A fairytale with unexpected Malaysian twist!

"Every lost thing wants to be found"

I feel immensely privileged to be living in the same world as Hanna Alkaf. 🥺To read her stories and experience joy, hope, thrill, sorrow, and loss in such an intimate way, a Malaysian relevance to every word on the page is truly a gift.🎁

This book is a Malaysian spin on the classic "Little Red Riding Hood".🇲🇾 It is a middle grade so the writing is easy to understand, perfect for beginner readers. It can be read by everyone and I think you should read it too! It has Hanna Alkaf's signature touch of being unapologetically Malaysian with Malaysian foods, culture, and Malay words. It is set in Langkawi, Malaysia during the pandemic. 😪

It gives voice to the heaviness of dementia and the pain of slowly losing your loved one to the sickness but also gives hope that your loved one is temporarily visiting another world and they'll come back to visit still! It allows you to experience the pandemic in such a rare light - an adventure with mythical creatures from Malaysian folklore. It remade the bleak pandemic with harsh MCOs and SOPs into a magical journey with friendship with unlikely creatures and fellowship with your closest friends and family. It touches on everything; friends, family, girlhood, growing up too soon, nurses on the front lines, police drunk with power and the kind people you meet along the way.

The story is as vibrant as the cover suggests. To say more would take away the whimsy fun since every adventure is best savoured - with the unknown. My biggest takeaway from this book is everything comes full circle, it will all work out the way it should with love, courage and friendship.❤️

"There is always wonder and magic in the trying"

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