Club news:
- Thanks to all Starbooks Club members who voted for your favorite book for the 2023 Illinois Teen Choice Award! Many of you also won free copes; claim your prize in the LMC.
- VHHS votes:
- First place: Today Tonight Tomorrow by Rachel Lynn Solomon
- Second place: Legendborn by tracy Deonn
- Thurs place: The Loop by Ben Oliver
- Statewide winners announced before Spring Break.
- VHHS votes:
- Books nominated for 2024 Illinois Teen Choice Award will be previewed at Fri Mar 10 book club.
- Overheard at Book CLub:
- "People say that I read unnaturally fast. Does anyone else have this issue?" (nods)
What we've been reading:
- To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Christopher Paolini
- Genre: sci-fi
- Summary: A space voyager living her dream of exploring new worlds lands on a distant planet ripe for colonization before her discovery of a mysterious relic transforms her life and threatens the entire human race.
- Solito by Javier Zamora
- Genre: Lives
- Summary: Javier's adventure is a three-thousand-mile journey from his small town in El Salvador, through Guatemala and Mexico, and across the U.S. border. He will leave behind his beloved aunt and grandparents to reunite with a mother who left four years ago and a father he barely remembers. Traveling alone except for a group of strangers and a coyote hired to lead them to safety, Javier's trip is supposed to last two short weeks. At nine years old, all Javier can imagine is rushing into his parents' arms, snuggling in bed between them, living under the same roof again. He does not see the perilous boat trips, relentless desert treks, pointed guns, arrests and deceptions that await him; nor can he know that those two weeks will expand into two life-altering months alongside a group of strangers who will come to encircle him like an unexpected family.
- Mrs. Caldicott has been listening to the author narrate his own story.
- The Weight of Blood by Tiffany D. Jackson
- Genre: horror
- Summary: When Springville residents—at least the ones still alive—are questioned about what happened on prom night, they all have the same explanation—Maddy did it. An outcast at her small-town Georgia high school, Madison Washington has always been a teasing target for bullies. And she's dealt with it because she has more pressing problems to manage. Until the morning a surprise rainstorm reveals her most closely kept secret: Maddy is biracial. She has been passing for white her entire life at the behest of her fanatical white father, Thomas Washington. After a viral bullying video pulls back the curtain on Springville High's racist roots, student leaders come up with a plan to change their image: host the school's first integrated prom as a show of unity. The popular white class president convinces her Black superstar quarterback boyfriend to ask Maddy to be his date, leaving Maddy wondering if it's possible to have a normal life. But some of her classmates aren't done with her just yet. And what they don't know is that Maddy still has another secret—one that will cost them all their lives.
- Based on Stephen King's Carrie
- Heretics Anonymous by Katie Henry
- Genre: realistic
- Summary: When nonbeliever Michael transfers to a Catholic school in eleventh grade, he quickly connects with a secret support group intent on exposing the school's hypocrisies one stunt at a time.
- The Taste For Poison by Neil Bradbury
- Genre: non-fiction
- Summary: As any reader of murder mysteries can tell you, poison is one of the most enduring ― and popular ― weapons of choice for a scheming murderer. It can be slipped into a drink, smeared onto the tip of an arrow or the handle of a door, even filtered through the air we breathe. But how exactly do these poisons work to break our bodies down, and what can we learn from the damage they inflict? In a fascinating blend of popular science, medical history, and narrative crime nonfiction, Dr Neil Bradbury explores this most morbidly captivating method of murder from a cellular level. Alongside real-life accounts of murderers and their crimes ―some notorious, some forgotten, some still unsolved ― are the equally compelling stories of the poisons involved: eleven molecules of death that work their way through the human body and, paradoxically, illuminate the way in which our bodies function. Drawn from historical records and current news headlines, A Taste for Poison weaves together the fascinating tales of spurned lovers, shady scientists, medical professionals and political assassins, showing how the precise systems of the body can be impaired to lethal effect through the use of poison. From the deadly origins of the gin & tonic cocktail to the arsenic-laced wallpaper in Napoleon’s bedroom, A Taste for Poison leads readers on a fascinating tour of the intricate, complex systems that keep us alive ― or don’t.
- Emma wnders where the fantasy trope of purple liquid or green liquid being poison?