Misfits: Booktalk 2

Dwight is the ultimate misfit. He’s in middle school, and he walks around school with a finger puppet on his finger – origami Yoda [show cover].  The finger puppet talks to people. It has its own voice, its own prophecies, and its own opinions. Basically, Dwight has put himself on a fast track to be mocked, ridiculed, taunted, and possibly pummeled. Let’s leave origami Yoda aside for a moment to talk about other “misfit” moments by Dwight. Dwight went to a dance, bumped into a popular girl, spilled her drink on the floor, and then got down on the floor on his stomach [like a large human sponge] to wipe up the sponge. He then stands up, his stomach wet, and asks her to dance. What does she say? No. That’s right. Misfit Dwight. Did I mention that he also wears shorts with his socks pulled up past his knees? It’s bad. Really bad. Yet the strange thing about Dwight is that his puppet speaks the truth, always. Origami Yoda knows things. His predictions come true. He understands people, yet Dwight himself doesn’t seem to. What is this misfit’s secret? The Strange Case of Origami Yoda by Tom Angleberger.

The Strange Case of Origami Yoda by Tom Angleberger. Abrams, 2010. 141 p. Booktalk to intermediate grades and middle school.

Take a Second Look: Booktalk 4

What if you didn't know your parents? That's Delana's story: she's an only child who lives with her Grandpa and her Aunt Tilley in West Virginia. Aunt Tilley likes to show Delana old-fashioned photographs of Delana's relatives -- descended from slaves -- and make them come alive through stories. So Delana _thinks_ she knows her family, but once Aunt Tilley dies, Delana gets a secret visit from one of her relatives disguised as a scrawny peddlar -- Cousin Ambertine. Ambertine is on a mission: to tell Delana part of the truth. As it turns out, Ambertine was really close to Delana's mom, and has news which shocks Delana, who finds she must take a second look at her mysterious family. Finding Family by Tonya Bolden.

Finding Family by Tonya Bolden. 172 p. Bloomsbury, 2010. Booktalk to intermediate grades and middle school.

Take a Second Look: Booktalk 1

Samantha – also called Sam --  is one of the most popular girls at her high school, and she’s part of a tightly knit group of four girls. It’s Cupid Day, the day at their high school where the students get and receive roses with notes from friends and admirers. It’s a fairly normal day, with one exception: Sam dies, and I’m not giving away the ending, because it’s not really the ending. Even though she’s dead, Sam wakes up the next day – and it’s Cupid Day again. This time Sam makes some minor adjustments in how her day goes, because she knows full well how it ends. And she starts noticing little things that she hadn’t noticed before. Then she starts making some changes in what she says, who she interacts with, and ways she treats people. Little things: like eating lunch in the bathroom with a unpopular girl, or giving roses to another girl who is called “Psycho.” Other little things: like noticing her boyfriend Rob is sort of a jerk, and that another guy, a non-popular friend from her childhood, is actually the most interesting guy around. Sam gets to replay her day over several times, and the more she does it, the more she realizes exactly how important words and actions are, even to the point of determining whether another student lives or dies. Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver.

Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver. 470 p. Harper, 2010. Booktalk to high school.

From Russia with Love: Booktalk 3

Most princesses have a pretty cushy life, right? When we first meet the princess Anastasia Romanovna, her life does appear to be privileged and comfortable. She’s the daughter of the Russian tsar, and she’s got servants, beautiful clothes, and the best food and education available.  She’s pretty, smart, and kind. However, as privileged as she and her sisters and brother may be, their elevated status as royalty is threatened. There are ominous signs all around them that the Russian people [and others] feel tremendous anger and resentment towards Anastasia’s entire royal family. So, how does Anastasia know all this? She’s got a secret boyfriend, Alexander [nicknamed Sasha], who’s in the military.  He’s one of the guards she meets at her palace, and they strike up a friendship. When he’s sent off to war to fight for Russia, he suffers blindness in one eye. When he is recovering from his injuries, Sasha tells Anastasia about how there may be a revolution soon, or anarchy. Anastasia’s days as a princess are numbered, and Sasha warns her about this. Yet Sasha is determined to stay near Anastasia, even when her father abdicates the throne and her mother is arrested. Soon thereafter, Anastasia goes from being a princess to being a prisoner, one whose life is in great danger. Based on a real historical princess, Anastasia’s Secret gives an insider’s account the death of royalist Russia.

Anastasia’s Secret by Susanne Dunlap. 333p. Bloomsbury, 2010. Booktalk to high school.

From Russia With Love: Booktalk 2

Yuri is a teenage boy living in Russia in the 1930s, under a brutal Stalin-like leader. The old rule of the Czars is over: they’ve been murdered and exiled, and no one dares speak of them anymore. The new regime – which Yuri is taught to praise at school – is harsh and unforgiving. People in Yuri’s town live in perpetual fear of being kidnapped and sent away to the work camps, where their chances of survival are slim. Yuri’s parents urge him to keep his mouth shut and his eyes down at the ground. In an unstable police state, anyone can be singled out and disappear without a trace. Yuri’s school is shut down, and he’s forced to do brutally hard manual labor.  When he’s sent to a mining camp in the north for answering a question incorrectly [sentence: ten years], Yuri senses that his life is over. Even if he does manage to get home, his parents may be dead or just gone, like so many others. But youth may be on his side: “Sometimes the sunlight had sparkled so brightly across the boundless sheets of snow. Or, in the stinging wind under the china-blue sky, I’d smelled the blessed spring melt. Once I stood under a tree and my heart sang to see the way its tall brave trunk soared …. I’d watch the eagles soaring overhead. I couldn’t help it” (138).  In a world of bleakness, illness, and semi-starvation, Yuri takes what consolation he can get. The Road of Bones by Anne Fine is gripping historical fiction.

The Road of Bones by Anne Fine. 213 p. Farrar, Straus and Giroux: 2006. Booktalk to high school, adult.

Hang in There: Booktalk 1

Most of you have tripped and fallen at some point, right? When our author, Raina Telgemeier, was in sixth grade, she fell and tripped, knocking out her two front teeth. Only, it wasn’t that simple. She hurt the bone above her teeth, and did some pretty serious damage which required multiple surgeries. This caused her to miss a fair amount of school, and she spent a lot of time in pain and unable to eat. But notice the title and the cover: it’s Smile.

In spite of its painful subject matter, Smile is a funny and thoughtful book. Raina has the normal problems of a pre-teenager: at one point, she’s writing a note to her friend about a boy she likes, and her teacher intercepts it, and the whole class finds out who she has a crush on. But there are also times when she’s so worried about her surgeries that she can’t focus on school, and her grades suffer. She gets teased more than most kids do because of her teeth. Yet Raina is a cool, kind-hearted, brave girl, and Smile tells a great story. Smile by Raina Telgemeier.

Smile by Raina Telgemeier. Graphic novel: 213 p. Scholastic, 2010. Booktalk to elementary [3^rd-5^th] and middle school.

Your Medical Diagnosis Is ... : Booktalk 3

[Unless you have a t-shirt that says, "Buddha Burger," you don't need any props for this one.]

Excuse me [run hands through your hair, look disheveled and wild-eyed, confused.] Have you seen a talking garden gnome and / or a Mexican-American dwarf clutching an inhaler? The dwarf might have asked you if he could use your cell phone to call his mom. Which way did they go? [Wait for response.] That is _not_ helping me. Why the funny looks? Okay, sorry, I'll slow down, but if you see anything resembling fire giants or a Wizard of Reckoning -- you'll know him when you see him -- tell me immediately. So, I'm Cameron, and I've been diagnosed with mad cow disease. Those last two wusses who booktalked to you got nothing on me. See, their diseases were just physical: blindness and leukemia. Mine is BOTH physically and mentally degenerative: yeah, both my body and my mind are going to hell in handbasket. I won the sickness lottery. But I'm on a quest, too. I'm trying to find Dr. X, who learned to travel through both space and time. I'm trying to fight this dark energy that is attacking both my brain and this world of ours [hence those nasty fire giants]. Yes, I'm crazy but I'm also not. You have to be a little crazy to live in this world, and you have to be even crazier _not_ to search for meaning. So even if I don't find Dr. X, I hope to find out what all this _means_ before I die. Don't look so glum. I'm funny as heck, trust me. So are the gnome and the dwarf, when they're not being pains in the you-know-what. Read Going Bovine by Libby Bray, and don't forget to suspend your disbelief.

Going Bovine by Libby Bray. 480 p. Delacorte Press, 2009. Booktalk this only after reading every single page, seriously. Upper high school, college, adult.

Awesome Arctic: Booktalk 3

Even though fourteen-year-old Alika hasn’t been a teenager for long, he’s an accomplished Inuit seal hunter, and he his family live about as close as humans live to the North Pole in 1868. Seal hunting is a way of life to the Inuit people, and Alika and his younger brother, Sulu, have traveled to the edge of a thick ice floe which is attached to land. It’s the time of the long winter darkness, and Alika and Sulu have come by ice sledge led by their dogs. Their lead sledge dog, Jamka, has sniffed out a seal hole, and Alika sees his chance to wait for the seal to pop up to the surface and provide them with the food they so badly need for the long, dark, frigid winter. But Alika is starting to push his luck: it looks as if a gale is coming, and their village of Nunatak is seven miles away. Alika’s ancestors have been living in this neck of the woods for thousands and thousands of years, and all children are taught to hunt, to build iglus, to predict the thickness of ice over water, to fight off polar bear attacks, and to survive sub-zero weather. If they’re not taught this at a young age, they’ll die. Remember: the Arctic is a formidable foe. It has lots of tricks up its sleeve, and it had one trick that Alika did not see coming: ice floes can break away from the land they’ve attached themselves to. They’re like big ice rafts, basically, and Alika watches in horror as he and his young brother and their dogs are suddenly adrift at sea, all alone on an ice floe: Ice Drift by Theodore Taylor.

Ice Drift by Theodore Taylor. 224 p. Harcourt, 2005. Booktalk to intermediate grades, middle school, even early high school.

Fight Back: H.S. Booktalk 3

When you’re the younger brother of an alpha male, you have to fight to maintain your sense of identity, especially when it’s an identity less respected and understood by others in your small town. Although Frankie is smart, quirky, decent looking, and funny, his older brother Steve is much, much cooler; unlike Frankie, Steve is highly respected both by the popular kids at school and by the local “cholos” he hangs out with. Steve’s a varsity athlete who will get a college scholarship, and Frankie likes to blow up anthills [they’re fire ants, relax] with his best friend, Zach, who likes to take out his glass eye and gross out his friends with it. Frankie’s fine with being his own person, until he and his brother have escalating conflicts with John Dalton, a rich, white boy who has it out for both of them, due in large part to the fact that Frankie managed to steal John’s girlfriend out from under his nose [way to go, Frankie!]. Unfortunately, the rivalry with John Dalton has now expanded, and it’s become a racially divided one. Frankie will have to decide at what point fighting back is actually worth it, because anger has a way of erasing your true identity. The Brothers Torres by Coert Voorhoes is thoughtful and laugh-out-loud funny.

The Brothers Torres by Coert Voorhees. 316 p. Hyperion Books [Disney], 2008. Booktalk to high school, adult.

Fight Back: H.S. Booktalk 1

When we're first introduced to Jace, a sixteen-year-old boy, he's split in two ways, just like the title of this novel, Split. First of all, Jace is split physically: his dad has physically assaulted him badly, just as his dad been doing to his mother for years now. Secondly, Jace has split from home, and he's looking for his older brother, Christian, who has made himself really, really hard to find. Christian left home years ago, because he was getting assaulted and could not stand the fact that their mother would not seek help: wouldn't tell the authorities, and wouldn't leave. Both Jace and Christian know that it's a matter of time before their mother gets killed by their father, who is actually a judge. A smart, respected judge - cunning enough to have been getting away with this for years. Jace plans to bust his mother out of her private hell, hopefully with Christian's help. But unfortunately, and complicatedly, Jace has a fight on two fronts. The other fight is with himself. He's got his own inner demons, which is why he lost the love of his girlfriend, Lauren, and why he's afraid to get involved with a new girl with whom he works. There are clues that Jace will have to fight hard to avoid becoming like his worst enemy: his father. On a personal note, although this sounds like a grim book, it's an amazing read. I could not put it down, and I highly recommend it: Split by Swati Avasthi.

Split by Swati Avasthi. Grades 9 up. 288 p. Knopf Books for Young Readers, 2010.