Category: fiction

What to Bring
by Lorna Schultz Nicholson (Author) and Ellen Rooney (Illustrator)
@ Amazon | Bookshop

Booktalk: Malia and her family are spending a day outside when they notice something strange. Huge white-and-gray clouds fill the sky, planes zoom overhead, and the air smells funny. A forest fire is sweeping the area, and they need to evacuate their home.

Daddy tells Malia that she needs to choose what to bring. “Pick small things. Things important to you,” he says. But there’s so much that Malia wants to take with her! Her pillows and blankets. Her family of teddy bears. LOTS of books. As the pile in her room grows, and chaos swirls around her, Malia comes to realize that what is most important to her won’t fit in a backpack: her little brother, her cat, and her dog.

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Copyright © 2023 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.

I’ll Say Goodbye
by Pam Zollman (Author) and Frances Ives (Illustrator)
@ Amazon | Bookshop

Booktalk: Beach days with Uncle Mike always bring something unexpected, like a shiny shell that turns out to be a hermit crab. But Uncle Mike has cancer. Not every surprise is a good one anymore. Soon Uncle Mike starts spending more and more time at the hospital, and the grown-ups start saying “we don’t know” over and over. One day Mom says Uncle Mike is gone. Gone where? What place could be better than his house on the beach? How could he leave without saying goodbye?

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Copyright © 2023 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.