Hurrah, 6th grade!

I was finally able to get back in to the middle school and do booktalks; a problem with our spam filter at work kept me from receiving or sending emails to my contact there, and she thought I was ignoring her, while I thought she was ignoring me.  Once we got our tech dept properly staffed, that was quickly sorted out.  Any hoodle...

These are the books I took:

Artemis Fowl, by Eoin Colfer.  I did not reread this, but I have read most of the series before.  Good response from the kids.

The Beasties, by William Sleator.  My horror pick, judged entirely on the basis of its cover: a gross giant eyeball on the front.  So did not read, but I got enough details off Amazon to be able to play up the creepy factor.

The Diamond of Drury Lane, by Julia Golding.  Also did not read, but this one was one of my fillers so I only actually booktalked it twice out of the five classes.

Dive: The Discovery, by Gordon Korman.  I can see why his books go well with tweens, especially struggling readers or boys, but I find them formulaic and predictable. 

Fairest, by Gail Carson Levine.  I had read this before, and it was also a filler title that I mostly skipped.

Fairy Tale Detectives, by Michael Buckley.  I don't think I've read the most recent series installment, but I've read the series a few times because I love it so much.

Gathering Blue, by Lois Lowry.  It had been a while since I read this last, so I did my awesome speed read (read the first and last paragraph on every page) and got through it in an hour; the teacher also promoted it after I was done if we had time, so the kids got a few perspectives on it. 

The Guinness World Records 2011, by the Guinness people.  Lots of kids already read and like this, but I don't think they knew they could check it out.  Mixed in with the stupid stuff there were some cool new records.

H.I.V.E., by Mark Walden. Power sped-read the first few chapters; got good response from the kids.

Half Moon Investigations, by Eoin Colfer.  I read this a while ago and it's on my list of top favorites, but I read it again just for fun, because it's that awesome.

I Can't Keep My Own Secrets, by Smith Magazine.  I've posted this one before, too, and the kids were receptive.

Midnight for Charlie Bone, by Jenny Nimmo.  Did not read; thank you, Amazon.

Rapunzel's Revenge, by Shannon and Dean Hale; illustrated by Nathan Hale.  This was probably my favorite book of the bunch.  I especially loved the illustrator's use of color.  I have had a long love affair with twisted fairy tales, and this one was one of the best in quite some time.

Redwall, by Brian Jacques.  I read the first few chapters, but that is all; it's not my thing, a la Erin Hunter's Warriors series.  But I know that this has for a long time been a quite popular series, and even I recognized the author's name when the news stated he passed away a few weeks ago.

Savvy, by Ingrid Law.  Have read previously, and loved.  I'm reticent to read the sequel, but we do have it at the library.  The kids could tell that I loved this one, so many of them wrote it down.

Scat, by Carl Hiaasen.  I did not read this one, and fortunately did not ever have to talk about it; it was another filler.

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, by Ann Brashares.  I read part of this and took it, even though I felt an ideal audience was a little older than 6th grade.  I don't think it's really fair for me to judge this book based on my super fast partial read, but I found it rather shallow.

You Can't Read This: Forbidden Books, Lost Writing, Mistranslations and Codes, by Val Ross.  Here's some nonfiction I can get behind.  I didn't get a chance to finish this book, but I intend to do so once it's back in my library.  I love this kind of stuff.

I also promoted Books on CD (Harry Potter Bk. 1 and Eragon were my examples) and Playaways (Little Women) and talked about Overdrive (Nation).  Audiobook formats were taken and shown, but not left.

I'm happy to say that, upon my return to the office after five hours of booktalks, I had an email from the 7th grade teacher asking me to come in.  Our library has never been to this school's 7th grade classes before!