Caletti, Deb. 
THE NATURE OF JADE
New York : Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, c2007.
IL YA
ISBN 1416910050

(2 booktalks)

Seventeen year old Jade De Luna suffers from panic attacks.  They are due to a combination of factors, one being her realization of her own immortality, two being the pressures of her senior year and her self-imposed workload, and finally, from her parent’s general cluelessness.  She discovers that what works better than medicine is to engage in calming activities, like observing the elephants at the zoo through her webcam.  During these sessions with her webcam, she becomes intrigued by a regular visitor to the zoo, a boy who carries a baby on his back. She decides to take a volunteer job at the zoo to see if she can meet the boy.  In due course, she meets him, Sebastian, and they fall in love. But there are problems: Sebastian is a single father, with a secret that threatens to destroy Jade's hopes and dreams. Is she really like her name, Jade, stronger than steel?  (Mary M. Silgals, Trident Academy, for South Carolina Young Adult Book Awards, 2008-2009)

Booktalk #2

While watching the elephants on Seattle’s zoo webcam to calm her panic attacks, 17-year-old Jade DeLuna notices a cute boy with a baby and knows they are destined to be important to her. She volunteers with the elephants and meets and falls in love with Sebastian, a single dad, but their happiness is threatened when Sebastian’s dangerous secret surfaces. (Florida Teen Read, 2009)