Raymie Nightingale by Kate DiCamillo Booktalk

I want you to imagine three girls breaking into their teacher's house. One of the girls, Beverly, has taught herself lock-picking from a book. She is breaking in, and her best friends, Louisiana and Raymie, are right there with her. Why are they breaking into their teacher's house?

Their teacher is not a school teacher: she teaches baton twirling to girls entering beauty contests and other competitions. Two of them want to enter and win a local competition called the Little Miss Central Florida Tire 1975 competition. It's sort of a beauty/talent competition, and there is a big cash prize. You have to prove that you are talented and a good person. Breaking and entering is not a good way to prove that.

Let's get back to the girls. You've heard the expression "to be down on your luck"? What does it mean? [Take answer/s.] We have three girls down on their luck here. Raymie's dad just left her and her mom. Louisiana lost her beloved cat and doesn't have enough money to buy food. Beverly doesn't seem to have a dad around, plus she gets into fights with her mom. Beverly's mom forces Beverly to take baton twirling lessons, which she seems to hate. The lessons are where the three girls met one another.

But where is their baton teacher?

Raymie Nightingale by Kate DiCamillo. 2016: Candlewick Press. 263 p. Booktalk to intermediate grades, middle school. Great read-aloud.

Book talk: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

High school is hard, but if you're Arnold Spirit -- "Junior," to everyone -- you're the only Native American at a high school full of mostly white kids. Smart, beautiful white kids who have money and nice clothes and cars and parents with jobs.

Junior is poor. Junior was born with a big head and should've died at birth because he had problems with his brain. He has a lisp, a stutter, ugly clothes, an alcoholic dad, and a best friend - Rowdy - who will not speak to him. Junior lives on a reservation -- called "the rez" -- and he knows that being poor and Indian really, really sucks. Forgive my language. I'm just quoting him.

From the time he was born, Junior has had to struggle for his survival. Everything he has, he has had to fight for, whether literally or physically fist-fight for. On the first day of high school on the rez, Junior picked up a textbook. When he saw the name inside, he realized the textbook was over 30 years old. That's what the Indian kids get: not even second-best. The dregs. It angered Junior so much that he threw the textbook, and it hit his teacher right in the face, resulting in a suspension for Junior.

Every cloud has a silver lining -- sometimes even for Indians -- and the teacher convinced Junior to attend a better school, named Rearden, twenty-two miles away from the reservation. You know how poor Junior is? He often has to hitchhike those 22 miles to and from school. A few times he walked the whole way, and he got blisters. It was awful. You try being the only Indian in a school full of whites. See how long YOU last.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie. 230 p.
2008 Boston Globe Horn Book Award for Fiction. 2010 Young Readers' Choice Award.
Booktalk to high school.

Sherman Alexie

Booktalk: Ways to Live Forever (Virginia Readers' Choice)

How many times have you said, “When I grow up… ?” Probably lots of times. When I grow up. It’s a normal childhood phrase. Sam is 11 and doesn’t say it. He says, “if I grow up.” He has leukemia, and he’s been through chemotherapy several times. The leukemia also comes back, unfortunately. Pretty sad, huh? So you’re thinking, why would I want to read a sad book? There are a bunch of reasons, but the best one I can think of is that Sam is a really cool and brave person. He met his best friend, Felix, in the hospital, and they’d do crazy stuff like stealing a trolley and riding around in it, or asking their tutor to help them make things which explode. Sam is also a fact collector and an expert list maker. He really likes wolves, and he wants to break some silly world records. He’s a normal kid with a normal family who has to think about death and dying, because it could be around the corner for him. Just getting to know him was one of the coolest things about his story. Ways to Live Forever by Sally Nicholls.

Ways to Live Forever by Sally Nicholls. Arthur A. Levine Books, 2008. 212 p. Booktalk to middle school. Virginia Readers’ Choice 2011-2012 for middle school.