Book excerpt: Diego and the Goofy Witches of Beigua is the author's response to two major topics: diversity and bullying. In her book, she weaves into the story these two themes. We are truly stronger by learning to respect and celebrate our diversity and addressing the topic of bullying and its resulting negative impact upon ones self-confidence. Bullying does not discriminate against age, race, gender, nor disability. It exists, unfortunately, everywhere and can do harm at any age. Donna Marie uses humor in finding solutions to these highly sensitive issues in todays landscape. The story is about the goofy, fun-loving witches of Beigua in Italy, who are faced with the cruel bullying of the banshees and have decided to leave their beloved homeland until Santa comes up with an ideahis good friend, a pelican named Diego from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, who likes to fly upside down. And oh! He likes to wear a sequined sombrero and catlike-framed purple sunglasses. He comes to the rescue, well, sort of! Diego must deliver six letters from Santa to six different continents to six witches of different cultures to help the goofy witches of Beigua solve their problem of being bullied. The goofy witches learn that they are stronger with their new witch friends by being culturally different than all being from the same place. Sometimes you get great ideas when you share your different ways of solving a problem and learn to work as a team to stop being bullied. The author welcomes all those who read this book to share their thoughts and ideas and welcomes everyone to the land of the goofy witches of Beigua!