Fri Nov 20: what we talked about

SLAY cover image

Next Book Club meeeting 8:15 a.m. Fri Dec 11.
Question we'll discuss: "What book made you hungry?"

Book recommendations

  • The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy
    • Inspirational!
    • Summary: Enter the world of Charlie's four unlikely friends, discover their story and their most important life lessons. The conversations of the boy, the mole, the fox and the horse have been shared thousands of times online, recreated in school art classes, hung on hospital walls and turned into tattoos. In Charlie's first book, you will find his most-loved illustrations and some new ones too.
  • The New York Times 100 Notable Books
  • National Book Award long list for Young Adult Fiction
    • 2020 winner King and the Dragonflies by Kacen Callender
      • Summary: Twelve-year-old Kingston James is sure his brother Khalid has turned into a dragonfly. When Khalid unexpectedly passed away, he shed what was his first skin for another to live down by the bayou in their small Louisiana town. Khalid still visits in dreams, and King must keep these secrets to himself as he watches grief transform his family.
      • Genre: realistic

What is a book that surprised you in some way?

  • The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer
    • Ashleigh said she was surprised she liked it!
    • Summary: In a future where humans despise clones, Matt enjoys special status as the young clone of El Patron, the one hundred forty-two-year-old leader of a corrupt drug empire nestled between Mexico and the United States.
    • Genre: science fiction
  • The Toll by Neal Shusterman
    • Tyler said he was surprised it wasn't a better book
    • Summary: Citra and Rowan have disappeared. Endura is gone. It seems like nothing stands between Scythe Goddard and absolute dominion over the world scythedom. With the silence of the Thunderhead and the reverberations of the Great Resonance still shaking the earth to its core, the question remains: Is there anyone left who can stop him? The answer lies in the Tone, the Toll, and the Thunder.
    • Genre: science fiction
  • Black Wings Beating by Alex London
    • Ashleigh said she was surprised the author didn't describe the fantasy world in a more enticing manner. But she also seemed willing to give this book another try!
    • Summary: The people of Uztar have long looked to the sky with hope and wonder. Nothing in their world is more revered than the birds of prey and no one more honored than the falconers who call them to their fists. Brysen strives to be a great falconer--while his twin sister, Kylee, rejects her ancient gifts for the sport and wishes to be free of falconry. She's nearly made it out, too, but a war is rolling toward their home in the Six Villages, and no bird or falconer will be safe.
    • Genre: fantasy
  • We Were Liars by E. Lockhart
    • Ema said she was surprised at the ending!
    • Summary: Spending the summers on her family's private island off the coast of Massachusetts with her cousins and a special boy named Gat, teenaged Cadence struggles to remember what happened during her fifteenth summer.
    • Genre: mystery

Books with maps

  • Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson
    • Ms. Tolva said the map of Ellingham Academy was very helpful
    • Summary: New at Ellingham Academy, Stevie Bell tries to both solve a murder at campus and the cold case of a double kidnapping.
    • Genre: mystery
    • Maddie also recommended the author's 13 Little Blue Envelopes
      • Summary: nside little blue envelope 1 are $1,000 and instructions to buy a plane ticket. In envelope 2 are directions to a specific London flat. The note in envelope 3 tells Ginny: Find a starving artist. Because of envelope 4, Ginny and a playwright/thief/ bloke about town called Keith go to Scotland together, with somewhat disastrous though utterly romantic results. But will she ever see him again? Everything about Ginny will change this summer, and it's all because of the 13 little blue envelopes.
      • Genre: realistic
  • The Lord of the Rings series by J. R. R. Tolkein
    • Tyler said the maps gave him spatial awareness of the storyline
    • Summary: Frodo the hobbit and a band of warriors from the different kingdoms set out to destroy the Ring of Power before the evil Sauron grasps control.
    • Genre: fantasy
  • The Land of Stories series by Chris Colfer, illustrated by Brandon Dorman
    • Maddie said the maps were wonderful
    • Summary: The Land of Stories tells the tale of twins Alex and Conner. Through the mysterious powers of a cherished book of stories, they leave their world behind and find themselves in a foreign land full of wonder and magic where they come face-to-face with the fairy tale characters they grew up reading about.
    • Genre: fantasy

What we're reading

  • SLAY by Brittney Morris
    • D128 Staff Book Club pick for December 2020
    • Nominated for the 2021 Illinois Teen Choice Award
    • Summary: By day, seventeen-year-old Kiera Johnson is an honors student, a math tutor, and one of the only Black kids at Jefferson Academy. But at home, she joins hundreds of thousands of Black gamers who duel worldwide as Nubian personas in the secret multiplayer online role-playing card game, SLAY. No one knows Kiera is the game developer, not her friends, her family, not even her boyfriend, Malcolm, who believes video games are partially responsible for the "downfall of the Black man." But when a teen in Kansas City is murdered over a dispute in the SLAY world, news of the game reaches mainstream media, and SLAY is labeled a racist, exclusionist, violent hub for thugs and criminals. Even worse, an anonymous troll infiltrates the game, threatening to sue Kiera for "anti-white discrimination." Driven to save the only world in which she can be herself, Kiera must preserve her secret identity and harness what it means to be unapologetically Black in a world intimidated by Blackness. But can she protect her game without losing herself in the process?
    • Genre: realistic
    • Other video-game based books:
  • Mi Diario Magico de Unicornio
    • Ashleigh is reading this to improve her Spanish language skills
  • Dr. Seuss Goes to War: The World War II Editorial Cartoons of Theodor Seuss Geisel by  Richard H. Minear
  • David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants by Malcolm Gladwell