So B. It by Sarah Weeks

So B. It by Sarah Weeks After spending her life with her mentally retarded mother and agoraphobic neighbor, twelve-year-old Heidi sets out from Reno, Nevada, to New York to find out who she is. Very good book from www.nancykeane.com Discussion Questions

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Gallows Hill by Lois Duncan

I brought in a paperweight to use as a prop.  It was supposed to be merely a paperweight.  A paperweight I used to tell fortunes at the Halloween Carnival.  Simply a prop while Kyra fed me information via her walkie-talkie and my earphones.  It was all just a lark until Charlie came for his fortune.  [...]

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The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

2009 Newberry Medal Winner While an assassin stealthily slips from room to room, slaughtering his family, a toddler escapes from his crib, “bottom-bumps” his way down the stairs, and wanders out into the nearby graveyard where a ghost, Mrs. Owens, sensing danger, decides to adopt him. The rest of the ghosts, all from different historical [...]

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Uglies by Scott Westerfeld

What if everyone automatically became “pretty” when they turned 16?  Scott Westerfeld explores this concept in his book Uglies.  Listen to the booktalk below. Excellent book from www.nancykeane.com Can’t see the video below? Try this link.

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The Cure by Sonia Levitin

Deviant. Rebellious. Abnormal. The Elders say Gemm 16884 is all these things, and that he is a threat to the utopian society in which he lives. The Elders give him one chance to save himself: He must undergo the mysterious and painful “cure,” or he and his twin sister, Gemma, will be automatically recycled. Gemm [...]

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Touching Spirit Bear by Ben Mikaelsen

Cole Matthews is an angry, violent young man.  He loves seeing other kids afraid of him.  When a classmate gets Cole angry, Cole beats the boy so severely that he is left with permanent brain damage.  Cole knows he is facing jail this time.  His parents have gotten him out of trouble before but this [...]

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Soldier’s Heart by Gary Paulsen

Soldiers today acquire post-traumatic stress disorder; during WW II it was called battle fatigue, and in WWI, known as shell shock. In 1861 when fifteen year old Charley Goddard enlisted in the First Minnesota Volunteers, there was no term for this syndrome, but it came to be known colloquially as soldier’s heart. Soldier’s Heart details [...]

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After Tupac & D Foster by Jacqueline Woodson

2009 Newberry Medal Honor Book D Foster showed up a few months before Tupac got shot that first time and left us the summer before he died. The day D Foster enters Neeka and her best friend’s lives, the world opens up for them. D comes from a world vastly different from their safe Queens [...]

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Found by Margaret Peterson Haddix

Thirteen-year-old Jonah has always known that he was adopted, and he’s never thought it was any big deal. Then he and a new friend, Chip, who’s also adopted, begin receiving mysterious letters. The first one says, “You are one of the missing.” The second one says, “Beware! They’re coming back to get you.” Jonah, Chip, [...]

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Sheep by Valerie Hobbs

Jack is a young border collie, who tells us his passion is to be the best sheep herder ever. This passion stays with him no matter how difficult his life becomes. Jack has had many names and owners. He’s been in many tough situations but his courage is strong. He wants a good home. Is [...]

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Code Orange by Caroline Cooney

What if you found out that you might be a walking biological weapon of mass destruction? Mitty Blake has discovered that he has handled 100-year-old scabs from variola major, also known as smallpox. At first he doesn’t think it is very important. He found them in some old book his mother was going to use [...]

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Freak the Mighty by Rodman Philbrick

Kevin was everything Maxwell wasn’t. He was short, almost a dwarf, whereas Maxwell wore size 14 shoes and had to duck every time he came into a room. Where people were scared of Max, they pitied Kevin, until he opened his mouth, that is. What Kevin didn’t have in stature, he made up for it [...]

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Paper Trail by Barbara Snow Gilbert

This story begins with a bang. A boy is hiding in a fallen tree trunk. Through a knothole, he watches helplessly as militia members shoot and kill his mother. The boy hides in the tree until the coast clears. Then he heads back towards the safe meeting place, hoping to rescue his father. Then follow [...]

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Happy Kid! by Gail Gauthier

What is the worst gift you’ve ever received? For Kyle, it’s a lame self-help book his mother gives him the night before he starts seventh grade. Happy Kid: A Young Person’s Guide to Satisfying Relationships and a Happy and Meaning-Filled Life apparently shouted Kyle’s name as his mother passed the book aisle while shopping for [...]

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Define Normal by Julie Anne Peters

Antonia is a ‘nerd’, and Jazz is a ‘punk’. Antonia belongs to the math club. Jazz hangs out at the tattoo parlour. Antonia’s parents are divorced and her mother suffers from depression. Jazz is from a wealthy, traditional family. But when these two very different girls find themselves facing each other in a peer-counseling program, [...]

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Turnabout by Margaret Peterson Haddix

Did you ever see video run backwards so that it looks like something happened in reverse? There is a commercial that shows a fire, and it runs backwards so that the house becomes complete again. There is another that shows a messy stain on a shirt, and the tape reverses so that the stain disappears. [...]

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Stuck in Neutral by Terry Trueman

Fourteen year old Shawn McDaniel is a genius with some other pretty impressive gifts, only no one knows it.  He has cerebral palsy, a disease that prevents him from having any control over the muscles in his body.  He can’t speak, can’t walk, or voluntarily move any part of his body and if that is [...]

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City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau

City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau In the year 241, twelve-year-old Lina trades jobs on Assignment Day to be a Messenger to run to new places in her decaying but beloved city, perhaps even to glimpse Unknown Regions. from www.nancykeane.com Excellent book Can’t see the video below? Try this link.

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The Dream Bearer by Walter Dean Myers

Since February is Black History Month, I am featuring the booktalk podcast for The Dream Bearer by Walter Dean Myers. During a summer in Harlem, David relies on his mother and a close friend and on an old man he meets in the park to help him come to terms with his father’s outbursts and unstable behavior. [...]

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Tangerine by Edward Bloor

Are you a soccer fan?  Check out this booktalk for Tangerine by Edward Bloor. Twelve-year-old Paul, who lives in the shadow of his football hero brother Erik, fights for the right to play soccer despite his near blindness and slowly begins to remember the incident that damaged his eyesight. from NoveList K-8 Very good book

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