Saturday, May 11, 2024 - 1:00pm
Join us Saturday, May 11th from 1-2pm for a BOLD celebration of Betsy Petersen's new book I Am Bold and card deck Social Skills Activity Deck for Kids!
This FREE in-store event will feature illustrator Betsy Petersen, games, snacks, and a whole lot of fun!
This event is best for ages 3-9, but all ages are welcome! (Even grownups without kids!)
RSVP by emailing or calling us with your name, email address and the number of people in your party. We need to know how many snacks to have!
Email: events@mcleanandeakin.com
Phone: 231.347.1180
About the Book:
Bea is not loud—she is BOLD!
Sometimes people tell Bea she’s just too much. Whether she’s bugging her brother like a buzzing bee, helping out a bit too much in class, or blasting her trombone as loud as it goes, she is often misunderstood. While grownups and even other kids might see Bea as loud, we know that she’s got stuff to say, things to do, and friends to make!
This story is for the child who lives out LOUD and boldly uses their voice to be heard above the crowd. Bea’s story shows us that when the strongest voices are celebrated, their boldness inspires beauty and positive change all around us.
About the Card Deck:
Social Skills Activity Deck for Kids is a fun, interactive tool to help kids build confidence in skills like making new friends, sharing, listening, and teamwork.
Sharing, listening to others, making friends, and understanding one another. It’s a lot to think about—especially if you’re a kid! Don’t worry, Social Skills Activity Deck for Kids is here to help! With 30 super-fun activities, kids can practice different social skills in a super cool way. Before they know it, they’ll be making more friends, sharing their feelings, and solving problems.
Get ready to have a great time together with activities like Dance Party, Take-Turns Tornado, Buddy Maze, Chit-Chat Hat, and even your own Comedy Duo!
About the Illustrator:
Betsy Petersen is an artist, illustrator, and entrepreneur https://www.brighterfun.com/. She’s spent the past seven years building her own art business — collaborating with organizations such as Papyrus, Minnetonka, Childhoods Clothing, and Bravery Magazine. She is the co-author and illustrator of Happy Puppy, Angry Tiger (2021), Feeling All the Feelings Workbook (2023), and the illustrator of I am Quiet: A Story for the Introvert in All of Us.
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Friday, June 14, 2024 - 1:00pm
Join us Friday, June 14th, 1-3pm for a FREE in-store meet and greet with author Tim Wendel celebrating his new book Rebel Falls.
Mark your calendars and purchase your copy today. No RSVP needed for meet and greets.
About the Book:
With Rebel Falls, Tim Wendel takes us to late summer of 1864. The Civil War rages on. Sherman is marching on Atlanta, while the armies of Grant and Lee battle across Virginia. In the North, war-weariness has made Lincoln's bid for reelection seem doubtful. As the fate of the nation "conceived in Liberty" hangs in the balance, Confederate agents gather in Niagara Falls to plan one last audacious maneuver to turn the tide of the conflict.
Rory Chase, a capable yet haunted young woman eager to contribute to the Union cause, accepts a mission from the Secretary of State, William Seward, to travel to Niagara Falls and prevent two rebel spies, John Yates Beall and Bennet Burley, from seizing the U.S.S. Michigan on Lake Erie and bombarding Buffalo, Cleveland, and other northern cities to sow fear and disorder ahead of the upcoming election. To succeed, Rory must gain the rebel spies' trust and, with the help of the Underground Railroad network still operating out of the elegant Cataract House hotel overlooking the Falls, foil their desperate gambit. But can she maintain the pretense of being a Confederate sympathizer long enough to unravel Beall and Burley's ingenious plot?
With actual events underpinning the tumultuous story in Rebel Falls, a forgotten chapter in the history of the Civil War is revealed. Far from frontlines, Wendel's exciting, character-driven narrative about a consequential struggle in the shadow of Niagara Falls' dramatic beauty is gripping from start to finish.
About the Author:
Tim Wendel is a Writer-in-Residence at Johns Hopkins University and the author of Summer of '68, Cancer Crossings, High Heat, and the historical novels, Castro's Curveball and its sequel Escape from Castro's Cuba. He has appeared on PBS, CNN, ESPN, and NPR, and is the narrator of several audiobooks.
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Wednesday, July 17, 2024 - 1:00pm
Join us Wednesday, July 17, 1-3pm for a FREE in-store meet and greet with author John Smolens celebrating his book A Cold, Hard Prayer.
Mark your calendars and purchase your copy today. No RSVP needed for meet and greets.
About the Book:
In 1924, an orphan train passes through the Midwest, and two teenagers, seeking a new life, find nothing but hardship when taken in to live on a farm in Michigan. Mercy, a teenage girl of mixed race, and a boy nicknamed Rope, who lost fingers in a factory accident, become virtual prisoners of Harlan and Estelle Nau, whose children died during the Spanish flu epidemic. After facing abuse, Mercy and Rope flee, making an arduous journey into sparsely populated northern Michigan, where Mercy believes she will find her aunt. After Harlan is found murdered on his farm, police captain Jim Kincaid pursues Mercy and Rope to the cold, barren villages on the Mackinac Straits, but his efforts are complicated by the reemergent Ku Klux Klan, which has formed a coalition with the police deputy Milt Waters and the Dingley brothers, who run a local bootleg operation. Resolute and intrepid, Mercy and Rope develop a bond of mutual trust that helps them navigate a stark American landscape shaped by prejudice, hypocrisy, and fear.
About the Author:
John Smolens has published twelve works of fiction, eleven novels, and a collection of short stories. Two of his recent novels, Wolf's Mouth and Day of Days, have been selected as Library of Michigan Notable Books. In 2010, he was the recipient of the Michigan Author Award from the Michigan Library Association. He lives in Marquette, Michigan.
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Thursday, July 18, 2024 - 1:00pm
Join us Thursday, July 18th, 1-3pm for a FREE in-store meet and greet with author Lori Tucker-Sullivan celebrating her new book I Can't Remember If I Cried: Rock Widows on Life, Love, and Legacy.
Mark your calendars and purchase your copy today. No RSVP needed for meet and greets.
About the Book:
The stories of rock musicians who die young are the thing of lore and legend. Accidents, drug overdoses, plane crashes--all have taken the lives of male rock stars still in their primes. But what became of their widowed brides? How did they survive a loss so great? What is it like to have to share your grief with millions of strangers? And where are these widows today?
I Can’t Remember if I Cried is part music history, part memoir, based around interviews with rock widows conducted by Lori Tucker-Sullivan—who herself lost her husband in 2010. With each widow that Lori interviews, she learns lessons in love, forgiveness, coping, and moving on. The book is framed by the author’s own narrative to create a single thread that links the stories together to ultimately create a tale of how the author’s life is changed through her interactions with these amazing women.
About the Author:
Lori Tucker-Sullivan is a freelance writer and editor whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Modern Loss, and Passages North. Her essays “Detroit, 2015” and “Time, Touch, and a Whale’s Grief” were both nominated for a Pushcart Prize and listed as a Notable Essays in the Best American Essays series. Since her husband’s death, Lori has written of the widowhood experience at the blog The Widow’s Apprenticeship. She is also a former bookselling professional who until recently served as Executive Director of the Independent Booksellers Consortium, Inc. She lives in Detroit, MI.
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Friday, July 26, 2024 - 1:00pm
Join us Friday, July 26, 1-3pm for a FREE in-store meet and greet with author Allie Millington celebrating her new book Olivetti.
Mark your calendars and purchase your copy today. No RSVP needed for meet and greets.
About the Book:
A heartfelt debut middle-grade novel told from the unique vantage points of a witty typewriter and an introverted boy—for fans of Wishtree and A Rover’s Story.
Being a typewriter is not as easy as it looks. Surrounded by books (notorious attention hogs) and recently replaced by a computer, Olivetti has been forgotten by the Brindle family—the humans he’s lived with for years. The Brindles are busy: Dad and Mom work constantly, three of their children put the extra in extra-curriculars, and Ernest, their shy twelve-year-old, goes off alone to read.
When Olivetti learns Mom has mysteriously gone missing, he believes he can help find her. He breaks the only rule of his ‘kind’ and types back to Ernest, who must face what he and his family have been running from, The Everything That Happened. Only by working together will they find the parts of themselves they’ve lost.
About the Author:
Allie Millington first wrote Olivetti on her own antique typewriter, who turned out to have an awful lot to say. She lives near Atlanta, Georgia, with her husband and their fluffy dog. You can find her on Instagram: @alliemillington or online at www.alliemillington.com
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Saturday, September 14, 2024 - 4:00pm
Join us Saturday, September 14th, 4-6 pm for a FREE in-store meet and greet with author Sarah Arthur celebrating her new book Once a Queen.
Mark your calendars and purchase your copy today. No RSVP needed for meet and greets.
About the Book:
A mysterious manor house hides the keys to shocking family secrets—and rapidly fading portals to other worlds—in the richly woven opener to bestselling author Sarah Arthur’s young adult fantasy series.
When American teenager Eva Joyce unexpectedly finds herself spending the summer at the estate of the English grandmother she’s never met, troubling questions arise. Why have her parents been so long estranged from her grandmother? What secrets are the manor staff—and the house itself—hiding?
When odd things start happening in the gardens at night, Eva turns to the elderly housekeeper, the gardener, and the gardener’s grandson, Frankie, for answers. Astonishingly, they all seem to believe that Eva’s favorite childhood fairy tales are true—and that her grandmother was once a queen in another world. But her grandmother’s heart is closed to the beauty and pain of the past. Now it’s up to Eva to discover what really happened.
Can Eva’s family’s relationships be restored? Do portals to other worlds exist, or are they closed for good? As she seeks answers, Eva finds herself unraveling dangerous secrets and wrestling with grief for a vanishing childhood—all while facing the fear that growing up means giving up fairy tales forever.
About the Author:
Sarah Arthur is a fun-loving speaker and the author of a dozen books for teens and adults, including the bestselling Walking with Frodo: A Devotional Journey through The Lord of the Rings. After 25-plus years working with youth she plays a wicked game of Four Square—but don’t ever ask her to eat cold pizza from a box, ever. Among other nerdy adventures, she has served as preliminary fiction judge for the CT Book Awards, was a founding board member of the annual C. S. Lewis Festival in Northern Michigan, and codirects the Madeleine L’Engle Writing Retreats. Her preteen sons have Very Important Things to Say About Books, but apparently this one passed muster.
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