Booktalk Breakdown: Secrets, Lies, and Spies

So when I'm not wandering around the internet, reading young adult books, or indulging in my many random t.v. obsessions, I'm a librarian working with 7-12 grade students at an independent all girls school.  As part of my job, I visit both the 7th and 8th grade classes during their weekly grade-level meetings approximately once every three or four weeks with a booktalk.  As I say in my little bio in the sidebar here, I am a rookie librarian; I finished my graduate program in August and started my job a few weeks later.  Booktalking, when librarians or teachers use their creativity and wits to tease and sell books to students, is a standard tool in the youth services librarian's tool belt.  So I was fairly nervous for my first booktalks this fall.  However, I've been pleasantly surprised at how well most of my booktalks have gone so far this year.  Now that I've settled in a little bit, I wanted to try and change up my pretty basic booktalking methods.  Ally Carter's fabulous and fun novels are incredibly popular with our 7th and 8th graders; her newest Gallagher Girls novel comes out in March so it seemed like perfect opportunity to try out a more ambitious booktalk.  Since I'd like to include more library programming posts here, it also seemed like a great opportunity to try out a new occasional blog feature, breaking down my process of developing, creating, and implementing a booktalk.

The Gallagher Girls series, for those who might not spend lots of time with 12 and 13 year old girls, is about an elite school for young women with unique gifts--specifically, gifts for international intrigue. Cammie "The Chameleon" Morgan, our protagonist and narrator, is the headmistress' daughter, a CIA legacy, and a specialist in disappearing into the crowd--hence, her nickname.  So, first I gathered together other fun novels with spies, mystery, and intrigue.

I settled on three novels, all of which are the first in series.

The Liar Society by Lisa and Laura Roecker


As I noted in my review a few months ago, this debut is a fun if imperfect mystery that combines elements from E. Lockhart's The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks (elite private school with secret societies) and Veronica Mars (angry outcast teen sleuth searching for the truth about her dead best friend).  It opens with a great hook--a cryptic email from the protagonist's dead best friend.  I typed up the email on my own account and took a screenshot, which I placed into the Power Point slideshow that I used with the booktalk.  A little set up, flash the email up on the screen, and then a final hook sentence and this book was sold!

Inside The Shadow City (Kiki Strike #1) by Kristen Miller

Ananka Fishbein lives a very ordinary life--until one day she sees someone or something creeping out of a sinkhole across the street from her family's New York City apartment.  Ananka decides to investigate and discovers a hidden city underneath Manhattan's streets, an awful lot of rats, a group of renegade girl scouts, and the mysterious Kiki Strike.  Suddenly Ananka's life has been transformed from ordinary to extraordinary.  I did a second person sell with this novel, starting: "You have lived an very un-extraordinary life..."  It certainly helped that as soon as I held the novel up and clicked my slideshow to the cover image, a student yelled out: " Oh my God, I read that--it's soo good!"   

A Spy in the House (The Agency #1) by Y.S. Lee

After a sudden rescue from the gallows, young orphan Mary Quinn is surprised when she's offered an unusual opportunity: an education at Miss. Scrimshaw's Academy for Girls.  Now seventeen years old, Mary learns that her education has prepared for more than a career as a mere governess.  The Academy is actually a cover for The Agency, an independent group of female investigators who take advantage of the Victorian assumptions about women to solve cases when the police can't.  For Mary's first case, she must infiltrate the household of a wealthy merchant suspected of international smuggling and dig through his family's many dangerous--and deadly--secrets.  I was a little unsure about the reception I would get for this novel; historical fiction is frequently a bit of a gamble with a mixed group of middle schoolers.  But I was happily proved wrong and this one sold quite well!


Once I had selected these readalikes, I began working on the other portion of my booktalk.  Recently, I've been working on creating my own book trailers using iMovie.  This booktalk proved the ideal opportunity to try and work in one of my experiments.  I didn't want to do a traditional booktalk for the Gallagher Girls books because so many of the students have already read at least the first novel in the series.  So instead I made this little trailer that acts as a introduction to the premise of the whole series, with a hook at the end for the new title coming out in March.

I then embedded the Youtube version of this trailer into a Power Point presentation.  I decided to add slides with the cover images of each book as well, a practice that I might try to use in many of my future booktalks since it allows more students to see the cover and cover images are key selling point with my students.  The room used for the seventh grade class meetings has a Smart Board and I just hooked my laptop up, tested everything out beforehand, and got the presentation cued up for the start of the meeting.  Considering this booktalk was my first with any kind of media other than my own voice, I was more nervous than usual.  However, it went incredibly well and I had even more trouble than usual deciding how to distribute the one or two copies of each book among the ten to twenty kids who wanted it.

So there's my first Booktalk Breakdown!  I'm beginning to work on another slightly more adventurous booktalk on dystopian fiction for my Hunger Games-obsessed eighth graders and if it comes together, then I'll post another breakdown!

  

The Faerie Ring by Kiki Hamilton

It's 1871, Queen Victoria is on the throne, and in an abandoned building near Charing Cross Station in London, Tiki and her adopted family of street orphans are just trying to get by picking pockets.  Then one day, Tiki hitches a ride on the back of a cab and ends up in gorgeous house, where she sees a compellingly beautiful gold ring.  Tiki can't resist and she pockets the ring.  However, it turns out that her cab went to one of the most important residences in the country and the ring Tiki's just stolen belongs to the royal family.  Even worse, the ring is the key to maintaining a very important treaty--an agreement to keep peace between the human world and hidden realm of Faerie.  Now that treaty is on the verge of collapsing and it's up to Tiki to fix it.  With the help of the mysterious thief Rieker and curious Prince Leopold, Tiki must try to save the treaty--and her family--in time.

A unique little subgenre of fiction combining either actual historical facts and setting or strong historical elements with magic appears to be emerging from the sometimes overwhelmingly diverse area of fantasy novels.  I've taken to calling books that fall into this group, 'historical fantasy'--a name I'm blantantly borrowing from wonderful author Elizabeth C. Bunce, whose first novel A Curse Dark As Gold fits into this category quite nicely.  As a huge fan of both historical fiction and fantasy, I'm thrilled to see more novels coming out that manage to meld these genres.  The Faerie Ring, Kiki Hamilton's debut novel, is a delightful and thrilling addition to this growing subgenre!

Blending together elements from fairy tales like Cinderella with Dickensian street orphans and a unique take on darkly powerful fairies, Kiki Hamilton has created a throughly original and enjoyable tale.  Tiki is an appealing heroine: a spunky, sturdy survivor with quick wits and big heart.  She's tough yet vulnerable and she will do anything to protect the family of other orphans that she holding together.  The supporting characters are also interesting, especially the mysterious Rieker.  From the gritty streets of Victorian London to the glitter of the royal residences, the historical setting is rich with detail and deeply enjoyable to get lost in.  The magical elements blend well into the world of Victorian England, where superstitions and fairy stories exist alongside emerging technological and social change.  The multiple mysteries surrounding the ring and both Tiki and Rieker's identities are full of exciting and unexpected twists and turns and although the novel's plot winds to a satisfying conclusion, Hamilton definitely leaves enough interesting loose ends to keep the way for a sequel wide open.   I definitely look forward to the possibility of reading more of Tiki's adventures.

The various takes on fairies/faeries, such as the Wings series by Aprilynne Pike, have been popular among my 7th and 8th graders recently and in my first post-Winter Break booktalk to the 7th grade, The Faerie Ring was one of the most demanded options.  This enchanting debut can appeal to fantasy fans, faerie tale fanatics, and historical fiction lovers of a wide age range and I look forward to seeing more from Kiki Hamilton!

4 1/2 STARS

Amy & Roger's Epic Detour by Morgan Matson

Sometimes in the middle of winter, you just need to read a sun drenched summer road trip novel and Morgan Matson's delightful debut Amy & Roger's Epic Detour fits the bill perfectly.  The best part, of course, is that in Amy & Roger Matson takes the elements of a classic road trip novel and uses them to create a complex and enjoyable story about grief, loss, healing, friendship, family, and romance.

Amy does not want to go on a cross-country road trip this summer.  But her mother has decided that they're moving to Connecticut to California.  Her twin brother is in North Carolina at camp (AKA rehab) and her mother has already begun her transition to a new life on the East Coast.  But Amy and their car are still on the West Coast and now Mom demands that both of them make their way across the country to start the summer in their new home.

 What's the problem with this situation?  Since her father's sudden death a few months ago, Amy hasn't been able to get behind the wheel of a car without panicking.  The solution, it turns out, is nineteen-year-old Roger, the son of an old family friend whom Amy supposedly played with as a kid (although she definitely doesn't remember him being this attractive as a seven year old).  Roger also needs to switch coasts for the summer and has agreed to drive the car--and Amy--across the country.  It turns out that Roger has plenty of his own emotional baggage and both of them need a chance to take a detour from their lives.  Soon a simple drive becomes an unforgettable adventure as Amy discovers that getting lost in between California and Connecticut might be exactly what she needs to find her way back home. 

This novel combines several types of stories (including the roadtrip, life after the loss of a loved one, friendship evolving into love, etc) into a lovely debut novel exploring both physical geography of modern middle America and the complicated emotional geography of loss and recovery.  Amy, as our narrator, is intelligent, sarcastic, bitter, and a little bit broken and her narration is both sharply observant and emotionally conflicted.  Roger remains somewhat mysterious at first but slowly develops into a very sympathetic three-dimensional character;  the reader's understanding of Roger shifts as Amy's does, with more and more information revealed through their increasingly close friendship.  The diverse quirky cast of supporting characters add another wonderful layer to the narrative and the descriptions of the places Amy and Roger pass through on their trip are full of unique details that bring their beauty and weirdness to life.  The relationship between Amy and Roger evolves slowly and realistically and their increasingly strong bond becomes as satisfying for the reader to observe as it is for the characters to experience.  The novel also incorporates images from Amy's travel scrapbook and both characters' playlists into the regular textual narrative. 

This refreshing roadtrip of a debut novel would be a great fit for fans of quirky musical romances like David Levithan and Rachel Cohn's Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist or stories about finding love after loss, such as Jandy Nelson's The Sky is Everywhere or Sarah Dessen's The Truth About Forever.

4 1/2 STARS

Book Bites: A Contemporary Fiction Mixed Bag

Whew! It's a been a busy beginning to the new year! Since I used my last few weeks of 2011 and the first few weeks of 2012 to get in some extra reading before the spring semester got rolling here at school, I'm making use of my occasionally recurring blog feature 'Book Bites' (a name of which I am pathetically proud) to share quick reviews of several novels in a single post.  This group is mix of recent and not so recent releases that generally fit into that broad category of contemporary fiction.

Past Perfect by Leila Sales
Chelsea has spent most of her life trapped in the past--in 1774 to be precise.  Every summer since she turned six, Chelsea has worked with her parents at Colonial Essex Village, a local living history museum.  Now that she's sixteen, Chelsea just wants to get a normal job--preferable somewhere with air conditioning.  But thanks to her theatrical best friend, Chelsea is back at Essex for the summer, along with Ezra, the ex who broke her heart a few months ago.  But just as Chelsea is trying to bury her past with Ezra, she meets Dan, a very cute Civil War re-enactor and her sworn enemy in the long standing prank war between Essex and the Civil War museum across the street.  But was her past with Ezra as perfect as Chelsea remembers? Or is it time for her to stop living in the past altogether? And most importantly, would her family and friends ever forgive her for dating a boy devoted to a different historical time period?

This romantic comedy delightfully lives up to its quirky premise and positive buzz.  The unusual setting amid historical re-enactors initially sets this apart from the average teen romance.  Chelsea's sarcastic but sensitive voice and the multifaceted exploration of the theme of misremembered history, both personal and national, further increase the novel's appeal.  

3 1/2 STARS

Five Flavors of Dumb by Antony John
If Piper could just learn to keep her big mouth shut, she would not be in this mess.  But since she couldn't, Piper is now the manager of the school's suddenly popular local rock band, bizarrely named 'Dumb,' and she's got to get them a paying gig within a month to make the arrangement official and get her share of the profits.  However, there are a few problems. Firstly, Piper is deaf. Secondly, and more importantly, even Piper can tell that Dumb does not sound good.  But somehow Piper and the other mixed up flavors of people that form Dumb are going to have to learn to make beautiful music together.

Another novel with a quirky premise and one that not only lives up to its potential but actually supersedes it.  Five Flavors of Dumb is a delightful novel about friendship and coming of age that happens to feature a protagonist who is deaf.  Piper is funny, frustrated, sarcastic, angry, and kind.  Her deafness is integral to the story in that it shapes Piper's life and motivations; the novel provides a look at the complex social world that Piper and her family live in as part of the deaf community.  However, the novel never makes her deafness a gimmick and Piper's conflicts with her family and her shifting perceptions of and relationships with the other members of Dumb are pretty universally relatable.  

4 STARS

My Most Excellent Year: A Novel of Love, Mary Poppins, and Fenway Park by Steve Kluger
Boston native and baseball fiend T.C. falls in love with gorgeous and politically active Alejandra at first sight.  But Ale just can't trust all that charm and she's preoccupied with sneaking her way out from the limiting life of diplomat's daughter into the spotlight of the stage.  Meanwhile T.C.'s brother and aspiring theatrical superstar Augie is falling in love with Andy Wexler (who, incidentally, is falling in love with Augie) and everyone knows it, except Augie and Andy.  So through one roller-coaster of a year filled with romantic mishaps, sign language, Mary Poppins, baseball, and musical madness, T.C., Ale, and Augie rely on each other as they figure out some of the secrets to love, life, and the pursuit of happiness.

Where has this novel been my whole life? It's been on my radar for a while but I didn't get a chance and copy in my hands until earlier this winter.  And I am so happy that I did!  As other reviews have noted, Year is a bit of modern day fairytale but it is a delightful and extremely funny one.  The characters are all fully developed and sympathetic and the individual voices stand out in the multi-formatted narrative, which includes journals, emails, text messages, faxes, IMs, and more.  This one is a welcome addition to both my 'happy place' novels list and my 'makes me laugh/snort on public transportation' list.

5 STARS

Notes From An Accidental Band Geek by Erin Dionne
Elsie Wyatt has big dreams of orchestral superstardom and she is determined to make those dreams come true.  The first step in her plan of becoming a premier French horn player with the Boston Symphony Orchestra like her father and grandfather?  Get accepted to an extremely selective musical summer camp.    To improve her chances, Elsie has to find a musical ensemble to diversify her resume.  Tragically the only option left seems to be marching band, an ensemble that won't let Elsie play her instrument or sit down.  

This musical tale lives up to its cute title and mildly humorous blurb; Notes is a light middle grade coming of age story that will appeal especially to tweens devoted to music.  However, it doesn't go much deeper than that.  Elsie is a prickly but very sympathetic protagonist and her development into a more self-aware person is enjoyable to follow.

3 STARS

Not Just For Dancers: Bunheads by Sophie Flack

When I was in early elementary school, I wanted to be a ballerina.  It did not make a difference to me that I did not take serious ballet lessons or that I was not very interested in anything that involved serious athletic effort or ability.  I briefly took beginner dance classes, wore a pink tutu around the house, and redecorated my bedroom in baby pink with a ballet slipper pattern border (a fact I regretted for the next decade).  Although my ballet career never took off, my fascination and love for this form of dance continues.  The intense and demanding backstage world of professional ballet has always been especially interesting to me so when I heard buzz about a new novel called Bunheads, I was immediately intrigued.

Hannah Ward is not a ballerina.  Ballerinas are the big stars--the soloists in the spotlight.  Moreover, the word calls to mind fluffy pink tutus and porcelein figurines the twirl on top of music boxes. Hannah is a dancer in the corps de ballet in the famous Manhattan Ballet and her life is not pink or fluffy.   It's hours upon hours of hard physical work in sweaty leotards, practicing until her whole body aches.  Dancing has been always Hannah's only focus in life.  She's never had time for an outside social life--or a date.  When she meet sweet musician and NYU student Jacob, Hannah begins to discover the world beyond the stage.  But competition within the company is getting more and more intense and Hannah begins to realize that she's going to have to make a choice between her passion for dance and her longing for a normal, more diverse life. 

Bunheads does more that give readers a peek into the very separate world of professional ballet; it paints a complex and realistically conflicted picture of that world from the viewpoint of an involved insider.  The author Sophie Flack is recently retired dancer whose own path in the ballet world clearly parallels that of her protagonist. She danced with the company for nine years, including both national and international tours.  Thanks greatly to Sophie Flack's breadth of experience in this world,  the piece manages to portray with equal clarity both the wonder and beauty passionate dancers feel about their choosen art and career and the almost superhuman emotional, physical, and mental pressures dancers work under within a professional company.  Flack works to dispell certain myths about ballet dancers (about ubiquity of eating disorders or the belovedness of The Nutcracker) while also acknowledging the harsh truths behind some of them, such as the very real strict body shape and weight requirements in most professional companies and the potential serious medical consequences for dancers who do not maintain healthy eating and exercise habits while trying to meet them. 

Hannah is a great narrator, determined and passionate about her career as a dancer but also vulnerable and concerned that her sacrifices may not be leading her to the future she might want as an adult.  Her love for and her doubts about her career as a ballet dancer come through in her narration and her coming of age story is one that both dancers and 'pedestrians' (her friends' term for non-dancers) will be able to understand.  Although the novel is filled with ballet and dance terminology, it remains completely accessible for non-dancer readers and the descriptions and explanation are integrated well into the action of the plot.  An interesting and enjoyable debut!  This one flew off the display at my library almost immediately and I've already got a waiting list, especially among our population of young ballet dancers!

4/5 STARS

The Fast and the Fantastical: The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater

Every October, the capaill uisce--water horses with a taste for flesh--begin to merge from the sea surrounding the island of Thisby. Every November, the Scorpio Races take place and riders attempt to control their deadly captured mounts long enough to cross the finish line. Some succeed. Others die. The somewhat stoic 19 year old Sean Kendrick is already a four year champion of the races but this year he's competing to earn his beloved capal uisce stallion--and his own freedom-- from his employer, the owner of the horse trading stables on the island. Kate 'Puck' Connolly has never wanted to ride in the races, especially not since her parents were killed by capaill uisce at sea a few years ago. But when her older brother declares his plan to leave Thisby and make his way on the mainland, Puck is desperate to give him a reason to stay with her and their younger brother, keeping what's left of their family together. So Puck enters the Scorpio Races with her trustworthy island pony as her mount, making her both the first female rider and the first to ride an ordinary land horse. But while both Puck and Sean are desperate to survive--and succeed--on race day, these competitors slowly develop a deep connection born of mutual respect and a shared love of the island. However, only one rider can win the Scorpio Races.

   

When I heard that Maggie Stiefvater's newest novel The Scorpio Races was going to be about dangerous, carnivorous water horses, I was intrigued and excited   When I heard Maggie herself speak about the novel, her inspiration, and the development of the story, I learned that it was about much more that fantastic mythological horses--and I was even more excited.  Fascinated since childhood by the pieces of Irish, Scottish, and Manx mythologies that describe various versions of violent, magical horses dwelling in the ocean, Maggie Stiefvater has been attempting to write this particular story for a long time.  She discussed her longtime interest and slight obsession with water horse legends and her multiple attempts to write about them when she visited D.C.'s own Politics and Prose Bookstore to kick off The Scorpio Races' publication in November.  She describes much of this process similarly on this page on her website.  Maggie is a very funny and very eloquent speaker and writer, especially when discussing the writing process and her personal journey of development as a writer.  When discussing the development of this particular novel, she noted that the piece never really came together until she realized that she adapt the water horse myth more freely and that this particular story was more about the island of Thisby and the relationship the characters have with the island than it was about the water horses.  And I believe that this very accurate observation describes the real strength of this book; reading The Scorpio Races is an absorbing experience that can transport you into a fully imagined and fully real world that manages to be simultaneously familiar and foreign.    

As Maggie discusses on her website, this novel is more about the island than the carnivorous horses (although they're also fully developed creatures).  Thisby feels very much like a real place with a clearly developed social structure, religious/spiritual life, and long held traditions, including a fully described traditional dessert.  I have always found Maggie Stiefvater's writing to be distinctly atmospheric; her Wolves trilogy wonderfully evokes the small Midwestern town and its landscape and seasons ground that particular supernatural romance in our own recognizable world.  The world of Scorpio Races   emerges even more clearly and the island is a character in its own right, equal in both value and complexity to the human characters.  By only a few chapters in, I wanted to book the next boat out to Thisby!  

However, the human characters, especially our narrators Puck and Sean, are also complex and well-drawn and their relationships with eachother, the island, their horses, and the supporting characters are equally interesting and well-crafted.  The novel is generally well paced and the final race itself is as heart-stoppingly exciting as any action scene in The Hunger Games.  There are occasional plot holes (supporting characters that appear and slip away, never to be mentioned again) but overall, the novel's otherwise rich characterization and world makes these flaws easy to overlook. 

For anyone who likes horse stories, adventure stories, romance, and/or fantasy, The Scorpio Races is a wonderful new read and a perfect book to curl up with on a snowy evening!

4/5 STARS

That Other Egyptian Princess: Cleopatra's Moon by Vicky Alvear Shecter

Good historical fiction can be hard to come by.  A great piece of historical fiction manages to walk a delicate balancing act, combining a solid, well-researched historical framework and a rich, engrossing story.  In good historical novels, the authors manage to transport the reader into another time, place, and culture through accurate historical details and good old-fashioned character development; they must delicately craft a good, readable story out of historical facts, keeping just the right amount of 'history' and 'fiction' to satisfy a diverse group of readers. Since great historical fiction can sometimes be rare, it is especially satisfying when you stumble upon a great new historical novel like Cleopatra's Moon by Vicky Alvear Shecter!

Cleopatra Selene has always known exactly whom she was: princess of Egypt, daughter of the brilliant Queen Cleopatra and General Marcus Antonius, and a great queen in the making.  Growing up within the palace in the culturally and intellentually diverse city of Alexandria, Cleopatra Selene and her brothers learn multiple languages, chase eachother through the stacks of the great Library, attend special celebrations and dinners, and play Roman and Egyptian games.  But then Octavianus, new leader of Rome, decides that he wants Egypt's many riches for his own developing empire and begins a fresh war against Cleopatra Selene's parents and beloved country.  Suddenly everything and everyone Cleopatra Selene has ever known and loved is destroyed and she and her young brothers are shipped off to Rome, to live as prisoners in the household of Octavianus, the very man who ruined their family.  However, although she's living a disgraced princess in exile, Cleopatra Selene refuses to forget her destiny: she will be queen of Egypt and fulfill her duty to the goddess Isis and to the people of Egypt--no matter what the cost.  Living in the heart of enemy territory, Cleopatra Selene must endure heartbreak and confusion as she struggles to choose between romance and power in her quest to live up to (and perhaps beyond) her mother's example.

Cleopatra's Moon fits my personal definition of good historical fiction perfectly; Shecter has seamlessly combined historical facts, cultural details, and good old-fashioned storytelling to create a rich and addictive novel.  Using Cleopatra Selene's very aware and distinct voice, Shecter brings to life the varied worlds of ancient Alexandria and Rome, clearly displaying a vast amount of research but never overburdening the plot with dry facts or trivia.  The characters, especially the determined and unsinkable Cleopatra Selene, are full developed and incredibly interesting; you might start this novel because of an interest in ancient history or epic drama but you will stick around for the rich characters.  The story is a excellent balance of action, romance, and emotional highs and lows that will keep you turning pages.  Shecter also provides a helpful character directory at the beginning and a fascinating "Facts Within The Fiction" section that summarizes the historical facts about real situations and people on which she based the novel.   A great read for lovers of historical fiction, especially those with an interest in Ancient Egypt!

4/5 STARS