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Nancy Keane's | Booktalks -- Quick and Simple | |
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Gewirtz, Adina.
ZEBRA FOREST Somerville, MA : Candlewick Press, 2013 IL 3-6, RL 3.2 ISBN 0763660418 (3 booktalks) |
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Booktalk #1 Annie and Rew are masters at storytelling. Some may even call it lying but Annie knows what she needs to do to stay safe. The two children live with their grandmother who has good days and bad days. Annie knows how to spin the truth to keep social services from taking them to foster care. And Annie and Rew love to sit in the woods behind the house telling stories. When an escaped convict breaks into the house, Annie will have to do a lot of talking to keep them safe. And when she finds out who the intruder is, her world is turned upside down. Booktalk #2 From a reviewer on Goodreads: “This is a terrific book to read if you enjoy mysteries, escaped convicts, and insane grandmothers.” Ever since she was small, Annie's had three wishes: 1. Get tall 2. Have an adventure 3. Meet her father. She knows none of them will come true. Especially not the last. After all, her father's dead – killed by an angry man, a fact that Gran has told her and her brother Rew for as long as she could remember. But then there is a breakout at the prison behind their house and an escaped convict not only keeps them hostage in their own home, but reveals family secrets that change everything Annie and Rew thought they knew. (Vermont Dorothy Canfield Fisher award, 2015) Booktalk #3 What would you wish for if you had three wishes? Annie wishes to get tall, to have an adventure, and to meet her father. She doubts that her first two wishes will come true, but she knows that her third wish is impossible. Why? Because her father is dead. Gran said he was killed in a fight with an angry man. Then, their mother ran off and left them at Gran’s house when they were still toddlers. Now, Gran hardly talks anymore and spends most of her time alone in her room. Annie and Rew entertain themselves by making up adventure stories about their father the pilot or secret agent. Annie never expects that her wish for a real adventure is about to come true; only, it is not the kind of adventure that she and her brother had imagined. This adventure comes in the form of an escaped prisoner walking through the back door, taking her family hostage, and altering everything that Annie and Rew have ever known about themselves. (Prepared by: Natalie Childs, Gable Middle School, South Carolina Junior Book Award) |
| SUBJECTS: Secrets -- Fiction. Family life -- Fiction. Escaped prisoners -- Fiction. Honesty -- Fiction. |
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