Booktalks Quick and Simple

	Bowling, Dusti. 24 HOURS IN NOWHERE New York : Sterling Children's Books, 2018 IL 5-8 ISBN 9781454929246 (2 booktalks)
Click on the book to read Amazon reviews	Booktalk #1 Welcome to Nowhere! Nowhere, Arizona that is, a desert town deemed the “least livable town in the United States,” a place where dirt biking on a dusty track rules. And if you don’t enjoy that, you’re out of luck. Thirteen-year-old Gus, smart but small for his age, lives in his grandma’s trailer and plans to ace the SATs and get out of town after high school. But for now, he’s just trying to survive. When a bully named Bo nearly forces Gus to eat a cactus, an unlikely thing happens. He is saved by Rossi, a Native American girl, new to town and an amazing rider, who gives up her bike to Bo. Determined to get the bike back, Gus goes into Dead Frenchman Mine for a piece of gold to trade the bully for the bike. He’s not alone though. Bo’s sent Matthew, one of his minions, to keep an eye on Gus, and soon they’re joined by Rossi and Gus’s former best friend Jessie in their adventures in the dangerous 100-year-old mine. And there really was a dead Frenchman. He was involved in a long-ago murder that has present-day family connections, adding a touch of mystery to the story. As the kids navigate through the cave and all its terrifying dangers—from mountain lions and cave-ins to underground lakes—they keep talking to one another in conversations that are both hysterical and heart-felt. You’ll feel the dust and the heat and the hearts pounding, and you won’t forget these quirky, likable kids. (New Hampshire Great Stone Face Book Award nominee, 2020) Booktalk #2 Gus hopes in just a short twenty-four hours, he can explore and escape the abandoned mine in his home of Nowhere, Arizona. He just has to find the rumored gold, win back a dirt bike from a thirteen-year-old bully, and try not to die from dehydration, cave-ins, and wild animal attacks. But man can’t survive on Twinkies alone. A life-threatening adventure such as this requires the companionship of the dirt bike-riding new girl in town and Gus’s two former friends. Throughout the day and night, the group of outsiders learn that they have more things in common than they realized, and it’s their newly formed bond that will be the key to their survival. Bikes might get damaged and bones might get broken, but their newly formed friendships will thrive in this desert town. (Sunshine State Young Readers Award Books 2019-2020)
	SUBJECTS: Friendship -- Fiction. Bonding (Interpersonal relations) -- Fiction. Abandoned mines -- Fiction. Treasure troves -- Fiction.

Bowling, Dusti.
24 HOURS IN NOWHERE
New York : Sterling Children's Books, 2018
IL 5-8
ISBN 9781454929246

(2 booktalks)

Click on the book to read Amazon reviews

Booktalk #1

Welcome to Nowhere! Nowhere, Arizona that is, a desert town deemed the “least livable town in the United States,” a place where dirt biking on a dusty track rules. And if you don’t enjoy that, you’re out of luck.

Thirteen-year-old Gus, smart but small for his age, lives in his grandma’s trailer and plans to ace the SATs and get out of town after high school. But for now, he’s just trying to survive. When a bully named Bo nearly forces Gus to eat a cactus, an unlikely thing happens. He is saved by Rossi, a Native American girl, new to town and an amazing rider, who gives up her bike to Bo. Determined to get the bike back, Gus goes into Dead Frenchman Mine for a piece of gold to trade the bully for the bike. He’s not alone though. Bo’s sent Matthew, one of his minions, to keep an eye on Gus, and soon they’re joined by Rossi and Gus’s former best friend Jessie in their adventures in the dangerous 100-year-old mine. And there really was a dead Frenchman. He was involved in a long-ago murder that has present-day family connections, adding a touch of mystery to the story.

As the kids navigate through the cave and all its terrifying dangers—from mountain lions and cave-ins to underground lakes—they keep talking to one another in conversations that are both hysterical and heart-felt. You’ll feel the dust and the heat and the hearts pounding, and you won’t forget these quirky, likable kids.
(New Hampshire Great Stone Face Book Award nominee, 2020)

Booktalk #2

Gus hopes in just a short twenty-four hours, he can explore and escape the abandoned mine in his home of Nowhere, Arizona. He just has to find the rumored gold, win back a dirt bike from a thirteen-year-old bully, and try not to die from dehydration, cave-ins, and wild animal attacks. But man can’t survive on Twinkies alone. A life-threatening adventure such as this requires the companionship of the dirt bike-riding new girl in town and Gus’s two former friends. Throughout the day and night, the group of outsiders learn that they have more things in common than they realized, and it’s their newly formed bond that will be the key to their survival. Bikes might get damaged and bones might get broken, but their newly formed friendships will thrive in this desert town. (Sunshine State Young Readers Award Books 2019-2020)

SUBJECTS:

Friendship -- Fiction.
Bonding (Interpersonal relations) -- Fiction.
Abandoned mines -- Fiction.
Treasure troves -- Fiction.