July 2023 - Page 2 of 14 - Anastasia Suen

All Alone with You
by Amelia Diane Coombs (Author)
@ Amazon | Bookshop

Booktalk: Eloise Deane is the worst and doesn’t care who knows it. She’s grumpy, prefers to be alone, and is just slogging through senior year with one goal: get accepted to USC and move to California. So when her guidance counselor drops the bombshell that to score a scholarship she’ll desperately need, her applications require volunteer hours, Eloise is up for the challenge. Until she’s paired with LifeCare, a volunteer agency that offers social support to lonely seniors through phone calls and visits. Basically, it’s a total nightmare for Eloise’s anxiety.

Eloise realizes she’s made a huge mistake–especially when she’s paired with Austin, the fellow volunteer who’s the sunshine to her cloudy day. But as Eloise and Austin work together to keep Marianne Landis–the mysterious former frontwoman of the 1970s band the Laundromats–company, something strange happens. She actually…likes Marianne and Austin? Eloise isn’t sure what to do with that, especially when her feelings toward Austin begin to blur into more-than-friends territory.

And when ex-girlfriends, long-buried wounds, and insecurities reappear, Eloise will have a choice to make: go all in with Marianne and Austin or get out before she gets hurt.

Snippet:

Stand as Tall as the Trees: How an Amazonian Community Protected the Rain Forest
by Patricia Gualinga (Author), Laura Resau (Author), and Vanessa Jaramillo (Illustrator)
@ Amazon | Bookshop

Booktalk: Patricia (Paty) Gualinga grew up in her Kichwa village in the Amazon of Ecuador where mystical beings called Amazanga help protect the forest. Paty traveled away from home for school until she was called back–companies that said the government sold them property were destroying her people’s lands to look for oil. The Kichwa community worked with other Indigenous groups to bring the Ecuadorian government to the Court of Human Rights.

Snippet:

Also available in Spanish as Con la cabeza en alto: Cómo una comunidad amazónica protegió la selva:

It’s STEM Friday! (STEM is Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics)