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Nancy Keane's | Booktalks -- Quick and Simple | |
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Fitzgerald,
Laura Marx
UNDER THE EGG New York : Dial Books for Young Readers, 2014 ISBN 0803740018 (3 booktalks) |
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Booktalk #1 Jack and Theo have always made a game of pinching pennies – raising chickens in the backyard, growing their own vegetables, and “recycling” others’ castoffs found on the curb. But when Jack is killed in an auto accident, the game turns serious as Theo tries to keep her eccentric mother in exotic tea and the crumbling family mansion (and even the electricity) running. When a familiar painting of an egg in Jack’s art studio reveals a hidden secret, Theo sets out to learn the truth about the painting and find Jack’s promised treasure. She is soon joined by Bodhi, whose movie star parents have moved in next door, in searching museums and the local library to track down the truth. Is there a real treasure? Is the painting a long-lost Renaissance work? Was Theo’s beloved grandfather Jack really an art thief? The answers are all under the egg. (Prepared by: Betty T. (BT) Bouton, Fort Johnson Middle, South Carolina Junior Book Award) Booktalk #2 Theo Tenpenney can’t stop thinking about the last words her grandfather, Jack, uttered to her before dying: “It's under the egg...there's a letter...and a treasure.” Theo can't get these words out of her head, but she also can't figure them out. She’s desperate for a hidden treasure. She’s trying to survive on the $463 Jack left in a mason jar. Her mother is present, but preoccupied by her obsessive work on math theorems. Jack was Theo’s caretaker and now she’s left to fend for herself. Theo discovers her first clue when she accidentally spills alcohol on a painting that hung above the mantle. This reveals another, much older, and potentially valuable painting. Where did this painting come from and why did Jack keep it hidden? Is this the treasure Jack referred to? Theo embarks on a quest to discover the origins of this painting. Along the way she learns about her grandfather’s secret past. (Dorothy Canfield Fisher Book Award DCF 2015 - 2016) Booktalk #3 Theodora Tenpenny's beloved Grandpa Jack has died and left her with a broken heart and a house full of responsibilities. Grandpa Jack's last words, telling Theo to look “under the egg,” lead her and her quirky new allies on a chase from clue to clue across New York City. (Connecticut Nutmeg Book Award nominee, 2018) |
| SUBJECTS: Art -- Fiction. Friendship -- Fiction. Greenwich Village (New York N.Y.) -- Fiction. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Fiction. Mystery and detective stories. Mystery fiction. Neighborhoods -- Fiction. New York (N.Y.) -- Fiction. Recluses -- Fiction. |
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