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Nancy Keane's | Booktalks -- Quick and Simple | |
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Ramee, Lisa Moore. A GOOD KIND OF TROUBLE New York, NY : Balzer + Bray, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, [2019] IL 5-8 ISBN 9780062836687 4 booktalks |
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Booktalk #1 Twelve-year-old Shayla is allergic to trouble. What she really wants is to make it through junior high with goof grades, great friends and maybe get the cute boy to notice her. When she begins to notice things happening in her community, such as protests against police brutality, she decides, at the encouragement of her older sister, to take a stand. After attending a protest following the acquittal of a local police officer accused of shooting black man, Shayla decided wears a black armband like the black Lives Matter protesters and attract the attention of her principal who tells Shayla if she wants to keep her spot on the track team, she better remove the armband. Instead, Shayla brings armbands for her friends and classmates who want to support her and even though some of them have no clue, what Black Lives Matters is. Will Principal Trask kick Shayla off the track team, or worse, kick her out of school? Will Shayla stand up for her beliefs? Read A Good Kind of Trouble by Lisa Ramée Moore to find out. (Prepared by:Patti Barker, Bryson Middle School, pbarker@greenville.k12.sc.us) (South Carolina Book Awards, 2020-2021) Booktalk #2 Shayla is expecting life as usual when she begins the seventh grade. She has two best friends and she has always been the good girl. She always follows the rules and she does not get into trouble. But now her friends are changing and Shayla also has new interests and friendships.The biggest change comes when Shayla decides to wear a black armband to school in support of Black Lives Matter. Some of her classmates are supportive, but many do not understand, and some are hostile. Her principal tells her to quit wearing the armband or face the consequences. Shayla must decide whether this issue is worth the cost. (Oklahoma Sequoyah Book Awards, 2021) Booktalk #3 Shayla likes to follow the rules - trouble makes her palms itch - but in junior high all the rules are different. She’s uncertain about her relationship with her best friends and curious about her passionately activist older sister’s involvement in Black Lives Matter. When Shayla decides to wear a black armband to school in solidarity and protest, everyone takes sides - and Shayla decides that some rules are worth breaking. (Vermont Middle Grade Book Award, 2021) Booktalk #4
Step into the complicated world of school at Ralph Waldo Emerson Junior High. It’s Shayla’s first year at Emerson and she loves her locker, is scared of her lab partner, and worries about her four inch forehead. Shayla measured her forehead, because her crush called her five-head. Now Shayla wishes she’d never told her best friends about her crush and the five-head comment.
Home and family can be complicated too. Shayla’s mom is so strict -- no phone use after nine o’clock, absolutely no makeup, and even the butternut-squash cubes have to be exactly the same size when mom’s hosting a book club. Shayla’s older sister is all about protesting for civil rights and #BlackLivesMatter. Dad says, “Sometimes you have to do something that’s wrong in some people’s eyes but is morally right.” When Shayla starts wearing a black armband to school to protest a recent racially charged court decision, her school and home life start to collide with attitudes and opinions from headline news. This timely story has a lot to say about choices, race and justice. ( Karen Kline, Beaver Lake Middle School Evergreen Teen Book Award, 2022) |
| SUBJECTS: Sisters -- Fiction. Black lives matter movement -- Fiction. Identity (Psychology) -- Fiction. |
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