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Plum: How the Sugar Plum Fairy got her wings
by Sean Hayes (Author), Scott Icenogle (Author), and Robin Thompson (Illustrator)

Booktalk: For as long as she can remember, Plum has lived at the Mary Fitzgerald Orphanage, wishing and hoping for a family. When a sudden snowfall threatens a delivery of presents on Christmas Eve, Plum is determined to save Christmas–even for the kids who laugh at her.

Plum’s pure heart grants her an unexpected reward. When she eats a cake left behind by a mysterious magician, she is transported into the Land of Sweets. But Christmas here is threatened, too–by a sourness that is spreading from the center of the land. Plum’s determined to help, and in doing so, she might just find the family she’s always dreamed of, thanks to a good heart–and Christmas magic!

Snippet: The Nuzzlecake inside was strange and sticky. Her stomach growling, Plum ate it up in one gulp!

Suddenly, the room started to twirl and swirl and Plum couldn’t help but giggle.

The giggles turned into laughter, the laughter into hiccups, the hiccups into burps, and the burps into one big belch, and poof . . .

her ratty nightgown was transformed! A magic pontoon filled the room. Plum and Dottie climbed aboard and . . .

Whoosh!

They crashed through the front door and into a land made entirely of candy!

Missing Mike
by Shari Green (Author)

Booktalk: He’s a rescue, a mutt. Maybe there’s a little golden retriever in him, although he’s not exactly pretty. He’s had a run-in with coyotes and he’s missing an eye. But Mike is eleven-year-old Cara Donovan’s dog, and they love each other absolutely. Usually her pet follows Cara everywhere, but on the day the family first smells smoke in the air, Mike becomes anxious. Pine Grove is in the path of a wildfire, and the family is ordered to evacuate. In the ensuing chaos, Mike runs off. And then the unthinkable happens; there is no time to search for Mike. They are forced to leave him behind. Shocked and devastated, Cara watches helplessly as the family drives through a nightmare, with burning debris falling from the sky and wild animals fleeing for their lives.

Snippet:
NOT HOME

The police officer back home in Pine Grove
gave us directions
for the evacuation route
but we don’t need them.
The long snake of traffic leads us through the city
and finally
slithers right into the crowded parking lot
of a community center.

Hear the author tell the story behind the book.

A 2018 Cybils Poetry nominee

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