Start your Thanksgiving week with a story about generosity and community connection

This year, Thanksgiving week will start off with a “storytime” for all ages at Third Place Books in Lake Forest Park on Monday, November 20, 2023 at 5pm. 

That’s when local author Alice K. Boatwright will read aloud Mrs. Potts Finds Thanksgiving, a story inspired by Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.

In this contemporary re-telling, the miserly Martha Potts is reminded that there's more to life than work and money after chance encounters with a homeless woman and a stray cat, who comes to stay. 

Between Thanksgiving eve and Thanksgiving Day, events unfold that lead her to rediscover the importance of connection and the true meaning of the holiday: giving and gratitude.

Kirkus Reviews described the book as “a rebooted, briskly-paced holiday parable that focuses on generosity and community connection."

Boatwright says she originally wrote the story while her husband cooked their Thanksgiving turkey because their San Francisco kitchen was too small for two people to work in it at the same time. 

Reading it aloud for friends became an annual holiday tradition; and, at their urging, she decided to collaborate with artist Jan L. Waldron and publish it as a book under her own imprint, Firefly Ink Books.

Boatwright is especially pleased to have the opportunity to read the story at Third Place Books, and she loves to hear that people who’ve bought the book read it aloud together. “Audiobooks are wonderful, but it’s nice to take back the pleasure of shared reading too.”

Local author Alice K. Boatwright
to read at Third Place Books

Mrs. Potts Finds Thanksgiving is Boatwright’s first children’s book, although her varied career as a writer has included stints as a children’s librarian and bookseller, as well as traveling the world writing about public health issues. 

She is also the author of the popular Ellie Kent mysteries, three linked novellas about the Vietnam War era, and other fiction. She lives in Lake Forest Park.

Mrs. Potts Finds Thanksgiving is available in hardcover, paperback, and e-book editions through bookstores and online retailers.

Books will be available for purchase and signing through Third Place Books.