The Bigfoot Queen

The Bigfoot Queen (The Littlest Bigfoot Book 3)
by Jennifer Weiner (Author)
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Booktalk: Alice Mayfair, Millie Maximus, Jessica Jarvis, and Jeremy Bigelow face their biggest challenge yet when exposure of the sacred, secret world is threatened by a determined foe, someone with a very personal reason to want revenge against the creatures who call themselves the Yare.

The fate of the tribe and its members’ right to live out peacefully in the open is at stake. Impossible decisions are made, friendships are threatened, secrets are revealed, and tremendous courage is required. Alice, her friends, and her frenemies will have to work together and be stronger, smarter, and more accepting than they’ve ever been.

But can some betrayals ever be forgiven?

Snippet: Charlotte Hughes had been born in a dying town, to parents who didn’t survive to see her second birthday. They’d perished in a car accident after their minivan had hit a patch of black ice and skidded off the road. Charlotte’s father had been pronounced dead on the scene. Her mother had died in the hospital later that night. Baby Charlotte, strapped into her car seat, had survived without a scratch, and had been sent to live with her father’s mother, her only surviving relative, who, clearly, had no interest in raising another child. Grandma managed Upland’s only bed-and-breakfast, and it was an exhausting, thankless job—but one Grandma always said she was lucky to have, given how many in town couldn’t find any work at all.

In the winter, when the skiers who weren’t able to locate lodging closer to the mountain resorts booked rooms, Grandma worked from sunrise to late at night, doing laundry, cleaning, and cooking, and as soon as Charlotte was tall enough to push a broom or carry a load of dirty towels to the basement, she had to help her. There were floors to be swept and mopped, beds to be stripped and made, trash cans to be emptied, carpets to be vacuumed, and toilets to be scrubbed. Even when they didn’t have guests, there was always cleaning. The big, old house seemed to generate its own dust and grow its own cobwebs. Little Charlotte would wake up at five in the morning to iron napkins and to bake scones and clear snow off the porch. She made beds and cleaned bathrooms. She learned to be invisible, to slip in and out of the rooms when the guests were gone, so quickly that they hardly noticed she was there. Her hands would chap and her skin would crack and she’d yawn her way through her school days.

Copyright © 2023 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved. (*bookstore affiliate)

Malala Speaks Out

Malala Speaks Out
Speech by Malala Yousafzai, Translation by Susan Ouriou, Commentary by Clara Fons Duocastella, Illustrations by Yael Frankel
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Booktalk: When Malala was fifteen years old, she was attacked by the Taliban for defending girls’ rights to education. She survived and recovered to become a world leader in education rights. In 2014, at the age of seventeen, she was the youngest person to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. This is her acceptance speech, in which Malala tells her story — the story of 66 million girls around the world deprived of education.

Snippet: We could not just stand by and see those injustices of the terrorists denying our rights, ruthlessly killing people and misusing the name of Islam. We decided to raise our voice and tell them: have you not learnt, have you not learnt that in the Holy Qur’an Allah says, “If you kill one person it is as if you kill all of humanity”?

Nonfiction Monday

It’s Nonfiction Monday!

Copyright © 2023 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.