Memo and the Unexpected Gift, by Funda Özlem Şeran & Ezgi Keleş/Illustrated by Ezgi Keleş, Translated by Amy Marie Spangler, (Sept. 2023, Amazon Crossing Kids), $17.99, ISBN: 9781662512926
Ages 3-7
A lonely young boy named Memo lives with his grandmother and adopts an unlikely pet in this adorable story, translated from the original Turkish and available in the U.S. Memo loves his grandmother and tries to help her around the house, but she can’t see very well and gets tired very quickly, so Memo’s alone a lot of the time: until he finds a small kitten outside his house on a rainy night. He quietly moves the kitten into their home – Grandma can’t see it, right? – and cares for it, and the kitten grows strong and healthy. And BIG. In fact, Memo realizes, he hasn’t adopted a cat: he’s found a lion! As much as Memo loves his new friend, he also knows that a little cottage in a small town is nowhere to live for a lion, so he makes a decision that will bring unexpected, sweet surprises. Adorably narrated, with gentle and colorful illustration that show slice-of-life moments that become increasingly more humorous, this is a story that will win giggles and “awwwwww”s aplenty during readalouds. An unexpected hit for collections.
Funda Özlem Şeran is a Turkish author. Born in Istanbul in 1984, Funda received both her BA and MA degrees in political science and international relations from Marmara University. Her published works include horror anthologies, adult urban-fantasy novels, sci-fi novellas, and various children’s books. Her short stories have won several national awards, and she is published in Italian and Dutch anthologies. Follow her on Instagram: @fundaozlemseran
Ezgi Keleş is a Turkish author and illustrator. She was born in Istanbul in 1984. Ezgi graduated from the Department of Graphic Design at Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University and has worked as an art director at several advertising agencies. Now she writes and illustrates children’s books and magazines. She is a mom to one child and one cat. See more of her art on Instagram @ezgikeles.
Amy Marie Spangler is cofounder of the AnatoliaLit Agency in Turkey and the commercial and literary translator of numerous books and short stories. From 2007 until 2015, she headed the fiction-translation group of the Cunda International Workshop for Translators of Turkish Literature, and she has taught in the translation-studies departments at Boğaziçi University and Istanbul Okan University.
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