The Quartzsite Trip, by William Hogan
While this is definitely my favorite book and booktalk, it's a bit of a cheat, because the book is out of print, and has been for a while, although you can sometimes find it on eBay. But nonetheless, it still reflects the joys and the angst of being a teen, and showed me how to be a teacher. It was the first talk I did during booktalking workshops for years. For more information on what I have to say about The Quartzsite Trip, please take a look at Lost Masterworks of Young Adult Fiction, edited by Connie Zitlow, and available after September, 2002, from Scarecrow Press.

It was the spring of 1962, and at John Muir High School in Los Angeles County, California, PJ Cooper gave out invitations to the Quartzsite Trip. PJ Cooper taught English at John Muir High and was the only person who had been on all of the Quartzsite Trips. He had been born in Quartzsite, Arizona, and had invented the trip on a whim seven years ago.

The Trip was held every year during spring vacation--the week before Easter. Only seniors were invited, and only thirty-six--one school bus-load. PJ Cooper invited them on the Monday two weeks before spring vacation. In 1962, that was April 2nd. No one had ever been on the Trip who had not been in school the day invitations were given out. On April 2, 1962, at John Muir High School, in Los Angeles County, California, there were no absences in the senior class.

No one knew how or why PJ Cooper decided whom to invite on the Quartzsite Trip. Some were invited in hallways or during classes. Some found notes in their lockers or at the bottom of the papers PJ handed back to his senior English class. And all the invitations, written and spoken, said the same thing-"You are invited to the Quartzsite Trip." That was all, and that was enough. One boy was even invited in the boys' restroom, while smoking an illicit cigarette. It was the most sought-after invitation at John Muir High School, and it couldn't be obtained by beauty or brains or strength or popularity. No skill, reputation, office, achievement, virtue, or vice could assure it. It was the ultimate status, and PJ Cooper bestowed it.

Every spring vacation, a school bus took PJ Cooper, thirty-six incompatible seniors, and four Muir High School graduates who had been on the Trip during their senior years, out into the desert, seven miles north of Quartzsite, Arizona. Five days later, it returned. In between was the Quartzsite Trip.

In 1962, John Glenn was the first American to orbit earth in a spacecraft. Tricia Nixon celebrated her sixteenth birthday, and Jack Paar left the Tonight Show. In 1962, Katherine Anne Porter published A Ship of Fools, West Side Story won the Oscar for Best Picture, and Ben Casey was the hit of the TV season. In 1962, there was a new singing group called Peter, Paul and Mary, and their biggest hit, and the favorite song sung on the Quartzsite Trip, was "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" In 1962, coffee was 59 cents a pound, gasoline 21 cents a gallon, and at Bob's Big Boy in Los Angeles County, California, a cheeseburger with fries was 55 cents. 1962 was the Jerk, the Slop, and the Hully Gully. 1962 was the flattop and the flip, pinning, giving the BA, makeout parties, and drive-in movies.

And for thirty-six seniors at John Muir High School, 1962 was PJ Cooper and the Quartzsite Trip. In 1962, Deeter Moss, Margaret Ball, Ann Hosak, Phil Baker, Stretch Latham, Mary Allbright, and Horace Clay and twenty-nine others were invited on the Quartzsite Trip. It was the seventh trip. It began on April 16, 1962.

And now YOU are invited on The Quartzsite Trip. (Top)

--Joni Richards Bodart Booktalk!2: Booktalking for All Ages and Audiences. HW Wilson, 1985

Chinese Handcuffs, by Chris Crutcher
When I stopped using QT as an intro booktalk, I started using this one. I like the way it touches on some of the problems Chris presents and ignores others. And the cover of the paperback, with an actual Chinese handcuff on it, is perfect for booktalking!

My name is Dillon Hemingway, and I'm seventeen years old. But I was only nine when Stacy caught me with Chinese handcuffs. We were at the carnival, and she came up to me and shoved a woven straw cylinder stuck on the end of her index finger at me. "Stick your finger in!" I did, and discovered that I couldn't get away. No matter how hard I pulled, the cylinder just got tighter and tighter. "Chinese handcuffs," Stacy said. "Neat, huh? You have to know the secret to get out. The gypsy lady said it was the secret of life."

Well, that gypsy knew what she was talking about. The way to escape was one of the secrets of life--at least, of my life. In order to get my finger out of that straw tube, I had to push my finger into it, not try to pull it out. The harder I tried to get away, the more I pulled against the tube, the tighter I was trapped. The only way to get my finger out of that tube was to quit trying to escape and release the pressure.

Now I'm caught in another version of Chinese handcuffs--only the finger in the other end of the cylinder belongs to my brother Pres, who's dead. He shot himself in front of me one Saturday morning at dawn two years ago. He said he wanted to get some target practice--I didn't realize the target would be his head.

But I'm not the only one struggling to get out of an impossible situation. Jennifer is, too. She's the main lady in my life, but even though we're best friends, she's never let anything romantic get started. I couldn't figure out why, till she told me about her Chinese handcuffs: about how first her father and now her stepfather sneak into her room late at night and molest her. She can't remember the first time it happened--she was too young, maybe only three or four. She told twice--once on her father, when she was in second grade and the teacher talked about what to do when people touch you in ways you don't like. Her mother kicked him out, but then, just a few years later, she married T.B. and it started all over again. And T.B. warned Jennifer not to tell, because if she did, he'd make her look like a fool, and then he'd kill what she loved the most. But finally she couldn't stand it any longer, and told again. And everything T.B. had predicted came true. He got out of it, made Jennifer look like a liar, and then he ran over her dog with the car. Jennifer never told again--that is, until she told me. And she made me promise never to tell anyone else, no matter what. She was scared T.B. would do more than just beat up on her mother. He might also start doing the same things to her little sister that he was doing to her. She was caught, and she couldn't get out.

Chinese handcuffs--you can't pull away, you have to give in. Can Jennifer discover how to escape? Can I?

--Joni Richards Bodart

Booktalk!4: Selections from "The BookTalker" for all Ages and Audiences. HW Wilson, 1992.

Booktalking the Award Winners, Young Adult Retrospective Volume. HW Wilson, 1996.

Radical Reads: 101 YA Novels on the Edge. Scarecrow, 2002.(Top)

Catherine, Called Birdy, by Karen Cushman
There is no way I could improve on Cushman's humor and style, so this talk is just a series of excerpts from the book. And what I love best about it is that I get to say a naughty word or two, and watch the kids as they goggle and then giggle! (I guess I have to admit to being an adolescent too!)

12th Day of September

I am commanded to write an account of my days: I am bit by fleas and plagued by family. That is all there is to say.

15th Day of September

Today the sun shone and the villagers sowed hay, gathered apples, and pulled fish from the stream. I, trapped inside, spent two hours embroidering a cloth for the church and three hours picking out my stitches after my mother saw it. I wish I were a villager.

16th Day of September Spinning. Tangled. 17th Day of September Untangled. 19th Day of September

I am delivered! My mother and I have made a bargain. I may forego spinning as long as I write this account. So I will write. What follows will be my book--the book of Catherine, called Little Bird or Birdy, daughter of Rollo and the lady Aislinn, sister to Thomas, Edward, and the abominable Robert, of the village of Stonebridge in the shire of Lincoln, in the country of England, in the hands of God. Begun this 19th day of September in the year of Our Lord 1290, the fourteenth year of my life. Picked off twenty-nine fleas today.

21st Day of September

Something is astir. I can feel my father's eyes following me about the hall. And he asks me questions, the beast who never speaks to me except with the flat of his hand to my cheek or my rump. "Exactly how old are you, daughter?" "Have you all your teeth?" "Is your breath sweet or foul?" "Are you a good eater?" "What color is your hair when it is clean?" "How are your sewing and your bowels and your conversation?" What is brewing here?

24th Day of September

The stars and my family align to make my life black and miserable. My mother seeks to make me a fine lady. My brother Edward thinks even girls should not be ignorant, so he taught me to read and write. Now my father, the toad, conspires to sell me like a cheese to some lack-wit seeking a wife. What makes this clodpole suitor anxious to have me? I am no beauty, being sun-browned and gray-eyed, with poor eyesight and a stubborn disposition. My family holds but two small manors. We have no silver or jewels or boundless acres to attract a suitor. Corpus bonus! He comes to dine with us in two days' time. I plan to cross my eyes and drool in my meat.

26th Day of September

Master Lack-wit came today. He was of middle years and fashionably pale. He was also a mile high and bony as a herring, with gooseberry eyes, chin like a hatchet and tufts of orange hair sprouting from his head, his ears and his nose. I rubbed my nose until it shone red, blacked out my front teeth with soot, and dressed my hair with the mouse bones I found under the rushes in the hall. All through dinner I smiled my gap-tooth smile at him and wiggled my ears. Master Lack-Wit left without a betrothal.

11th Day of January

The ice on the river has finally frozen hard enough to walk on. Perkin and Gerd the miller's son came to the kitchen for bones that they will polish and fasten to their shoes so they can glide on the ice. I begged my mother to be allowed to go, but she had a headache and would not speak of it. Being angry, I thought to make a list of all the things girls are not allowed to do:

	go on crusade be horse trainers be monks
	laugh very loud wear breeches drink in ale houses cut their hair
	piss in the fire to make it hiss wear nothing be alone get sunburned run
	marry whom they will glide on the ice 19th Day of March

A messenger arrived this night for the beast my father. From Murgaw, lord of Lithgow, the shaggy-bearded pig of the wedding feast. My father has said nothing to me yet, but I fear it is a request for me to wed and bed with Shaggy Beard's son. I will not, God's thumbs! Is there no end to this procession of unsuitable suitors? Perhaps I should ask Thomas Carpenter to help me construct a trap door in the hall and just drop them into the river as they arrive.

20th Day of March

Shaggy Beard has not asked for me to marry his son. It is Shaggy Beard himself who wishes to take me for wife! What a monstrous joke. That dog assassin whose breath smells like the mouth of Hell, who makes wind like others make music, who attacks helpless animals with knives, who is ugly and old! I must make a plan, for I will not, of course, wed the pig. Deus! I cannot even conceive of such a fate. Could it be? Would they really sell me to that odious old man? I cannot think so. I will contrive something. Luckily I am experienced at outwitting suitors.

Will Catherine be able to outwit Shaggy Beard, or will her father outwit her, and force her to marry a man she fears and despises?

--Joni Richards Bodart

Booktalking the Award Winners, Volume 3. HW Wilson, 1997. (Top)

Red Sky at Morning, by Richard Bradford
This is one of the first talks I ever did, but it works as well as ever, because the "gag factor" is still mighty effective!

After Pearl Harbor, Josh Arnold's father decides to send his family someplace safe. Safe is Sagrado, New Mexico, a little town up in the mountains, about as far from Atlanta's shipbuilding yards as you can get. It's the kind of place that has a population of six cows, four dogs, seventeen chickens, and almost no people. Josh has to get used to a whole new way of life, and he gets into trouble his very first day at school.

He's watching this beautiful girl walk down the hall and notices that no one else is looking at her. It's as if she doesn't even exist. Just at that moment, Josh feels a knife stick in the back of his neck, and a voice growls, "You look at my sister like that, I cut your ear off!" It is Chango, the town bully, and that's why no one is looking at his sister. Then Josh hears, "Oh, lay off, Chango, he's new--let him go," and Chango skulks off down the hall, muttering under his breath. Josh turns to his rescuer. It's Steenie, the local doctor's son.

Steenie decides that Josh needs some lessons on how to survive in Sagrado. He enlists to help of Marcia, the daughter of the local minister. They are without doubt the two best poeple in town to teach Josh how to survive in Sagrado. Steenie read all his father's medical books and knows all the Latin and Greek medical terms for all the parts of the body. He can cuss you out for ten minutes, and you'll never have any idea what he really said--and what's better, neither will his teachers! Marcia, on the other hand, is a typical "preacher's kid," she specializes in dirty jokes. Every year she goes to church camp and comes back with a whole year's supply--the worst ones in town! Marcia and Steenie decide that the first thing Josh needs to learn is how to play Chicken, Sagrado-style.

On Saturday, they take him out to lunch: the greasiest, hottest tacos and burritos they can find--as many as Josh can eat, and really more than he wants. (Remember, Josh is from Atlanta, and his stomach isn't used to Mexican food.) Then they go for a walk. Josh isn't used to the high altitude, and he's lagging behind, panting for breath, his stomach feeling worse by the minute, when he notices that Steenie and Marcia have stopped and are talking. They're at the top of this little rise and are pointing to something below them, and saying things like, "Boy, this is gonna be a great game of Chicken--the best we've had in a long time!" "Yeah, Josh is really gonna learn to play the right way!" "He's one lucky fellow--it wasn't this good when I learned to play," and so on. Josh is really wondering what's going on, till he gets to the place where they're standing and looks down. There in front of him is the town dump, and in the middle of the dump is a dead horse, a very dead horse--bloated, covered with maggots, and smelling horrible.

The object of the game is to walk, or run, up to the horse, touch it, and walk, or run, back to the starting point, which is back just far enough that you can take a deep breath without throwing up. If you walk up, you have to walk back, which takes longer, but you aren't so likely to get out of breath. If you run up, you run back, which won't take as long, but you may lose your breath, and have to take another. Marcia says, "Ladies first!" Marcia is a walker. She walks up to the horse, touches it-"nice horsie"--and walks back. Steenie is a runner. He dashes up to the horse, gives it a kick-"Hey horse"-and runs back.

Josh just can't believe this stupid game! And he's so busy thinking about these small-town kids and their dumb games that he doesn't see the empty beer bottle lying right in front of the horse-the bottle Steenie and Marcia have very carefully avoided. He trips and falls and slides right into home plate, which is, of course, the horse.

Now, what do you do when you fall down suddenly? You lose your breath. And what do you have to do when you lose your breath? Take another one. Well, that's what Josh does, he can't stop himself, and that's when he loses both his lunch and the game of Chicken. When he gets back to where Steenie and Marcia are, they're still howling with laughter, hardly able to talk. But when she gets her breath back, Marcia says, "You know, Josh, we've been playing the game wrong all these years. You're not supposed to just touch the horse--you've got to get in there and hug him like a brother!"

And that's only the first of many lessons that Josh learns about how to survive in Sagrado, New Mexico!

--Joni Richards Bodart

Booktalk!3: More Booktalks for all Ages and Audiences. HW Wilson, 1988.

Booktalking the Award Winners, Young Adult Retrospective Volume. HW Wilson, 1996. (Top)

Connections, edited by Don Gallo
Angus Bethune is one of my very favorite characters, and this talk focuses on Chris Crutcher's story about him, "A Brief Moment in the Life of Angus Bethune." I do love to introduce kids to Angus!

We all make connections with other people, some deliberately, some by accident. Sometimes that connection becomes a lasting bond, and sometimes it's only a casual tie, that breaks with just the slightest tug. It can be a face-to-face connection or one by mail or by computer, but no matter how the connection is made or how long it lasts, it changes things for the two people involved, either a little or a lot. Let me introduce you to one of the people in this book that I connected with. Angus Bethune is the first person I met, and, I think definitely the most memorable.

He's just been selected Senior Winter Ball King, something that obviously has to be a joke, since Angus is as far from the kind of Adonis that usually reigns over the ball as any one person can be. And on top of that, he has four parents, two biological and two step. Not so unusual, you say? But his parents are paired up a little differently from the average ones. His two dads are married--to each other! So are his two moms. And since neither of his biological parents is exactly small, Angus is a big kid--always has been. Not exactly someone you could overlook. He says he's really fat--I have my doubts. You can't have the kind of football moves that he does and still be as fat as he says he is; there's just no way.

But tonight he doesn't want to hear the fat jokes or the faggot jokes he's had to listen to all his life, because he doesn't want to be the laughingstock of the Winter Ball. He wants normal. He wants socially acceptable. You see, the Queen of the Senior Winter Ball is Melissa LeFevre, the girl of his dreams (and only his dreams), and after she and Angus are crowned, they'll have to dance together. Angus figures that this will be his moment, his only chance to hold Melissa in his arms, and he wants it to be perfect. He's been in love with her ever since kindergarten, when she dared a kid named Alex Immergluck to stick his tongue on a car bumper in minus thirty-five degree weather, because he called her a "big fat snotnosed deadbeat." Even at that young age, Angus was always looking for creative ways to retaliate against his own name-callers, and when he saw the patch of Alex's tongue stuck fast to that frozen bumper, as Alex went screaming down the street, holding his bleeding mouth, he knew he was in the company of genius. And such a beautiful genius, too--a tan, long-legged blonde with brown eyes who just made Angus ache every time he saw or even thought of her. And now he was going to have to hold her in his arms and dance with her while the whole school watched. Maybe if he was lucky, if he wouldn't crush her feet by accident, if he wouldn't be laughed at or embarrass her too much, maybe….

Well, I'll let you find out for yourselves what happens to Angus after he walks into the high school gym that night. All I have to say is that it was nothing like what he'd expected, nothing like what he'd hoped for, and nothing even close to what he'd dreamed of, not even in his wildest dreams.

And so I'd like to introduce Angus Bethune and Melissa LeFevre, the King and Queen of the Senior Winter Ball, in "A Brief Moment in the Life of Angus Bethune," by Chris Crutcher, in the collection, Connections, edited by Don Gallo. (Top)

--Joni Richards Bodart Booktalk!4:Selections from "The BookTalker" for all Ages and Audiences. HWWilson, 1992.

House of Stairs, by William Sleator
This book catches kids' attention today just as much as it did when it was first published. I like the way this talk starts out, creating the mysterious, threatening environment of the house of stairs.

In order to understand this book, you have to use your imagination. You have to imagine a place made up entirely of stairs. No ceiling, no floor, no walls, just stairs. In every direction you look, nothing but stairs. And if you try to go up, pretty soon all you find are stairs that go down. If you go down, all you find are stairs that go up. And if you try to go in any one direction, the stairs turn back on themselves, and you realize you're trapped in one section of this house of stairs.

This is the situation that five teenagers, three girls and two boys, find themselves in. They get together and realize they have some things in common. They're all sixteen; they're all orphans, wards of the state; they all live in state orphanages; and none of them have any idea where they are, why they're here, or how they got here. But they do know that the two essentials are food and water, and they begin to explore.

On a landing where two of the staircases come together, up nearly as high as you can go, they find a small indentation, like a bowl set down into the landing. It's full of water, fresh water. It's always fresh, and the water level never changes. So now they have water. Then on a landing further down, one of the girls finds a red light set into the landing. By now they've figured out that they've been put there by someone who's probably keeping an eye on them. The red light looks like the perfect place to hide a TV camera. So Blossom, who found it, starts to talk to it: "Let us out of here! I don't want to stay here--I want to go home!" and so on. But nothing happens. Pretty soon she gets mad and makes a face at it. And the light spits out a little pellet of food. She eats it, and it's good! So she tries it again--and it works again! Pretty soon she's making faces and eating as fast as she can. She isn't being very quiet about it, and when the other kids show up, Blossom explains what's going on and they try it too. But it doesn't work for anyone else, and when Blossom tries to get more food for the others, the food machine doesn't work for her either! So the group has begun to learn first two lessons from the food machine: Everyone has to do something different to get food, and the food machine only gives food at certain times, not whenever you want it to.

Gradually the machine begins to teach them other lessons, to train them as you'd train an animal, by giving them food when they do the right thing and withholding food when they don't. Eventually they learn what they call a dance. It isn't really a dance, they just stand in a circle around the light and they each do what the light has taught them to do--snap their fingers, hop around, clap their hands--all nonsense motions, but when they do them at the right time, all together, the machine will produce enough food for one day. It's never enough to keep them from being hungry or to fill them up. It's just enough to keep them from starving to death. They are always hungry, and so they are also grouchy and nervous.

Then one morning, they get up and perform their dance and the food machine doesn't give them anything. They try it again and again--still nothing. The two boys begin to shout at each other-"It's your fault." "No way! It's your fault!" And then one hits the other and the food machine suddenly begins to produce more food than it ever has before. They all begin to eat as fast as they can, but all of a sudden, one of the girls stops-"Wait! Can't you see what they're doing to us? Can't you see what this means? From now on we'll have to hit each other, hurt each other, maybe eventually kill each other in order to get food!"

This is a story of survival-who survived after that, and how.

--Joni Richards Bodart

Booktalk!3: More Booktalks for all Ages and Audiences. HW Wilson, 1988.

Booktalking the Award Winners, YA Retrospective Volume. HW Wilson, 1996. (Top)

Deerskin, by Robin McKinley
I remember so vividly reading this book for the first time, persuaded by several talks submitted by contributors to the Booktalking the Award Winners Series. When I finished it, I knew I had to write my own, to make my own statement about this story of madness, twisted love, broken lives, and recovery. Sometimes I almost have to write a talk, to get the characters and their situation out of my head and onto the paper so I can achieve some distance from them. This is one of those talks.

Before Ash came, Lissar was all alone. That's a strange thing to say about a princess, especially one who was the daughter of the most popular king and the most beautiful queen in seven kingdoms, but nevertheless it was true. The king and queen were so much in love that they spent all their time with each other; Lissar was brought up by servants. Then, when she was fifteen, her mother died, and her father went mad with grief. The other rulers of the seven kingdoms sent their condolences, along with gifts for the king, and one of the princes, who raised dogs, sent Lissar a beautiful fleethound puppy named Ash.

But all that happiness ended on the night of her seventeenth birthday. There was a grand ball, and Lissar's new gown had been created especially to enhance her growing beauty. Her hair was carefully arranged, and she looked very little like herself and very much like her mother. When the king gazed upon his daughter, she was terrified. She didn't see love or pride in his eyes, but a menacing blackness, a treachery that convinced her she was in mortal danger.

And so she was. The next day she and everyone in the palace learned what the king had in mind. It was a fate so horrifying, so unthinkable, that it seemed almost impossible, but Lissar knew her father meant every word he said. She also knew that somehow she had to escape, to get away, to save herself and Ash. Obeying her father would be madness, and disobeying him meant certain death.

They called her Deerskin, after the beautiful white leather dress she wore. Her eyes were black, with no hint of color, and her long hair was as white as her dress. She was accompanied by an elegant fawn-colored dog with long curly fur. She didn't remember anything of her past, not even her name, but she knew about edible plants and plants with healing powers, so she thought she might have once been apprenticed to a gardener or a healer.

What had happened to Lissar, that she left behind not only her life but also her memory?

--Joni Richards Bodart

Booktalking the Award Winners, 1993-1994. HW Wilson, 1995. (Top)

Have you ever wished you could be invisible, a mouse in the corner, a fly on the wall, so you could hear what other people say and do when you aren't around, and learn their secrets that they keep hidden from the world? Sounds great doesn't it? Or does it? Maybe you wouldn't want to know all those secrets…

Paul Theroux is about to find out just what it's like. The summer he's fourteen, his Uncle Adelard returns to town. Uncle Adelard is the black sheep of the family, the one who never settled down, the practical joker. In fact, there's a picture of a family reunion years ago when Adelard was about Paul's age. He's supposed to be standing in the back row with the rest of the teenage boys, but he isn't. There's a gap where he's supposed to be instead. When Paul asks about it, his family just says that Adelard was always a joker, and he ducked just as the picture was shot. But when Paul and Adelard have a chance to talk privately, Paul discovers that's not what actually happened.

You see, Paul's family is unique. In every generation, there is a fader, someone who can vanish from sight whenever they want to. It is passed down from uncle to nephew, uncle of nephew. Adelard was his generation's fader, which is why he isn't in the picture. Faders can't be photographed. And the reason he is home now is that Paul is the next generation's fader, and Adelard has to teach him about it. For instance, when someone fades, all their clothes and whatever they are holding, fades with them. But anything they pick up while they are faded, seems to float in mid-air. And they still have mass. They haven't disappeared, they are just clear. If Paul walks through a pile of leaves while he's invisible, anyone around can hear them crackle and follow his footsteps. Walking across a dew-covered lawn leaves footprints whether he's invisible or not. Adelard cautions Paul to never let anyone know about his ability, because it would put him in extreme danger. He must avoid being caught in a closed room when others are present, because he will be trapped in that room until someone else opens the door and he can slip out with them. The door can't open and shut by itself when someone else can see it.

At first Paul thinks his new ability is exciting and wonderful. But then he is caught in situations he cannot get out of, and sees and hears things he shouldn't and couldn't have seen. Shutting his eyes is no good, because his eyelids are as clear as the rest of him. All he can do is turn his back, cover his ears, and wait for the door to open so he can leave. And when the ordeal is over, Paul is still left with forbidden knowledge he can't dare reveal.

But then his life becomes even more frightening, because he realizes that he is no longer in complete control of the fade. Sometimes he just vanishes, whether he wants to or not, and whether he is alone or with others. Is the price of fading becoming too high for Paul to pay?

Ever wanted to be invisible? Read Paul's story-you just might change your mind!

--Joni Richards Bodart

Booktalking the Award Winners, YA Retrospective Volume. HW Wilson, 1996. (Top)

Clockwork, or All Wound Up, by Philip Pullman
Some talks just write themselves, and this is one of those. I was substituting at the children's reference desk downtown (at Denver Public Library's Central Library) when I read the book, and this talk just flowed out inbetween customers. I read it to the woman working with me that morning, and she immediately took the book away from me, so she could start reading it right away! So, I think I like it because of the process of writing it as well as because of the finished talk.

Long ago, time ran by clockwork-real clockwork, with springs and cogwheels and gears and weights, instead of computer chips and electricity and vibrating crystals or even solar power. When these clocks were wound up with a key, they ticked and whirred, the hands going around and around, tick-tocking time away, never letting it stop. Some stories are like that-once you've wound them up, nothing can stop them. They just keep on going until the get to their end, and no matter how much the characters would like to change or avoid their destiny, they can't. The story I'm about to tell you is one of those stories. And now that it's all wound up, we can begin.

Once upon a time, when time ran by clockwork, a strange series of events took place on a cold winter night in a little town in Germany. It was the custom of the townspeople to gather at the White Horse Tavern to share news of the day, drink beer, and some nights, listen to the newest story from Fritz, the novelist. But this was a special evening, for not only did Fritz have a new story, tonight Karl, the clockmaker's apprentice would install the new clockwork figure he'd made for the town's great clock tower. Glockenheim's tower was the most amazing piece of machinery in all of Germany, with hundreds of clockwork figures, made by generations of apprentices.

But Karl was even more gloomy than he usually was, because as he told Fritz in a fit of despair, he had no figure to add to the tower. No matter how hard he'd tried, he'd been unable to make anything. Fritz, who was a cheerful as Karl was gloomy, tried to encourage him, saying he didn't even have an ending for the story he was about to tell, but would just make it up as he went along. Why couldn't Karl do the same thing? Karl's only response was a scowling demand for more beer. Fritz shrugged, and turned away to begin his story.

"Surely you remember the strange events surrounding the death of Prince Otto-it was hushed up quickly, but I've managed to find out the real story. It's truly a strange tale, and at the center of it is the clever and mysterious Dr. Kalmenius, the finest clockwork maker in all the world."

As the horrible, unbelievable story unfolded, the tavern grew quiet and still, everyone too afraid even to move. And then, as Fritz began to describe the doctor, the story began to wind itself up.

"He was tall and thin, with eyes that blazed like coals, long gray hair, and a harsh, grating voice. He wore a black cloak with a loose hood and an angry, savage expression."

At that moment, Fritz stopped, looking at the door, which opened slowly. The man who entered the room wore a long black cloak, his blazing eyes and long gray hair shadowed by its loose hood. When he spoke, his voice was harsh and grating. "I am Dr. Kalmenius," he said.

And at that very moment, the clockwork of the story was fully wound, and began ticking itself away. It belonged to itself now, and controlled its characters just as clocks control their own mechanisms. Fritz had created the cruel, selfish characters, the terrifying setting, and the evil plot. Now he had no choice but to stand aside and watch his story write its own ending.

Enter the world of Clockwork, if you dare! (Top)

Tomorrow, When the War Began, by John Marsden
This is a short talk, that just barely scratches the surface of the book, and leads kids into the idea of using guerilla tactics against enemy invaders. And of course, I mention some of the other titles in the series also.

It happened in Australia, in what might be the near future. The seven of them were camping in a wilderness called Hell when the black jets flew over late at night, flying low, without lights. It seemed like there were hundreds of them, and it took all night for them to pass. But the next morning when Lee said maybe it was World War III, and they'd been invaded, no one took it seriously. It wasn't until days later, when they walked out of Hell to discover deserted homes, corpses of livestock and pets, empty streets patrolled by armed soldiers speaking a foreign language, their friends and families help prisoner by more armed guards, that they realized Lee's passing comments about World War III had been true. While the seven of them had been camping, Australia had been invaded. Their small rural town with its nearby deep harbor, was one of the first places to be captured. If they'd stayed in town, they would be prisoners, or they'd be dead. There were no alternatives.

But they hadn't been there, and now they were free, as long as none of the enemy discovered them. What could they do now? They were only seven, against thousands of armed and vicious invaders. Only one thing was clear. Hell was not the isolated wilderness where they'd felt so safe. Hell was what they found waiting for them when they left that wilderness to go home, only to find that home no longer existed.

--Joni Richards Bodart

Radical Reads: 101 YA Novels on the Edge. Scarecrow, 2002. (Top)

Out of the Dust, by Karen Hesse

This was a difficult talk to write, because I discovered I couldn't use quotations without the talk getting way too long. So I had to make prose evocative of Hesse's poetry. I think I succeeded fairly well, but I definitely had to work at it!

I don't really remember how it was before the dust, when the land was green with grass, and the air was clean and the sky blue. I was born in August, 1920, when the winter wheat was ripe. Daddy'd always wanted a boy, but he got me instead, a red-headed, long legged girl with long hands and a hunger to play wild piano. He named me Billie Jo. By the time I was nine, he'd given up on having a boy and tried to make do with me. But in January, 1934, when I was fourteen, Ma told us she was expecting again.

Daddy won't ever leave this farm. He's like the ground itself, solid, rooted. Ma and I aren't like that. The dust could blow us away, and I wouldn't mind. I'd like to get out of the dust, away from the grit that gets into everything. It sifts through the walls, under the doors, and past the windows. At night I sleep with a damp cloth over my face so I don't breathe in the dust.

Ma had her own way of coping with the dust. She was particular about how the table should be set. Plates upside down, glasses upside down, napkins folded around knives and forks. Food went on the table last, when we sat down. Then we'd shake the dust out of our napkins, and turn over our plates and glasses, leaving clean round circles in the dust on the table. Her trees are another way she fights the dust, apple trees she planted when she and Daddy came to the farm. She carries water out to them, and every year they're covered with blossoms, all pink and white, and them with apples that grow round and red. And we make apple pie, apple butter, canned apples, and apples piled in a bowl on Ma's piano.

That piano is the way I cope with the dust. When my fingers point at the keys, the music just flows out of them. I'm whole when I play, there is no dust, only me and the music. Ma doesn't like my music, she'd prefer me to play the sweet melodies that she does. Daddy got her the piano for a wedding present, and she draws him to her when she plays. Even after the last milking, when he's so tired he can't think of anything but the mattress under his bones, he'll come into the parlour and listen to Ma play. And it's beautiful music, but it's not my music. My music is wild and free and loud. And when I play, people stop and listen, and forget the dust, just the way I do.

But all that's over now, the music, Ma, my little brother. The fire changed all that. And there are things I can't forgive. I can't forgive Daddy for leaving the pail of kerosene by the stove. I can't forgive myself for what I did with that pail. And I can't forgive Ma for not being here now when I need her so much. We were a family, just three, almost four of us, and there was laughter, and love and music to keep the dust at bay. Now there are only two of us left, me and Daddy, and we sit and stare at each other in silence, unforgiving, each alone. I don't know if we can ever be a family again.

And still the dust comes, howling across the empty fields, seeping into the houses, stealing hope just as it steals the wheat out of the fields. Sometimes the rain follows, but never the kind our farm needs, soft and plentiful. It's just enough to keep our last bit of hope alive for one more day or month or year. Daddy will never leave this land. Maybe I will. I don't know if it's my home any longer. I want out, out of the despair, out of the loneliness, out of the poverty, out of the dust. But can I ever really leave?

--Joni Richards Bodart

Radical Reads: 101 YA Novels on the Edge. Scarecrow, 2002. (Top)

Ace Hits the Big Time, by Barbara Beasley Murphy and Judie Wolkoff
This is another oldie, but one that still seems to go over well. It's also another I've used many times as a first talk in workshop and classroom presentations because it fits together well and is very comfortable to perform, and ends with an unexplained list and hint of mystery. (And it was the source of the most virulent case of pinkeye I've ever had to suffer through!)

Horace stared at the ghastly sight in the bathroom mirror-his first day at JFK High School in Manhattan and he had a sty the size of an egg yolk! His little sister Nora had warned him about the Purple Falcons, the most powerful gang at JFK. She said, "They're gonna cream you, Horace." But when he came out of the bathroom, she said to Horace, "They aren't gonna cream you--they're gonna kill you!" Just what Horace needed to hear!

And if that wasn't enough, he went into the kitchen to get his lunch, and his mother handed it to him in a clear plastic vegetable bag like you get at the grocery store! "What's this?" "Not another word, Horace, there's not a brown-paper lunch bag in this whole place--just look at this mess!" She was right--the apartment was full of half-unpacked boxes. Horace decided that discretion was the better part of valor and went off to look for his denim jacket. But after going through all the boxes the only jacket he could find was the one his uncle had sent him from Japan--red satin, with a dragon embroidered on the back.

"At least," Horace thought, "the pockets are big enough to put my lunch in." So the bagel went in one pocket, the banana went in the other. The only problem left was his eye. What was he going to do about his eye? He tried everything he could think of, including combing his hair down over it--nothing worked. Then he saw Nora's Halloween makeup box, maybe there was something there--a black eyepatch! Perfect! He was ready: now, if he could just make it past the Purple Falcons.

He got to school and was just hanging around across the street, kind of checking things out and looking for the Falcons, when he noticed these two strange-looking people in a weird purple car. They were talking and looking at him. Then one of them pointed at him, and they began to get more and more excited. Finally, they beckoned him to come over. Now, Horace was no dummy--he knew what you do when strangers try to get you into their car--ignore them! He ducked into the school just ahead of the Purple Falcons. Then, in homeroom, he looked out the window and saw that the weirdos in the purple car were still outside, waiting for him. "There's no way I'm going to survive this day," Horace said to himself. "The weirdos in the purple car outside, the Purple Falcons inside, one way or another--I'm gonna die!"

But appearances can be deceiving, Horace discovers, and a bagel, a banana, a dragon, an eyepatch, and a brand-new Bic ballpoint pen all combine to give Horace a new look, a new name, and a new career. Because, you see, the Purple Falcons had never seen Horace before, and had no idea why he looked the way he did that morning!

--Joni Richards Bodart Booktalk!2: Booktalking for all Ages and Audiences. HW Wilson, 1985. Booktalking the Award Winners, YA Retrospective Volume. HW Wilson, 1996. (Top)

This book is about five high school seniors who decide to kill their English teacher-and they do!!

(Top)