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Nancy Keane's | Booktalks -- Quick and Simple | |
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Frost, Helen.
HIDDEN New York : Farrar Straus Giroux, 2011 IL 5-8, RL 4.9 ISBN 0374382212 (3 booktalks) |
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Booktalk #1 Wren's mother has just run into the gas station to pay the bill. Wren stayed in the car listening to the radio. She was in the back seat and doesn't know her life was about to change forever. When the man jumped in the car and took off, he didn't see Wren so she ducked under a blanket to hide. For the next couple of days, she is trapped in the man's garage hoping he doesn't find her. But someone knows she is there. His daughter. At least Wren thinks she does. Darra leaves food and water for her. Wren is finally able to escape. Years later she is at her exclusive summer camp when she hears familiar voices. And the new girl has a name that Wren hadn't thought of in years -- Darra. Can this really be the same girl? And when Darra is introduced to Wren, she knows right away who she is. How will these girls deal with this unimaginable situation? Booktalk #2 Hidden is a story about Wren, an eight year old girl who is accidentally kidnapped when a thief steals her mother’s van as a getaway car after he robs a convenience store. The thief drives the van home and locks it in his garage unaware that Wren is inside. Wren spends two terrifying days in the locked garage. The thief’s daughter, Dara, who is also eight, figures out that there is someone hiding in the garage and smuggles food in to Wren. Wren figures out a way to escape the garage and runs for help. Dara’s father is arrested and sent to prison for his crime. Six years later the two girls’ paths will cross again, this time at summer camp where by fate or by coincidence they are both assigned to the same cabin. It is here that each girl must face the memories from the event that has shaped their lives for the last six years. Can they help each other heal? Told in alternate voices and free verse, Hidden is unique in that each girl’s poetic voice is very different. This is a great selection for reluctant readers who tend to like free verse and lots of white space on the page. (Booktalk by Tammy DiBartolo for 2014 Louisiana Young Readers’ Choice nominee) Booktalk #3When two girls meet at summer camp, they soon realize they have a secret past. Years earlier, Darra’s father accidentally kidnapped Wren who was hiding in the car he stole. That event changed both of the girls’ lives and shaped who they are now. Darra tried to help Wren escape without her father getting into trouble, but he ended up in jail anyway, for which she blames Wren. Wren couldn’t understand why Darra and her mother put up with her father’s abusiveness and wouldn’t call the authorities. A novel in verse, read Hidden to find out if they will be able to resolve their differences during summer camp and come to terms with the past before someone gets hurt. (Pennsylvania Young Reader's Choice Award nominee, 2014) |
| SUBJECTS: Novels in verse. Interpersonal relations -- Fiction. Camps -- Fiction. Memory -- Fiction. Blame -- Fiction. |
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