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Nancy Keane's | Booktalks -- Quick and Simple | |
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Norton, Preston. NEANDERTHAL OPENS THE DOOR TO THE UNIVERSE Los Angeles ; New York : Disney-Hyperion, 2018. IL YA ISBN 9781484790625 (2 booktalks) |
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Booktalk #1 What happens when the star quarterback partners up with a huge loser to make their high school suck less? Aaron Zimmerman returns to Happy Valley High school after a near death experience and claims God gave him a list of problems to address. He recruits Cliff Hubbard (nicknamed Neanderthal because he's 6'6", 250 pounds) to help. Cliff and Aaron work their way through the list involving a vindictive English teacher, a computer hacker, a Jesus Teens cult, drug dealers and the meanest bully at HVHS. While fixing a broken school isn't as easy as it seems, the unlikely pair attempt to do so with humor and heart. (Florida Teen Read, 2020) Booktalk #2 Do you ever wonder if God has a plan for you? He did for high school senior, Aaron. Aaron is Happy Valley High School’s star athlete and all-around “Big Man on Campus;” he is also the school bully and his prime target is 16-year-old, 6’6”, 250 lb. self-conscious, self-loathing Cliff, who Aaron cruelly calls “Neanderthal.” When Aaron is in an accident and awakens from a coma, God has a little surprise. Aaron claims God has given him a list of 5 things he must do to improve life at Happy Valley High and Cliff must help him. Cliff obviously has no intention of helping until he remembers his suicidal brother’s last message: find out what is on the other side of the Monolith in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. With that in mind, dubious Cliff joins Aaron to complete their tasks, one being to get repentance from a self-righteous Christian group who relentlessly teases an openly gay student at HVHS. The sermon-off is hysterical. This book is smart and funny. It tackles big issues of religion and hypocrisy with a faith that invites and warms. (Book Talk by Nancy Federiuk, Pacific Middle School ) (Washington Evergreen Book Award nominee 2021) |
| SUBJECTS: High
schools -- Fiction. Schools -- Fiction. Visions -- Fiction. Grief -- Fiction. Family problems -- Fiction. |
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