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Lynn: Cindy and I may differ on our favorite genres but we are in complete agreement about funny books.  It is REALLY hard to write funny books and we LOVE them.  Kristen Tracy writes really funny books and today we are going to talk about two of them.  I get to start with The Reinvention [...]

Cindy: We have a pair of school related disaster books today that will make great booktalks and will grab reluctant readers. Mine fits well with all the snow that has been piling up in West Michigan this winter. I wish I had read it before our numerous snow days…imagine being trapped at school–horrors! Trapped (Scholastic [...]

Lynn: Don’t you love it when you find a book that is wonderfully written, will be a sure-fire winner with teens AND provides the perfect booktalking quote too? Revolver (Roaring Brook, 2010) does all this in 200 accessible can’t-stop-reading-them pages. The book opens with a bang as young Sig looks at the dead body of [...]

Lynn: You could not ask for a better book to booktalk than Escape Under the Forever Sky (Chronicle, 2009)! Sit back and picture this: the Ethiopian wilderness, a thirteen-year-old American girl who has been kidnapped, escapes and with her captors right behind her, runs barefooted straight into a hidden pride of lions. After a heart-stopping [...]

Cindy: It’s very exciting to have had an early peek at Catching Fire (Scholastic, Sept. 1, 2009) but that just means the wait for book three will seem even longer! One thing I know for sure, it will be worth the wait, whether you are a lucky soul in the same boat, or if you [...]