Booktalk: Immi's Gift by Karin Littlewood (Virginia Readers' Choice)

 

Immi lives up in the frozen north, a land of ice and snow. It is cold and icy – a white world as flat as the eye can see. Immi goes ice fishing for her supper in this lonely place, and instead of a fish, she catches a little wooden bird. How strange!

You can’t eat a little wooden bird, can you? [Show pages 5-6]. But it’s beautiful, and she wears it on her necklace, next to her little white wooden bear. Those two make an odd pair: don’t they, the colorful bird and the white bird. They’re very different, as if they’ve never met one another.

[Turn the page.] Color starts to seep into her world. She fishes a red flower! [Turn page.] Then an orange starfish … a green leaf ….a purple feather. Where is all this color coming from?

Look at her igloo! It’s the brightest thing in the land. Her world doesn’t seem as cold and lonely anymore. Where on earth did that little colorful wooden bird come from? What does all of this mean for Immi?

Immi’s Gift by Karin Littlewood. 2010: Peachtree. Unpaged. Booktalk to K-2. Virginia Readers’ Choice, 2012-2013 (Primary).

Immi’s Gift

Book talk: I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen

[Pacing, agitated.] I lost my favorite hat…actually, I think it’s my only hat, and I’m a bear, so I really need my hat back because I’m out in the cold weather all the time. I’ve spent the whole day walking around the woods looking for my hat and asking various animals if they have seen my hat. Wait…did I ask you this yet? Have you seen my hat? [Wait for reply.] No?!?

Well, let me tell you. Those other animals are no help at all. I asked a snake hanging from a branch, and you know what he said? [Mimicking snake] “I saw a hat once. It was blue and round.” Well…that’s helpful! I mean, mine is red and pointed and he’s telling me about some random hat he saw once. Thanks a lot, snake!

I asked another animal – he was kind of weird-looking, to tell you the truth, and he didn’t even know what a hat was! Useless! Absolutely useless!

Okay, I gotta dash. But if you happen to see my hat – which is RED – please just let me know! Don’t make me come back here again!

I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen. 2011: Candlewick Press. Unpaged. Booktalk to pre-K through 2^nd. Virginia Readers’ Choice, 2012-2013 (Primary). 

I Want My Hat Back

Book talk: When You Reach Me (Virginia Readers' Choice, 2012-2013)

Raise your hand if you like to write notes. They’re fun, aren’t they? It’s also fun to get notes.

But Miranda has been getting notes from someone who doesn’t sign the notes.  Miranda doesn’t know if the note writer is male or female, young or old. She doesn’t know how the note writer even knows her. You know what’s even stranger? The notes appear in her stuff, and she doesn’t know how the notes got there. How do you get a note into a locked house?

So Miranda has a predicament. Fortunately, she’s pretty tough: she’s in sixth grade, and she walks around New York City by herself. She’s got street smarts, too. She knows how to behave around the homeless man on the corner and the boys who beat up her best friend, Sal. Oh wait, Sal doesn’t want to hang out with Miranda any more. Cross him off the best friend list.

Let’s go back to these mysterious notes. Why can’t Miranda just ignore them? It’s probably just some stupid prank, right? But what if the notes had a ring of truth to them? What if something in the notes even predicted future events using specific details?

Why are these notes so important, and who is writing them? When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead.

When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead. 199 p. Yearling, 2009. Newbery Medal, 2010. Virginia Readers’ Choice (middle school), 2012-2013.

When You Reach Me

Book talk: Bulu: African Wonder Dog (Virginia Readers' Choice, 2012-2013)

 

You think your dog is cool? Ha! He cannot possibly be cooler than Bulu, African wonder dog [show cover or other pictures in the book of Bulu]. This is the story of a real-life dog, a Jack Russell terrier mix, who lived on wildlife education center located in a remote part of Zambia, a country in Africa. I’m going to quiz you on Bulu’s life. Do your best to guess the right answer.

Question 1. Bulu warned his unsuspecting owners about the presence of

a). a deadly snake

b). a crocodile

c). an elephant

d). all of the above

If you guessed “e,” all of the above, you’re right. Bulu had a sixth sense for when other wild animals – harmful or not – were around, and he always did his best to warn his owners.

Question 2. Bulu was super nice to which animals who lived with him in his owners’ small house?

a). two baby warthogs

b). a baby bushbuck (a type of antelope)

c). baby monkeys

d). all of the above

You guessed “all of the above” again? You’re right! Bulu’s owners were setting up a wildlife education center, and they wanted to help rehabilitate injured or parentless animals, too. Bulu accepted these animal orphans as friends and would even cuddle with them.

Question 3. All dogs love treats. Which treat was Bulu’s favorite?

a). vanilla cookies from Starbucks

b). French fries from McDonalds

c). buttered bread

d). worms

You think they have a Starbucks or a McDonalds in the wilds of Zambia? There isn’t a market for miles and miles! This is the wilderness! Bulu liked buttered bread.

Last question. If you’re a dog, like Bulu, and you get attacked by a lion, what are your chances of survival?

a). slim to none

b). survive a lion attack? Hahahahahahhahhahahaah….

c). I don’t even want to think about it.

Does this one sound like a trick question? Not a trick, it’s a “teaser.” To find, read Bulu: African Wonder Dog by Dick Houston.

BULU – African Wonder Dog

Book talk: Heart of a Samurai (Virginia Readers' Choice, 2012-2013)

 

Do you remember the story of Odysseus? He was away from his home for a very, very long time, but he never forgot his homeland, and he always longed to return.

Manjiro was a 14-year-old Japanese boy on a fishing expedition when he and his shipmates got lost and landed on a tiny island populated only by birds. When the birds left the island, Manjiro and his mates started to starve to death, but luckily they were rescued, by men with blue eyes who did not understand a single word they said. These men spoke English and were whale-hunters. Manjiro now found himself on a different type of boat, with very different mates, whale-hunting. Manjiro ends up in America.

So why can’t Manjiro just go home? It’s not that easy to do in 1841. After all, he’s lucky to alive at all. Being a foreigner in America at this time is not easy. He’s mocked for the way he looks and the way he talks. But he’s fond of the man who adopted him and treated him kindly. He’s there for many years before he’s given the chance to go home again. Can he even still speak Japanese? Will anyone recognize him? Will his family remember him? The Heart of a Samurai by Margi Preus.

The Heart of a Samurai by Margi Preus.  Amulet Books, 2010. 301 pages. Virginia Readers' Choice for middle school, 2012-2013.

Heart of a Samurai

Book talk: Ship Breaker (Virginia Readers' Choice, 2012-2013)

 

Nailer Lopez is a teen with a full-time, grueling, and potentially lethal job, a job which requires him to have facial tattoos which mark him as part of a work crew and also requires him to be fairly small and lightweight. What is he? He’s a ship breaker: he scavenges wrecked, beached ships for their metal. Nailer has to crawl through tight, mazelike ducts inside the ship, usually in utter darkness, and cut away copper wire, aluminum, nickel, and steel clips. It’s really, really scary inside those dark, airless, dead ships and tankers. Kids have gotten lost and trapped and died inside of them. You crawl through tunnels over dead rats’ bodies. You pray to the Scavenge God that you’ll get out alive, and that you’ll scavenge enough metal to stay on your work crew. In this world you’re loyal only to your closest friends. So what would Nailer do if he found a girl, barely alive yet clearly very rich, on a beached ship containing both wealth and dead bodies?

Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi. Little, Brown: 2010. 326 p. Virginia Reader’s Choice for high school: 2012-2013.

Ship Breaker

Book talk: Dash and Lily's Book of Dares (Virginia Reader's Choice, 2012-2013)

 

Teens mostly e-mail, text, IM, or call each other nowadays, right? Dash and Lily are completely different. They met by notebook, and it stayed that way for a while. Let me explain. Dash, short for Dashiell, is in his favorite bookstore in New York City, and on the shelves he finds a red moleskin notebook with handwritten instructions involving a challenge, and not an easy one. The challenge – if done correctly – will get the notebook back to its owner. The challenge involves writing, intelligence, willingness to make a fool out of himself, and some luck. And so the game starts. Dash and Lily don’t actually meet for a while. They couldn’t tell you what the other one even looks like: they’re both blanks to each, in that respect. They start sharing through writing: thoughts, memories, aspirations – you know, the kind of stuff it’s easier to write that to say. But both harbor a desire to meet in real life, yet the signs are there that they won’t and can’t have the type of relationship that they had through the notebook. What if meeting in real life ruins everything? Read Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan.

Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan. 260 p. Knopf, 2010. Virginia Reader's Choice, 2012-2013. Booktalk to high school.

Note: This I posted this book talk in November 2010, but I'm re-posting it with better tags.

Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares