fiction Archives - Anastasia Suen

Marya Khan and the Disastrous Class Project
by Saadia Faruqi (Author) and Ani Bushry (Illustrator)
@ Amazon | Bookshop

Booktalk: It’s time for her class’s country project, and Marya is super excited. She loves public speaking, and she’s assigned Pakistan, where her family is from. But Marya has two problems: She doesn’t actually know very much about her grandparents’ country, and she’s paired with new kid Waleed, who is so shy he can barely talk, let alone present to the class. Marya figures if she can just befriend Waleed, he’ll help her make the best project ever.

It’s time for Operation Make a Friend! But how do you make a friend? Play sports? Make jokes? With time running out before the big presentation, Marya worries she’ll never get this Waleed kid to loosen up. But after researching a lot about friendship—and Pakistan—she might be able to save this project yet!

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Hannah and the Wrong Note
by Shane Goth (Author) and Sara Gagnon-Dumont (Illustrator)
@ Amazon* | Bookshop*

Booktalk: When Hannah plays piano, music dances in the air. Her notes line up and hold hands, stand straight and spin. They keep perfect pitch and a steady tempo. And Hannah, elegant and serious, dreams of becoming a famous musician.

For her school concert, Hannah chooses an ambitious piece and vows not to play a single wrong note. But no matter how diligently she practices, a wrong note sneaks into her music-including on the day of the performance. Ashamed and upset at the imperfection, Hannah sulks … until she sees her little sister, Jenny, lovingly dance and play with the wrong note, eventually inspiring Hannah to toss out her sheet music and improvise something completely new. And Hannah likes the sound! The notes aren’t perfect, but they are perfectly hers.

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