WHAT ABOUT YOU?
LET’S RING THE BELL!
Few things can draw a reader to a new book like a book trailer can.
Get the popcorn ready.
Last week we talked about time traveling. One of the ways we “time travel” is by reading books that take place in the past.
We can read informational books about a time period or about the history of something specific.
What many students find captivating is reading narratives—stories—that take place in an interesting time and place in history. We imagine ourselves in the main character’s shoes—living, experiencing, surviving in the past.
What would it be like to visit the south during the time of Jim Crow laws where things were separate, but (supposedly) equal?
What would it be like to live in a concentration camp in Nazi-controlled Europe during WWII?
Or infiltrating the Hitler Youth as a kid spy:
When the Nazis were bombing England in WWII, many children were sent off to the countryside to escape. What would it be like to live with someone you don’t know? If you had a twisted, lame, club foot… and your mom had kept you locked in the one-room apartment your whole life… and you snuck out…?
You many have heard your teachers talk about the times of slavery. How about though the eyes of slaves?
What was the South Sudan genocide about?
What kinds of historical events could I SURVIVE?
THIS is the draw of historical fiction (HF). These kinds of book are the ones with the black labels by the door. I encourage you to check these books out and TIME TRAVEL yourselves.
Author Jennifer Nielsen brings you one girl’s story of the Berlin Wall…
A Night Divided joins the Scholastic Gold line, which features award-winning and beloved novels. Includes exclusive bonus content!
With the rise of the Berlin Wall, Gerta finds her family suddenly divided. She, her mother, and her brother Fritz live on the eastern side, controlled by the Soviets. Her father and middle brother, who had gone west in search of work, cannot return home. Gerta knows it is dangerous to watch the wall, yet she can’t help herself. She sees the East German soldiers with their guns trained on their own citizens; she, her family, her neighbors and friends are prisoners in their own city.
But one day on her way to school, Gerta spots her father on a viewing platform on the western side, pantomiming a peculiar dance. Gerta concludes that her father wants her and Fritz to tunnel beneath the wall, out of East Berlin. However, if they are caught, the consequences will be deadly. No one can be trusted. Will Gerta and her family find their way to freedom?
And now… a new HF novel:
Emmett Till was born in 1941 in Chicago and grew up in a middle-class black neighborhood. Till was visiting relatives in Money, Mississippi, in 1955 when the fourteen-year-old was accused of whistling at Carolyn Bryant, a white woman who was a cashier at a grocery store.
Four days later, Bryant’s husband Roy and his half-brother J.W. Milam kidnapped Till, beat him and shot him in the head. The men were tried for murder, but an all-white, male jury acquitted them.
I recommend this book to all readers. It is fantasy… but it’s also realistic and historical. Quite a combination.
WHAT ABOUT YOU?
LET’S RING THE BELL!
Few things can draw a reader to a new book like a book trailer can.
Get the popcorn ready.
Interested in time travel? Are you fascinated by how things that happened in the past affect the present… and the future?
Maybe you’ve heard of the recent show TIMELESS.
This might be the perfect series for YOU!
This series is a book, but also a game. The trailer is showing off the game, but also gives you a feel for the books.
A modern classic from Newbery medalist Jerry Spinelli.
“Readers will devour this humorous glimpse of what jocks are made of.” —School Library Journal, starred review
Cocky seventh-grade super-jock Crash Coogan got his nickname the day he used his first football helmet to knock his cousin Bridget flat on her backside. And he has been running over people ever since, especially Penn Webb, the dweeby, vegetarian Quaker kid who lives down the block. Through the eyes of Crash, readers get a rare glimpse into the life of a bully in this unforgettable and beloved story about stereotypes and the surprises life can bring.
Orphan Black meets Lord of the Flies in this riveting new thriller from the co-author of the Virals series.
It’s been happening since Min was eight. Every two years, on her birthday, a strange man finds her and murders her in cold blood. But hours later, she wakes up in a clearing just outside her tiny Idaho hometown—alone, unhurt, and with all evidence of the horrifying crime erased.
Across the valley, Noah just wants to be like everyone else. But he’s not. Nightmares of murder and death plague him, though he does his best to hide the signs. But when the world around him begins to spiral toward panic and destruction, Noah discovers that people have been lying to him his whole life. Everything changes in an eye blink.
For the planet has a bigger problem. The Anvil, an enormous asteroid threatening all life on Earth, leaves little room for two troubled teens. Yet on her sixteenth birthday, as she cowers in her bedroom, hoping not to die for the fifth time, Min has had enough. She vows to discover what is happening in Fire Lake and uncovers a lifetime of lies: a vast conspiracy involving the sixty-four students of her sophomore class, one that may be even more sinister than the murders.
My Thoughts…
Man! What a crazy ride of a book. Just when I thought I knew what was going on, everything changed. This was a fantastic listen while I was driving, working in the yard, or cleaning my garage. It took a long time, though. The magic librarian on the web took it back before I was finished and I had to wait almost a month to get it back to finish. Luckily the story was still trapped in my brain and I was able to pick up right where I left off.
Maybe in a couple years you’ll want to give this fantasy weirdness a try.
WHAT ABOUT YOU?
LET’S RING THE BELL!
{Eat the Book} 