Dear Sister, a siblings book for all ages

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Early reader reviews are already in for Dear Sister, which comes out next Tuesday and is illustrated by the wildly talented Joe Bluhm, and so far they’re all full of love, like these from Goodreads.

“As evidenced by my rarely awarded five star rating, I loved, loved, loved Dear Sister! In fact, I would go so far as to say it is my favorite children’s book of 2018. Cue the fanfare!”

“Hilarious!! Such a fun and sweet book. If you have siblings, you will love the tone and the humor found in these pages!”

“Made me sob. In a very good way.”

Want to know where the idea for Dear Sister came from? In part, from someone I used to call Duggle. Wuggle. Dougie. Douglas. Aka my baby brother, born to a family of three older sisters, me being the oldest, when I was nine years old.

I remember the day he came home from the hospital. My parents let us skip 4-H so we could come straight home and meet our little brother. We tiptoed into the den, where he lay in a blue and white baby carriage. His hair was extremely black and his face was extremely red. He looked up at us suspiciously and after a few minutes started to wail.

Who could blame the poor thing? We were three little girls and he was our living doll, putty in our hands, ours to play with, ours to torture, ours to dress up, ours to hand around one to another. IMG_0898

Doug is still nine years younger than me and always will be. That’s how it works. He’s 6’6” to my 5’10”, no longer a red-faced and rightfully suspicious baby but all grown up and hilariously funny. He and my wonderful sister in law and my wonderful nephews live a few miles from me in Minneapolis.

When my phone barks out the crazy piano tune I assigned to him –Brother is a crazy piano player himself—I pick up.

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“Brother.”

“Sister.”

How lucky am I to have a brother like Doug? Very. Dear Sister was inspired in part by my love for my siblings. I hope you like it. It’s out next Tuesday, and you can preorder it wherever you buy your books! 

To order a copy

From your local indie bookstore
From Amazon
From Barnes & Noble

Please send me your immigrant or refugee stories

Friends, my new novel for children, Pablo and Birdy, will be out in August. Publishers Weekly just gave it a starred review, calling it “a tender tale of the search for hopablo-and-birdy-9781481470261_hrme, belonging, and identity (that) smoothly incorporates elements of magical realism and powerful allusions to the refugee experience.” 

That reference to the refugee experience is why I’m posting here today. I’d love to hear from you if you have a personal immigrant or refugee story to share with me. I hope to publish one story per day on my blog this August, similar to the tattoo stories and dog stories I did in celebration of Tell Me a Tattoo Story and Percy, Dog of Destiny.

If you’d like to be included in the line-up, please email me your story and a photo (of you or something related to your experience) if you wish.

Email: alison_mcghee@hotmail.com

I greatly look forward to hearing from you. Thanks!