Book Review: Death of a Tom Turkey (Hayley Powell Food and Cocktails Mystery, #18) by Lee Hollis

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Death of a Tom Turkey (Hayley Powell Food and Cocktails Mystery, #18)  by Lee Hollis  opens with Tom Farley and his neighbors in a snit because he's the last holdout to sell his house to a property developer who wants to build a resort. When Tom is shot at a pre-Thanksgiving community gathering and hospitalized, Hayley Powell puts her amateur sleuthing skills to good use. Thank you to NetGalley and Kensington Publishers for providing me with an Advanced Readers Copy (ARC) of this cozy mystery. I received a copy of this book for free in exchange of my honest opinion and review of the story. I loved the fact that this latest installment of the Hayley Powell Food and Cocktails Mystery  series had a theme around the Thanksgiving holiday and included live turkeys in the plot. It was good to visit some familiar characters. Since this is the eighteenth installment in the series, Lee Hollis didn't go into much detail of the background of those reoccurring characters; however, she...
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Book Review: There's A Boy in the Girls' Bathroom by Louis Sachar

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theres a boy in the girls bathroom louis sachar
A while ago, I was browsing books on ThriftBooks.com and came across the children's book There's A Boy in the Girls' Bathroom by Louis Sachar. Seeing this book brought back a flood of memories from middle school. This book was originally recommended to me by a friend when we were in the sixth grade and remember absolutely loving it. So, it went without saying that I had to buy this book and reread it.
Not remembering much of anything, it was like reading There's A Boy in the Girls' Bathroom for the first time. The main character, Bradley Chalkers, is the kid that no one likes, including teachers. Other students think he's weird and a bully; teachers think he's unruly and destructive. It's actually a very heartbreaking story about a boy that is misunderstood and has distanced himself from his peers and has given up on life in general.
There are so many life lessons that can be learned in this book that both children and adults can benefit from learning. Don't judge a book by it's cover is a lesson everyone can learn, even adults. I love the fact that the school counselor took notice of Bradley and believed in him. That and a little work is all it took to turn around Bradley's outlook on life. Another theme that was brought to life was that adults were not accepting to having a school counselor. They thought it was pointless despite having one was actually helping students.
I never thought as an adult that I'd cry at the end of a book written for children, but I did because it was such a heartbreaking story. It shows how talented Louis Sachar is as an author. I'm not sure if this book is still popular with kids today, but I definitely think this should be required reading in elementary school. This is a book that both girls and boys would enjoy, and I gave it four out of five stars.
Synopsis of There's A Boy in the Girls' Bathroom by Louis Sachar:  Bradley Chalkers is the oldest kid in the fifth grade at his school and tells the biggest lies. He even beats up girls. To say the least, he's the most hated kid in the school, but things start to change when the school counselor takes an interest in Bradley.
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