Paula Allen

The purpose of this book is to show the reader that there really is a Can't Do It Monster and to show what it looks like and what it does to create fear and self-doubt and hold us back. What is a Can't Do It Monster? Everyone has self-doubt and at times feel weak, insignificant, and unsure about their abilities. No one is alone with these types of feelings. This book is about a girl, Charlotte, who believes and tells herself that she can't accomplish things. Charlotte has a friend, Lola, whom only she can see. Lola comforts Charlotte when Charlotte is scared, but Charlotte realizes that Lola is not a true friend at all. Lola is feeding off Charlotte's fear and self-doubt.

On September 11, 1973, with the backing of the U. S. government, General Augusto Pinochet overthrew the socialist government of Chilean president Salvador Allende. In the weeks that followed, thousands of ordinary citizens began to vanish from the cities and villages of Chile, taken from their homes, workplaces, and universities. The “disappeared” included twenty-six men from the northern town of Calama. For seventeen years their wives, mothers, daughters, and sisters searched the Atacama desert, the driest place on each, digging with shovels under a scorching sun, until they finally found the mass grave containing the crushed remains of their loved ones. Paula Allen documented their quest, and her mesmerising black and white photographs capture the courageous story of the women of Calama. Flowers in the Desert puts a human face on this dark period of history that affected not only Chile but much of Latin America and the world.