This year at the Minnesota State Fair there will be the usual tasty delights such as cheese curds and pronto pups, plus all the great agricultural exhibits but there will be one new addition to the fair’s usual booths.

Alphabet Garden will be located across from the 4-H Building in the Baldwin Family Park and will offer children the opportunity to learn while having fun at the fair.

Alphabet Garden is the brainchild of Minnesota children’s author and illustrator Debra Frasier. She wanted to create a game for school-aged children to do at the fair that would be a model “for families on how to use the environment to expand vocabulary,” Frasier said.

The game is simple: a child will receive a game card at either a Twin Cities area library or it can be picked up at the fair. The game card has the letters of the alphabet on it and the children must go around the fair and write a word they see, hear, smell, taste or touch that corresponds to that letter. For example, “arena” would be a perfect fair attraction that goes with the letter “A”.

The booth is sponsored by the Minnesota State Fair Foundation, Target and Frasier herself. Frasier calls what the fair was willing to do in sponsoring this unique idea a “very courageous thing to do.” Frasier decided to use the fair as her inspiration for the game and her new book “A Fabulous Fair Alphabet” because she simply “loves the State Fair.” She used to take pictures at the State Fair year after year. “That’s how I realized how much fun it is to collect letters at the fair.”

After the Minnesota State Fair initial run this year, “the game will be available for fairs all over the country,” Frasier said. She also encourages children to play the game at the grocery store, on trips or just going for a walk.

Frasier was also named the State Fair Foundation’s author-in-residence. While this is a big honor, it is even a bigger honor for Frasier as she is the first children’s author to be named author-in-residence. Being named this means, that she will be at the J.V. Bailey house signing copies of her books every day from noon to 2 p.m. during the fair.

Frasier grew up in Florida and had been to some small fairs around her hometown, but it was when she moved to Minnesota that she “really came to know what a big fair is like,” she said.

Asked what she is looking forward to most at this year’s fair, Frasier simply said “I want to see kids running around writing words down on the game cards.” She hopes that children and those young at heart come to the Alphabet Garden to get their free game card. Everyone who brings back their completed card will receive a blue ribbon.

So grab the children, head to the fair, and hey, they may even learn a new word or two and get a blue ribbon in the process.

In addition to Frasier signing her books, there will also be an exhibition of the original photo art for her book at the J.V. Bailey house every day of the fair from Noon to 2 p.m.