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Mari and the Great Market Swap
by Janelle Springer-Willms (Author), Juliana Eigner (Illustrator)
@ Amazon | Bookshop

Booktalk: Mari loves to help Granny sell their ripe guavas at the weekly market. Every week, she hears the cheerful chorus of Miss Hyacinth singing “Come fa yuh mangoes, sweet and juicy,” Fitzroy shouting, “Fish, fish flying fish, one ah dollar,” and Mamee calling “Sugar cakes? Tamarind balls? Guava cheese?” On Saturdays, they are one big family.

But today, Mari’s friend brings news that a sugarcane truck toppled over on the main road, so customers can’t reach the market. Without customers, the vendors won’t make enough money to buy what they need for their families and businesses. But Mari is a problem solver, and she has an idea. What about… a great market swap!

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The author, Janelle Springer-Willms, is one of my former students.
Copyright © 2026 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved. (*bookstore affiliate)

Extreme Birdwatching: Measuring Change on a Galápagos Island
by Loree Griffin Burns (Author) and Jamie Green (Illustrator)
@ Amazon | Bookshop

Booktalk: Daphne is an island. Not one you’d choose for a vacation. There are no sandy beaches, resorts, hotels, or houses. No tall trees to make shade. The steep, rocky sides of a volcanic Galápagos island are not inviting, and most who visit this part of the world sail right past. But Peter and Rosemary Grant are not most people. A husband-and-wife team, the Grants came to this singular place with a singular goal: to study two species of wild finch. For decades, the scientists and their students counted, cataloged, and observed finches on a remote mile-wide island. Through teamwork, painstaking observation—extreme bird-watching, extreme plant study, extreme seed counting—and careful beak measurements, the group of committed scientists proved step-by-step, over forty years, how finch beaks change in response to their environment.

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