Korman, Gordon.
BORN TO ROCK
New York : Hyperion, 2006
IL YA
ISBN 0786809205

(2 booktalks)

Leo Caraway has always played fair. He’s a squared-away straight-arrow high-achieving president of the High School Republicans Club. But senior year all that is blown away. First, Leo is falsely accused of cheating and loses his full scholarship to Harvard. Then he discovers that his long-lost bio-dad is actually King Maggot, punk-rock star and millionaire.

Could the solution to his college problem be his long-lost father? Would a wild-living, hard-rocking musician step up and pay for Leo’s tuition? Leo will have to spend the summer touring with his new-found father to find out.

For just about any other teenager, spending the summer on tour with a famous rock-and-roll band would be a dream come true. For Leo Caraway, it’s a nightmare! For the reader it’s a riot. Don’t miss: Born to Rock by Gordon Korman.

(Booktalk by Kirsten Edwards, King County Library  System for the Evergreen YA Book Award, 2009)

Booktalk #2

Who wouldn't want to claim Leo Caraway as their own?  He is the perfect son, and as a high school senior has been offered a full ride to Harvard.  His life suddenly starts to unravel however when he is falsely accused of cheating on a test and his scholarship is revoked.  To make things even more mind-bending, he discovers that is biological father is not the man he's lived with his entire life but is..... Think the equivalent of Alice Cooper!  King Maggot is Leo's dad's name and he is the charismatic, outlaw leader of the rock band Purge.  Without his Harvard scholarship and suddenly adrift, Leo accepts an invitation to become a roadie for King Maggot.  As the ban tours across the country on their reunion tour, Leo learns how the adult world works.  His core values never desert him however.  Things get more complicated when his best friend, Melinda, one of Purge's dedicated fan, decides to follow the tour.  What will happen to Leo when the summer ends?  Is the reunion tour a success?  Read Born to Rock by Gordon Korman to find out. (Amy Schaffner, amy.schaffner@risd.org, librarian)