A Celebration of Books,
Writers & LIterary Excellence

Save the Date


Gaithersburg
Book Festival

May 16, 2026

10am – 6pm

Bohrer Park


Darlene P. Campos

Featured Title: The Center of the Earth
The Center of the Earth

“Powerful, moving, and well-written.” -Greg Fields, National Book Award nominated author of The Bright Freight of Memory

When Dahlia, the courageous daughter of an Ecuadorian embassy official, sees how Germany is changing as Adolf Hitler’s reign takes hold, she knows she must act.

Her best friend, Werner, and his family have been ostracized and endangered, and she can’t stand to see them suffer. With a new identity, Werner hesitantly finds a new beginning as part of the Aviles family back in Ecuador.

He and Dahlia must balance the typical growing pains of youth with the distance in culture and geography for Werner.

Based on true accounts from Holocaust survivors, THE CENTER OF THE EARTH gives a heartwarming yet heartwrenching firsthand look at what it means to be a family.

About Darlene P. Campos

Darlene P. Campos earned her M.F.A. in creative writing from the University of Texas at El Paso and her B.A. in English with a medical studies minor from the University of Houston. She has been featured in School Library Journal, Poets & Writers, and Book Riot. She is a co-founder of LatinxPitch, an online event for Latinx authors of children’s literature that helps them match with a literary agent or publisher. When she’s not writing, she enjoys reading, exercising, and going to museums. She is Ecuadorian-American and lives in Houston with her husband and their eight rescue cats.

Darlene will be presenting “The Center of the Earth.”

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Instagram: @DarlenePCampos