MacHale, D. J.
SYLO
New York : Razorbill, 2013
IL YA
ISBN 1595146652

(3 booktalks)

Booktalk #1

It was just a typical night on Pemberwick Island off the coast of Maine.  Tucker was occupying the bench at the football game as usual.  It all began to change when the star player just keeled over and died.  Just like that.  How could a perfectly normal athlete just die?  As Tucker and his friend Quinn try to figure it out, they witness an explosion in the sky.  And military people parachuting onto the island.  This can't be happening.  Special forces from the Navy have not occupied the island and everyone is cut off from the rest of the world.  When people try to leave, they are dealt with harshly -- and permanently.  To make this all even harder to understand, Tucker learns that his parents are working for SYLO.  Why would his parents be working for the enemy.  The kids feel their only hope is to escape the island and let the rest of the world know what is going on.

Booktalk #2

“It was the perfect night for a football game. And for death. Not that the two have anything in common. When you hear the term ‘sudden death,’ you normally don’t expect there to be an actual loss of life, sudden or otherwise, but there was nothing normal about that night. It was the night it began. The night of the death. The first death.”

 Tucker Pierce lives the normal life of a high school freshman, playing football and trying to be brave enough to ask a girl out. The mysterious death of his fellow teammate Marty begins a series of strange events that are anything but normal or boring. Tucker witnesses a strange midnight explosion over the ocean involving an odd flying object and finds a pile of mysterious red rocks on the beach. When the Maine island he lives on is placed under a forced quarantine by SYLO, a secret branch of the US Navy, Tucker realizes that his normal life is about to change.  Read SYLO by D. J. MacHale to follow Tucker on his journey of adventure, mystery, and national conspiracies.  (Prepared by:  Dana Whelchel, Liberty Middle School, South Carolina Junior Book Award)

Booktalk #3

Amidst suspicious quarantine orders for a seemingly nonexistent virus, a martial takeover by an organization called SYLO, and a new drug that gives dangerous strength to the user, everyday life is suddenly turned upside down for high school football player Tucker Pierce and his entire island community. Tucker makes the risky decision to escape to the mainland state only to find that the mysterious situation is even more extensive than he imagined. The sequels are STORM and STRIKE.  (Booktalk by Louisiana Young Readers' Choice Committee, 2016)