Episode #122: Back To School
Welcome back! Summer is coming to an end. Grace and Alvina discuss everything related to back to school, including any rituals, school visits for Grace, and back to school book recommendations.
“How have you been?”
Alvina has been tired and melancholy because vacation is over and she’s now back to work mode. She’s also feeling down about the state of the world, the Delta variant, hurricanes, Afghanistan, etc…The book friends talk about this time of year being a little melancholy anyway because it is the end of summer.
Grace suffered through food poisoning recently but finally feels better.
Back to School!
Grace and Alvina go back in time and try to remember how they always felt about this time of year and going back to school. Grace was usually excited because she had spent all summer with her sisters. She was also nervous being the only Asian student in her class. Alvina recalls not really loving going back to school but she was generally excited about it. They discuss back-to-school rituals like going shopping and taking classic first-day-of-school photos.
Grace is looking forward to getting back to school visits! She has a new “Zoom Room” in her house (after a year of using an ironing board!) Click here to learn more about Grace’s virtual school visits!
OLD zoom room:
NEW zoom room:
Favorite back-to-school books:
Grace: The Name Jar by Yangsook Choi, Something for School by Hyun Young Lee, and Kindergarten Rocks by Katie Davis.
Alvina: We Don’t Eat Our Classmates by Ryan Higgins, School’s First Day of School by Adam Rex and Christian Robinson, The Magical Yet (Hardcover) by Angela DiTerlizzi and Lorena Alvarez.
Fortune Cookie Segment: Publishing News!
Hachette Book Group has purchased Workman Publishing. Read more about it HERE.
Thank you for tuning in! Thank you to Hachette Audio, Little Brown Books for Young Readers, and Alex at Pacyworks Studio for producing and editing this podcast. Be sure to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts and tell a friend about us. (Use the hashtag #bookfriendsforever.)
You can find Alvina @Planetalvina on Twitter and TikTok and @Alvinaling on Instagram
You can find Grace @Pacylin on Twitter and Instagram and @gracelinauthor on TikTok and @authorgracelin on Facebook
Don’t Forget!
*If you’re a patron, don’t forget to check out this week’s Random Questions feed! Grace Lin with Susan Tan answer, “What is the one food that you would never give up?” Click here to listen! If you’re not a patron already, join today!
