Young
Adult Booktalk
Text
of Booktalk
Young
Adult Booktalk: Erin Fletcher’s Where
You’ll Find Me
Florida
High School, October 14, 2015, 2pm
Citation:
Fletcher, E.
(2014). Where you’ll find me. [Kindle
Edition]. isbn: 978-1-62266-443-6
This Young Adult
Contemporary novel, released in January of 2014, is classified as Realistic
Fiction novel. The book is available in
hard and soft cover yet I read the book on Kindle at the purchase price of .99. Length of this novel is 190 pages.
Opening Hook for
Talk- “I told you not to come back to my garage, but then I thought, what if
that’s the only place you can go where you’ll be out of the cold? What if you are going to die tonight because
of me?” (Fletcher, 2014, p. 49).
Summary:
When 15 year old
Hanley sneezes in her three-car garage, the last thing she expects is to hear a
male voice breathe “Bless you” in response.
Reeling from the unexpected suicide of her best friend, Hanley dyes her
light brown hair black and sinks into a depression so deep, she is almost
unreachable. She drowns her sorrows in
boys and alcohol, routinely sneaking out in the middle of the night to meet her
new friends, Misty and Rosalinda.
Nate, aka “Garage Boy”, has run away from home
after the death of his twin brother almost one year ago. Now homeless, he hides
near Hanley’s dad’s classic Trans-Am as a means of surviving the sub-zero
winter weather. Nate provides the
confidant that Hanley needs to finally reveal the pain she feels by her best
friend’s permanent abandonment but Nate is not nearly as forthcoming in
revealing what he is hiding from. When
Nate and Hanley form a physical and emotional bond in the form of blossoming
romance, will the revelation of Nate’s secret tear them apart?
I
would give this Young Adult Contemporary novel five stars. I found the characters of Hanley and Nate to
be believable. The deeper I went into
their story, the more invested I became in their relationship and the
possibilities for their future. Can you
really fall in love with a boy you meet for the first time as he is hiding out
in your garage? Also, if you have
committed a deed so bad, do your parents have to forgive you?
Passage:
Once Nate visited the inside of Hanley’s
house, he cannot help noticing the progression on Hanley’s school photographs
where her appearance goes from sunshiny to dark.
I’m kind of afraid Nate will be in the garage. Afraid of what I’ll have to do after
that. Images of cop cars and handcuffs,
and restraining orders fill my mind. I
would do it to protect myself, but I don’t want the drama. I’m kind of afraid he won’t be there
too. No matter how hard I try, I can’t
stop thinking about his eyes. His
smile. The way he took care of me. His reaction to my school pictures. The way he noticed my change before noticing
my story(p. 34).
Booktalk
Venue
My booktalk was
composed for sophomore English students at the Florida State University School
on Wednesday, October 14, 2015 at 2pm.
Fellow graduate student, Debby Harris, offered an opportunity for other
students within the MLIS program to share our booktalks with students in her
classroom. Ms. Harris’s email address is dharris3@fsu.edu.
First off, I
needed clarification as to what the term booktalk actually means. Latham and Gross define them as “short,
spoken “teasers” intended to get young adults interested in reading books” (Latham
& Gross, 2014, p.2163). I also consulted
booktalks on YouTube for examples of dynamic book reviews. Also, I pondered my audience when building
this particular booktalk. Hopefully, I would be addressing students interested
in reading literature from the Young Adult genre, specifically written for ages
12-18 as defined by the Young Adult Library Services Associations (YALSA)
. While the audience listening to my
booktalk presentation will be both male and female, it does seem to me that
many popular novels of this genre are written from a feminine point of
view. I am hoping that the storyline,
with its plot of possible murder, attempted suicide, and substance abuse will
pique the interest of both sexes, transforming a novel that could be
misconstrued as strictly romantic to one fraught with intense situations experienced
regardless of sex. The characters within
Where You’ll Find Me struggle with
complex teen issues that students may not feel comfortable talking about but
will be able to consider more deeply and privately while discovering this book.
Where
You’ll Find Me, written by Erin Fletcher in the Fall of
2014, meets the information needs of teenagers curious about relationships,
both within families and outside with friends and love interests. The book considers whether or not it is wise
for teenagers to keep secrets from their friends and family to protect another
person they love. Students who are
beginning to form complex relationships of their own will appreciate the
struggles and feelings that the protagonist encounters as she strives to do
make the right decisions.
The relatively
recently coined term “Young Adult” denotes youth in a time period of “physical
development, that peer relationships become extremely important to them, that
they are influenced by media, and that they may experience depressed mood”
(Latham & Gross, 2014, p.384).
Students who experience Where
You’ll Find Me will be more prone to reflect on times in their own lives
when they may abuse drugs or alcohol as a method of escape from a difficult
situation. If they have not experienced
this for themselves, it is not unlikely that they know of someone who has. The information encountered within this novel
can inform young adults that they are not alone in this type of behavior,
allowing them to know that they can get themselves out of harm’s way or help
peers seek help from damaging behaviors.
My hope is also
that this booktalk will allow the students to see that they can trust
information professionals with tough questions they have and situations they
are facing. I want the audience to see
me as trustworthy, promoting a “positive image of librarians among young
people” (2163). Perhaps demonstrating my
ability to apply the lessons in this novel to my own life will encourage them
to realize that adults once faced, and sometimes still face, many of the same
difficulties in life as young people.
The
Presentation
Ms. Harris’s classroom is bright and
cheery, with students filling every seat.
Every possible racial and economic demographic appears to be represented
in her room, making this audience an excellent cross section of American
youth. The room feels very warm yet it
is difficult to tell whether it feels so due to the number of students in the
room (roughly 20) or the nerves I feel regarding presenting my book to
them. I so want the students to feel a
pull to read my book because, although it is not a bestseller or an award
winner, I feel that the book has a lot of merit and much wisdom to impart to
young people.
There are approximately five other
MLIS students presenting their booktalks today and we all are slightly
perspiring, perhaps wanting to go first and be finished with our
presentation. The students are very
well-behaved, although you do have the few who feel the need to be noticed
through silliness. I try to be conscious
of my time in front of them as I know it is hard to sit still and listen to an
older person who may not be talking about something interesting to you. Some of my peers tend to go a little long
winded but I know it is because they desperately hope that the students will
want to read the book they are presenting more than anyone else’s. We are not necessarily competitive but I do
think that we want the students to enjoy us rather than wish us gone!
I am the fourth MLIS student to
stand before the class and I can tell that the students are getting antsy. When I begin, the youth do me the honor of
granting me their full attention and I am grateful. I hook the students with one of my favorite
lines and I feel as if I hold their attention as I speak about the novel. I am getting more comfortable as I go on because
the students are respectful. My
booktalk maybe lasts about ten minutes but seems to last much longer. The
highlight comes at the end when one of the students asks me to repeat the name
and author of my book so that she can get the book for herself. Ms. Harris comments to me later that more
students asked about my book which makes me feel pretty darn good. I hope that the students will read Where You’ll Find Me, whether it is for
entertainment value, fulfilling their information needs consciously or
subconsciously saving tidbits of the story for later in life.
Presenting
in Ms. Harris’s class was important because it allows those viewing the
presentation to be exposed to a book they may not pick up on their own. Furthermore, having the booktalk come from a
source other than a teacher is an exciting opportunity to expand outside of the
realm of award winning novels and what is traditionally accepted within the
school library. The particular novel I
chose is not an award winner yet has information that fulfills information needs
of teens and comes at a very reasonable price through various easily acceptable
formats. I would love to present in this
classroom or similar again because I enjoyed the connection that I was able to
share with this amazing group of young people!
References
Fletcher,
E. (2014). Where you’ll find me.
[Kindle Edition]. isbn: 978-1-62266-443-6
Latham,
D. and Gross, M. (2014). Young adult
resources today: connecting teens with books, music, games, movies, and more.
[Kindle Edition]. isbn: 978-0-8108-8799-2
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