Law, Ingrid.
SAVVY
New York : Dial Books for Young Readers , 2008
IL 5-8, RL 6.5
ISBN 0803733062

(4 booktalks)

The Beaumont family is a bit different from those you may know.  You see, when the children reach their 13th birthday, they get their savvy.  A savvy is a special power that only they have.  Mibs is looking forward to her birthday to find out what her savvy will be.  One brother has the savvy of controlling electricity and another can cause storms.  Her mother has the savvy of being perfect.  But before Mibs can celebrate her birthday, her beloved father is in a horrible car accident and her mother goes to stay in the hospital with him.  It won't be much of a birthday will all the worry.  But Mibs does get her savvy and she now must find a way to get to her father to help.

Booktalk #2

Imagine turning 13 and having supernatural abilities. As each member of the Beaumont family turns that magic age, their SAVVY, as they refer to their unusual ability, emerges.  12 year old Mississippi Beaumont, known as Mibs, is approaching that enchanted age.  Just before her 13th birthday, her father is in an accident and lies in a coma at the hospital. Will she get her Savvy in time to save him?  Will Mibs be able to move mountains, conjure up hurricanes or have time traveling sneezes like other members in the family?  Join Mibs and her traveling companions as they take an unusual journey to discover her abilities and try to save her father.    (New Hampshire Great Stone Face nominee, 2009-2010)

Booktalk #3

Twelve-year-old Mibs Beaumont yearns for the arrival of her next birthday. Not only will she finally be a teenager, but she will experience her savvy for the first time. Everyone in the Beaumont family (except her father) has a savvy or special talent. Mibs wonders if she will have a dramatic ability, like her brother Fish who can whip up a hurricane in an instant. Perhaps hers will be a quiet yet powerful talent like her mother’s, which can make everything come out just right. Shortly before the big day, her father is in a car accident. Worried to distraction about her Dad, Mibs hopes desperately for a savvy that will help him. After several incidents, she is convinced her savvy is to wake creatures up. In a panic to reach her father in Salinas, Kansas, Mibs stows away on a bus. But she isn’t the only person who is a stowaway. To make matters  worse, her savvy isn’t what she thinks – and the bus is headed in the wrong direction!  (Pennsylvania Young Reader's Choice Award nominee, 2011)

Booktalk #4

If you could choose to have a special power what would it be?

My name is Mibs, short for Mississippi, and I come from a very unique family. When we turn thirteen, we get to find out what our “savvy” is which is a magical power. My brother can control electricity, my mother is perfect, and my grandfather can move mountains. I was so excited for my birthday to arrive so I could finally find out what my savvy was going to be, but all that excitement changed in an instant when my father was involved in a horrible accident and left in a coma. 

Savvy is a modern fantasy novel that follows the wild journey that Mibs and her brothers take to visit their father at the hospital.  Mibs believes that her savvy may have the potential to wake her father up, so she stops at nothing to make sure that they make it to the hospital in time. Find out what other secrets this family holds, and if Mibs savvy wakes her father up in Savvy, by Ingrid Law.  (Melissa Dusing, ma-dusing@wiu.edu, college student)