembly with Brandon Mull, author of the popular "Fablehaven" series and other beloved fantasy books.

Brandon shared stories about what he was like as a kid (yes, including his most embarrassing moment!) and talked about how we all sometimes have to overcome hard things we didn’t want or choose. He has always had stories in his head, he explained, but becoming an author meant working hard to develop the skills to get those stories onto the page.

A few brave student volunteers joined Brandon onstage to create a fantasy world of their own, and their imaginations did not disappoint! Together, they dreamed up a new world entered through a bathtub, where it rained blood but smelled like brownies. “Blood & Brownies might be the name of a book I write someday!” Brandon said.

Our students were so engaged, asking great questions and learning how to draw on their own life experiences to develop their imaginations. Even the most fantastical stories can have something real at their heart, shared Brandon, adding, “Just because I write fantasy, it doesn’t mean that the things I write about aren’t true.”

BEST OF ALL? The excitement followed students home! Through Operation Literacy’s Book Drop Program and with funding from Utah Humanities and the Ogden School Foundation, every student received a signed copy of Brandon’s book "Tales of Newel and Doren" to keep. Students eagerly checked for his signature and flipped through the pages with their friends, thrilled to have a book of their very own. Watching that excitement unfold was a good reminder of why we do this work: to give students experiences and resources that help their love of reading grow. This has been such a fun expansion of our Fall Author Event, and we’re already looking forward to more Book Drops that bring this excitement to even more students!

(And we may have already heard from one of our school library specialists that all of their Brandon Mull books were checked out as soon as students returned to school today. Now that’s the kind of follow-up we love to hear!)

10/06/2026

“I always say, ‘I don’t care what you read, I care that you read.'”

We love this interview with Ann Patchett in today's Standard-Examiner!

Editor’s Note: This is the first of two stories covering the Ogden School Foundation’s annual Fall Author Event. OGDEN — Ann Patchett has a unique perspective among authors. In addition to writing 10 fiction novels and winning several awards, she also has experience in selling and promoting bo...

10/05/2026

Last week’s amazing Fall Author Event with Ann Patchett would not have been possible without our generous sponsors, who continue to invest in the students and staff of the Ogden School District. We are so grateful to be part of a community that shows up for our schools with such generosity and heart. To every sponsor who helped make this event possible, THANK YOU!

10/02/2026

Thirty years of books, community, and showing up for Ogden kids. What a beautiful story we’re writing together! Our sold-out 2026 Fall Author Event brought the warm and gracious Ann Patchett to an amazingly decorated Conference Center for an onstage conversation with Brynn Murdock about her books, opening an independent bookstore, her work getting books to children through the Parnassus Books Foundation, and the adults who step up at just the right moment in a child’s life. Ann reminded us that raising readers starts with letting children see us read (and yes, she even reads aloud to her dog!) and that “it’s never a mistake to be generous, it’s never a mistake to lend a hand.” As we focused on expanding literacy efforts for Ogden students, those words felt especially fitting. We loved hosting Ann, who was so touched by the way this community comes together for kids, and we’re grateful to everyone who has helped carry this tradition forward for 30 years.

Check back next week for the photos we took in our community photo area and watch for our next newsletter for our full event wrap-up. We have so much more to share!

And if you didn’t get a chance to give last night, there’s still time to help Ogden students grow into confident readers! Support our literacy initiatives here: https://www.ogdenschoolfoundation.org/o/ogdenschoolfoundation/page/fall-author-donations

10/02/2026

Well, Ogden, what a way to celebrate 30 years of our Fall Author Event! An unforgettable evening with the brilliant, warm, and wonderful Ann Patchett and our amazing, generous community, all celebrating the power of reading and supporting literacy in Ogden! We loved every second!

More details, photos, and video are coming soon, but for now, the biggest THANK YOU to everyone who made this milestone night so special. We love it more and more every year.

Were you there tonight? We’d love to hear your favorite moments from Ann’s conversation!

09/30/2026

IT’S FALL AUTHOR EVE! We’ve spent the past few days taking over the Conference Center, the decorations are going up, and our 30th Fall Author Event is almost here! If you’ve attended before, you know our decorating crew does not hold back, and this year is no exception!

And as a bonus, we got to celebrate our board president Linda DeYoung’s birthday with her while we were decorating! (Do we have the best board members or what?!)

We can’t wait to share it all with our ticketholders tomorrow night as we welcome the brilliant Ann Patchett and celebrate the power of reading with our amazing community, all in support of literacy in Ogden. This milestone year is going to be one for the books!