The Memory Thief by Jodi Lynn Anderson (English) Paperback Book

Description: The Memory Thief by Jodi Lynn Anderson Originally published in hardcover in 2021 by Aladdin. FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Publisher Description "This expertly crafted story thrums with magic, love, and tense action." --Booklist (starred review) Perfect for fans of The Girl Who Drank the Moon, this fantastical and heartfelt first book in a new trilogy from critically acclaimed and New York Times bestselling author Jodi Lynn Anderson follows a girl who must defeat thirteen evil witches. Twelve-year-old Rosie Oakss mom is missing whatever it is that makes mothers love their daughters. All her life, Rosie has known this...and turned to stories for comfort. Then, on the night Rosie decides to throw her stories away forever, an invisible ally helps her discover the Witch Hunters Guide to the Universe, a book that claims that all of the evil in the world stems from thirteen witches who are unseen...but also unstoppable. One of these witches--the Memory Thief--holds an insidious power to steal our most precious treasures: our memories. And it is this witch who has cursed Rosies mother. In her quest to save her mom--and with her wild, loyal friend "Germ" by her side--Rosie will find the layers hidden under the reality she only thought she knew: where ghosts linger as shades of the past, where clouds witness the world, and a ladder dangles from the moon leading to something bigger and more. Here, words are weapons against the darkness, and witch hunters are those brave enough to wield their imaginations in the face of the unthinkable. The knowledge of her beloved stories is an arsenal in this world, but to unlock their power, Rosie must dare to have hope and believe in herself in the face of daunting odds. Author Biography Jodi Lynn Anderson is the bestselling author of several critically acclaimed books for young people, including the May Bird trilogy and My Diary from the Edge of the World. She lives with her husband, son, and daughter in Asheville, North Carolina, and holds an MFA in writing and literature from Bennington College. Review "In this novel of ghosts, memory, and story, Anderson (Midnight at the Electric) weaves components of childrens literature mainstays into a dreamlike first-person narrative."-- "Publishers Weekly" Review Quote * "Anderson skillfully applies . . . magic to a relatable story of growing up and coming into ones own. The dynamic between Rosie and Germ rings true in both its reliability and its newly felt strain, and Andersons malevolent witches are truly unsettling. First in the Thirteen Witches series, this expertly crafted story thrums with magic, love, and tense action, and its a sure bet for Joseph Delaney or Kelly Barnhill fans." Excerpt from Book Chapter 1 CHAPTER 1 Rosie Its on the night I burn my stories that the danger begins. Or maybe that a life begins thats different from the one I knew before. It starts with me and Germ, the way most things do. I am in the backyard reading Germ a story I wrote. The story is about a woman asleep in a pile of white feathers. No matter how her daughter tries to wake her, the woman is so deeply asleep, she wont stir. She sleeps for years and years and years. Then one day the daughter finds a beautiful black iridescent feather buried deep amongst all the white ones. She plucks the black feather, and there is a shudder as all the feathers begin to move. And the girl sees that the pile was never a pile at all but instead that her mother has been sleeping on the back of a giant feathered beast who has been holding her captive and enchanted. The girls mother stirs as the beast does. She tumbles off the back of the beast, and together they escape to a remote village at the edge of the earth. Safely hidden, they live happily ever after. Germ listens in silence and stares out at the ocean as it crashes against the rocks far below my yard. She wraps her coat tighter around herself to ward off the early fall chill. Shes got a new look today--thick black eyeliner. It looks weird, and Germ is clearly aware of this, because she keeps swiping at it with her thumb to wipe it away. Shes trying to look older but not doing a very good job. I dont know why she tries, because her eyes are pretty as they are. When I finish and look up at Germ, she frowns out at the water, her brows lowering uncertainly. I can predict something like 1,021 of Germs moods, and I can tell shes reluctant to say what shes thinking. "What?" I ask. "You dont like it?" "I do," she says slowly, stretching and then settling herself again, restless. (Germ never looks natural sitting still.) Her cheeks go a little pinker. "Its just..." She looks at me. She scratches the scar on her hand where--at my request--we both cut ourselves when we decided to be blood sisters when we were eight. Her freckles stand out the way they do when shes feeling awkward. "Dont you think were getting too old for those kinds of stories?" I swallow. "What kinds of stories?" "Well...," Germ says thoughtfully, "the mom waking up." Germ looks sheepish. "The happy ending. Fairy tales." I look down at the paper, my heart in my throat, because its so unexpected. Germ has always loved my stories. Stories are how we met . And whats the point of writing a story if there isnt a happy ending? "Its just..." Germ flushes, which again makes her freckles stand out. "Were in sixth grade now. Maybe its time to think about real life more. Like, leave some of the kid stuff behind us." If anyone else said this to me, I would ignore them, but Germ is my best friend. And she has a point. Suddenly I find myself studying the two of us--Germ in her eyeliner and the plaid coat she saved all of last years Christmas money for; me in my overly large overalls, my too-small T-shirt, my beloved Harry Potter Lumos flashlight hanging around my neck like a bad fashion accessory. Ive been doing this more and more lately, noticing the ways Germ seems to be getting older while I seem to stay the same. "Well, Ill revise it," I say lightly, closing my notebook. Germ lets her eyes trail off diplomatically, and shrugs, then smiles. "Its really clever, though," she says. "I could never come up with that stuff." I knock her knee with mine companionably. This is the way Germ and I rescue each other--we remind each other what were good at. Germ, for instance, is the fastest runner in Seaport and can burp extremely loud. Im very short and quiet, and Im stubborn and good at making things up. Now Germ leaps up like a tiger, all athletic energy. "Gotta get home. Moms making tacos." I feel a twinge of envy for Germs loud, busy house and for the tacos. "See you at school." Reaching the driveway, she hops onto her bike and peddles away at top speed. I watch, sad to see her go, and thinking and thinking about what she said, and the possibility of a choice to make. Inside, the house is dim, and dust scuttles through the light from the windows as I disturb the still air. I walk into the kitchen and tuck my story away into a crevice between the fridge and the counter, frowning. Then I make dinner for me and my mom: two peanut butter and banana sandwiches, some steamed peas because you have to eat vegetables, Twinkies for dessert. I use a chair to climb up to the top shelf over the counter and dig out some chocolate sauce to drizzle onto the Twinkies, scarf my meal down--dessert first--and then put everything else on a tray and carry it up two flights of stairs. In the slanted attic room at the end of the third-floor hall, my mom sits at her computer, typing notes from a thick reference booklet, her long black hair tucked behind her ears. Her desk is littered with sticky note reminders: Work Eat. Take your vitamins . On her hand she has scribbled in pen simply the word "Rosie." "Dinner," I say, laying the tray down on the side of her desk. She types for a few more minutes before noticing Im there. For her job, she does something mind-crushingly boring called data entry. Its mostly typing things from books onto a computer and sending them to her boss, who lives in New York. There is a sticky note on the corner of her computer where shes written down the hours shes supposed to be typing and the contact information of her boss; she never stops early or late. Against one wall, a small TV stays on while she works, always on the news. Right now theres a story about endangered polar bears that I know will break my heart, so I turn the TV off; Mom doesnt seem to notice. She does that strange thing where she looks at me as if adjusting to the idea of me. Then she turns her eyes to the window in dreamy silence. "Hes out there swimming, waiting for me," she says. I follow her eyes to the ocean. Its the same old thing. "Who, Mom?" But I dont wait for an answer because there never is one. I used to think, when I was little, she was talking about my dad, a fisherman, drowned at sea before I was born. That was before I realized that people who were gone did not swim back. I fluff up the bed where she sleeps to make it look cozy. She sleeps in the attic because this is the best room for looking at the ocean, but her real room is downstairs. So Ive decorated this one for her, lining the shelf with photos of my dad that I found under her bed, one of my mom and dad together, one of me at school, a certificate of archery (from her closet) from a summer camp I guess she used to go to. I dont have my moms artistic skills, but Ive also painted lots of things on the walls for her. Theres something Ive labeled Big Things about Rosie , which Ive illustrated with colored markers. It stretches across years, and its where I write the things I think are big and important: the date when I lost my first tooth, the date of a trip we took to Adventure Land with my class, the time I won the story contest at the local library, the day I won the spelling bee. Ive decorated it with flowers and exclamation points so that it will get her attention. Ive also painted a growth chart keeping track of my height (which goes up only very slowly--Im the shortest person in my class). Ive also drawn a family tree on the wall, though its all just blanks except for me and my mom and dad. I dont know about the rest of my family. I guess we dont really have one. Still, as strange as it may sound, none of it means anything to her--not Big Things about Rosie , not the family tree. Its as if none of its there. Then again, most of the time its as if Im not here either. "Tell me about the day I was born," I used to say to her, before I knew better. I knew the when and where of my birth, but I wanted to know what it had felt like to see me for the first time. I wanted to hear my mom say that my arrival was like being handed a pot of gold and a deed to the most beautiful island in Hawaii (which is what Germs mom says about her). But eventually I gave up. Because she would only ever look at me for a long time and then say something like, "Honestly, how could I remember something like that?" Flat, exasperated, as if Id asked her who had won the 1976 World Series. My mom doesnt give hugs. Shes never excited to see me after school or sad to see me leave for the bus. She doesnt ask me where Ive been, help me shop, tell me when to go to bed. Ive never in my life heard her laugh. She has a degree in art history, but she doesnt ever talk about her professors or what she learned. She never says how she fell in love with my dad or if she loved him at all. Sometimes when shes talking to me, its as if my name is on the tip of her tongue for a while before she can retrieve it. Before meetings with my teachers or my pediatrician, she asks me how Im doing in school and how Im feeling, as if to catch up before a test. Its all she can do to keep track of the facts of me. Ive known for a long time that my mom doesnt look at me the way most moms look at their kids--like a piece of light they dont want to look away from. She barely looks at me at all. Still, I love her more than anyone else on earth, and I guess i Details ISBN1481480227 Author Jodi Lynn Anderson Pages 352 Series Thirteen Witches Language English Year 2022 ISBN-10 1481480227 ISBN-13 9781481480222 Format Paperback Series Number 1 Publication Date 2022-03-29 Audience Age 9-13 DEWEY FIC Audience Children / Juvenile Publisher Simon & Schuster Imprint Simon & Schuster Place of Publication New York Country of Publication United States US Release Date 2022-03-29 We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. With fast shipping, low prices, friendly service and well over a million items - you're bound to find what you want, at a price you'll love! TheNile_Item_ID:134894941;

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