July 4th will be a busy day in Park Rapids AND at the store!

The 9th Annual Pie Baking Contest and Auction!

This event benefits the Park Rapids Public Library. There are TWO ways for you to participate: enter a pie and/or bid on a pie at the auction. Here’s what you need to know:

• Entries should be brought to Beagle and Wolf between 9:00 and noon on July 4.
• The entry fee is $5; pie pans are not returned.
• Categories are Double crust, Single crust, Custard or Cream, and Juvenile (any pie by an 8-12 year old.)

At this writing, details for the pie auction are still being finalized. Call the store for details. A winning bid means you can serve pie on the 4th without heating up your kitchen AND benefit a great cause!

Candace Simar will be in the store 10-noon, signing copies of her latest book.

Shelterbelts, like Simar’s Abercrombie Trail series, is historical fiction. The book chronicles Minnesota farming life during the tumultuous time period of World War II. Candace draws on her Norwegian culture and crafts a compelling story whose characters’ stories with stay with you.

Following the signing, she will be the celebrity judge for the Pie Baking Contest! You’ll enjoy visiting with Candace!

Where's Waldo?

All July he'll be in Park Rapids!

The famous children’s book character in the striped shirt and black-rimmed glasses is visiting local businesses throughout our community again this July. Those who spot him can win prizes, including buttons, book coupons and more. Waldo figures will be well hidden in participating local businesses. Find Waldo Local is a great summer vacation activity, and a wonderful way to support local business and the Shop Local movement.

To participate, in July pick up a “Find Waldo Local in Park Rapids!” passport at Beagle and Wolf. Visit participating businesses and get the passport stamped or signed for each Waldo you spot. The first 125 Waldo seekers to get their passports stamped or signed at ten or more sites can bring their passports back to Beagle and Wolf to collect prizes. Collecting store stamps or signatures at twenty or more businesses will entitle diligent seekers entry into a grand prize drawing on July 31, with the top prize being a 6-volume deluxe set of Waldo books.

More book signings are coming!

July 24, 1:00 to 3:00

Jayne Jones Beehler and Katrina Dohn will be in the store to sign copies of Drop the Puck, It's Hockey Season (and they tell us it’s never out of season to talk about hockey!) The book is the first in a series of early-reader chapter books featuring Rylee and Rosee, America's lovable, inspirational, funny, real, and down-to-earth referees who will steal young readers’ hearts. In this book, brothers Blaine and Cullen join Rylee and Rosee in game-day adventures that will have you cheering for more stories, victories, and defeats. Sharpen your skates and grab your stick--it's is time to play hockey!

July 25, noon to 2:00

Dennis Herschbach will be signing copies of books in the Two Harbors mystery series. In Preying in Two Harbors, the latest book, a young man is found beaten to death, the most sacred areas of a Catholic church are desecrated, a sabotaged railroad track leads to a deadly derailment, and a Jewish holocaust survivor is hung in effigy. All happen in too short a time span to say they are not related, and Deidre Johnson is brought out of retirement to solve the crimes. Suspect groups are identified, and a process of elimination begins, ending in a life-altering experience for her.

August 1, noon to 2:00

Norma Knapp will be signing copies of her new memoir, Scoria Roads. Knapp writes heart-rending stories about living in twenty different houses in her first twenty-one years. The book is a touching meditation on what it means to love, lose, accept, and negotiate fate’s obstacle courses. The memoir is filled with Knapp’s towns and landscapes changed from the sweet safe ’40s and ’50s to a chaotic world today caused by a blistering oil boom.

Midwest Connection Picks

Only the Strong
A novel by Jabari Asim

Against a 1970s backdrop of rapid social and political change, Only the Strong portrays the challenges and rewards of love in a quintessential American community where heartbreak and violence are seldom far away.

Moved by the death of Martin Luther King Jr., Lorenzo “Guts” Tolliver decides to abandon his career as a professional leg-breaker and pursue a life of quiet moments with his new lover. His boss, local kingpin Ananias Goode, is also thinking about slowing down—but his tempestuous affair with Dr. Artinces Noel, a prominent pediatrician, complicates his retirement plans. Meanwhile, Charlotte Divine, the doctor’s headstrong protégée, struggles with trials of her own.

With prose that's sharp, humorous, and poetic, Asim skillfully renders a compelling portrait of urban life in the wake of the last major civil-rights bill. Massive change is afoot in America, and these characters have front-row seats.

The Cherry Harvest
A novel by Lucy Sanna 

World War II has taken a toll on the Christiansen family. With food rationed and money scarce, Charlotte has difficulty keeping her family well fed. Her husband, Thomas, struggles to keep their Wisconsin farm going while their son Ben is fighting in Europe. Their teenage daughter, Kate, raises rabbits to earn money for college and dreams of becoming a writer.

When their upcoming cherry harvest is threatened, strong-willed Charlotte helps persuade local authorities to allow German war prisoners from a nearby camp to pick the fruit. 

But when Thomas befriends one of the prisoners, a teacher named Karl, and invites him to tutor Kate, the implications of Charlotte’s decision become apparent—especially when she finds herself unexpectedly drawn to Karl. And when their beloved Ben returns home, bitter and injured, bearing an intense hatred of Germans, Charlotte’s secrets threaten to explode their world.

Little Pretty Things
A novel by Lori Rader Day

Juliet Townsend is used to losing. Back in high school, she lost every track race to her best friend, Madeleine Bell. Ten years later, she’s still running behind, stuck in a dead-end job cleaning rooms at the Mid-Night Inn, a one-star motel that attracts only the cheap or the desperate. But what life won’t provide, Juliet takes. 

Then one night, Maddy checks in. Well-dressed, flashing a huge diamond ring, and as beautiful as ever, Maddy has it all. By the next morning, though, Juliet is no longer jealous of Maddy—she’s the chief suspect in her murder.

To protect herself, Juliet investigates the circumstances of her friend’s death. But what she learns about Maddy’s life might cost Juliet everything she didn’t realize she had.

Little Pretty Things is a page-turning thriller wrapped around the unsettling reality of friendship turned to rivalry, and painful secrets that won’t stay hidden. You know a Juliet Townsend (or are one)—the smart, funny, also-ran who should have done great things but didn’t. You’ll read the book just to spend time with her—and find yourself drawn into a dark reminder that time doesn’t heal all wounds.

BeagleAndWolf.com

Newsletter Archives