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: What's Your Favorite Animal? by Eric Carle and Friends

Eric Carle's Fiffi

Think of your favorite authors: they all have favorite animals, just as you do. Remember The Very Hungry Caterpillar author, Eric Carle? He had a cat named Fiffi who loved string beans. Eric could play fetch with her, throwing the string beans! At one point, Fiffi picked up a string bean, walked into a closet, put the string bean in his shoe, and fell asleep, curled around the shoe!

His eye reminds me of the Pigeon's eye!

Remember how funny Mo Willems' Pigeon books are? Mo Willems is just as funny. [Read his favorite animal out loud.] Where is that animal in this picture? [Wait for responses.] Right: it's in the stomach of the snake!

[Show Leopard by Lucy Cousins but cover up her name.] One of the authors loves leopards. Does this illustration style look familiar to you? [Wait.] This author loves red, yellow, and outlining in black. Right: it's the author of the Maisy books -- Lucy Cousins.

Have you read This is Not My Hat or I Want My Hat Back? Jon Klassen has a great, sly sense of humor. I'm not going to tell you his favorite animal, but try to guess it before you read this book. There is a great list of author biographies in the back: you get to see what the authors looked like as children and learn more about them.

What's Your Favorite Animal? by Eric Carle, Nick Bruel, Susan Jeffers, Steven Kellog, Jon Klassen, Tom Lichtenheld, Peter McCarthy, Chris Raschka, Peter Sis, Lane Smith, Erin Stead, Rosemary Wells, Mo Willems. Unpaged. 2014: Henry Holt and Company. Booktalk to K-2.

Booktalk: What Pet to Get? (Virginia Readers' Choice, 2011-2012)

Are you allowed to have a polar bear as a pet? Take a good look at the cover of this book: What Pet to Get by Emma Dodd. What’s wrong with owning a polar bear? [Take a few answers.] You bet: your house is too warm. Yeah: he might eat you, too. I understand. Fine, let’s get a different pet.

[Show pages 3-4 or pp. 5-6.] Hey! Great idea! An elephant! And you’d fit nicely on top, right? You look nervous. What’s wrong with owning an elephant? [Take a few answers.] Right: that’s what his mom said, too.

[Turn page to pp. 7-8: the lion.] Okay, next pet idea. You still look nervous. What’s wrong with owning a lion? I mean, the boy is feeding him, right? That cat food isn’t enough? Well, maybe the postman in the window there will bring a pet catalog or something.

[Turn to pp. 9-10: lion eating the postman]. Oh, shoot! He ate the mailman?! I can’t believe it. Okay, you were right: the lion was a very bad idea. I’m sorry.

This poor kid has had unbelievably bad luck with his ideas for a pet. But you know, his mom did promise him a pet, and he seems determined to get one.

What Pet to Get by Emma Dodd. Unpaged. Scholastic, 2008. Booktalk to primary grades. Virginia Readers’ Choice 2011-2012.

Booktalk: The Dog Days of Charlotte Hayes [Virginia Readers' Choice]

If you buy a pet, you must take good care of the pet. What does this include? [Gather responses: fresh food, fresh water, love, exercise, etc.]. Charlotte Hayes’s father brought home a beautiful dog: a Saint Bernard he named “Killer.” {Show cover.} Now, Killer was just not an apt name for this dog: he’s a completely gentle sweetheart who wouldn’t hurt a fly. And even though Charlotte’s dad brought this Saint Bernard home, he really wasn’t prepared to give the dog all the time and attention which the dog deserves. I’m still mad at the dad for doing this. You know a book has you hooked when you’re mad at a fictional character.

So, by default, Charlotte has been taking care of Beauregard, which is her name for the dog. She gives him water, food, and as much attention as she can – which is still not enough. It’s just not fair to Beauregard. And Charlotte is a really cool girl: she wants Beauregard to have the best possible home, with a family who is 100% committed to him. So she takes him to the animal shelter and tells them she found a lost dog, hoping a really nice family will adopt him and give him tons of love. But when she gets home from school the next day, she hears a bark. Beauregard is back. How on earth did he get there? The Dog Days of Charlotte Hayes by Marlane Kennedy.

The Dog Days of Charlotte Hayes by Marlane Kennedy. 233 p. Greenwillow Books, 2009. Virginia Readers’ Choice 2011-2012. Booktalk to intermediate grades and to younger middle schoolers.

Booktalk: Dewey the Library Cat [All things library; 1]

People who work in libraries are used to finding all sorts of stuff in the library drop box: you know what that is, right? You’re outside the library, and you open up the slot and put your books in and you hear them drop into a bin. People mostly put their returned books in the bin, but sometimes people use it as a trash receptacle … or worse. A librarian named Vicki Myron and her colleague were extremely surprised one day to find a tiny, semi-frozen, frightened little kitten in their bin. Someone had put this tiny, neglected, half-starved kitten in the drop box. They found out the kitten was 8 weeks old, but it looked 8 days old. You could see the poor kitten’s every rib: it was that thin. Vicki gave the kitten food, a warm bath, lots of care, and love. The kitten survived, and lived in her library! They named the kitten Dewey, after the Dewey decimal system which libraries use. The patrons who came into the library loved Dewey. Often, he’d find someone in a bad mood. He’d plop himself right down on that person’s lap and take a nap. How can you be in a bad mood with a beautiful cat snoozing on your lap? It’s impossible. Dewey considered every part of the library to belong to him, and children and their parents would come in just to see him. Dewey the Library Cat: A True Story by Vicki Myron.

Dewey the Library Cat: A True Story by Vicki Myron with Bret Witter. 214 p. Little, Brown, 2010. Booktalk to intermediate grades, middle school.

Riotous Roald Dahl: Booktalk 4

[For this booktalk, either hold up page 16 – the Twits at the table, with Mr. Twit eating “spaghetti,” or Xerox and enlarge the picture so your audience can see the picture.]

 Take a close look at this picture. These are the Twits: Mr. and Mrs. Twit. Tell me what you see in this picture. [Wait for a few responses.] Yes, they are ugly, and they appear to be eating – what food do you think that is? [Get brief response.] It does look like spaghetti, and that’s what Mrs. Twit is eating, but Mr. Twit is eating WORMS! That’s right – she mixed in worms with his spaghetti. What kind of person would do that? Well, to find out why, you’ll have to read the story. She had a very specific reason for doing what she did. But back to the Twits. I hope you never meet a couple like the Twits for as long as you live. Even their own pets hate the Twits. If I told you about their pets, you wouldn’t believe me. It’s just too crazy. And once you read about the kind of food which lives in Mr. Twit’s beard, you’ll never want to eat again. The Twits by Roald Dahl.

The Twits by Roald Dahl. 76 p. Scholastic, 1980. Booktalk to elementary, intermediate grade, reluctant middle school readers.

Riotous Roald Dahl: Booktalk 3

People will do strange things for love, and Esio Trot is the perfect example of this. It’s a weird title, isn’t it? Anyone know the trick behind it? It’s actually the word “tortoise” spelled backwards and split in two. Tortoise, you know, like a turtle. Mr. Hoppy is a very shy and lonely man who lives by himself. Every day he talks to the lady on the balcony below his apartment’s balcony. Her name is Mrs. Silver, and she has a little tortoise called Alfie. Mr. Hoppy is madly in love with Mrs. Silver, and she adores her little Alfie. Her goal in life is to get little Alfie to grow bigger. As you can imagine, tortoises don’t grow very fast. But Mr. Hoppy hatches a secret plan involving a tortoise airlift and over 100 tortoises. Mr. Hoppy may be shy, but he is pretty devious. Some people will do anything for love: Esio Trot by Roald Dahl.

 Esio Trot by Roald Dahl. 64 p. Puffin, 2009 [repr.]. Booktalk to elementary, intermediate, middle school reluctant readers.