Yesterday was my third annual visit with the after school book club in Alief ISD. Once again I was knocked at their love of books and reading. I talked about 40 books. What created the buzz? GOING BOVINE (hey, libbabray)for one. I started talking about it: gave them big strokes and then paused. "Go on, go on" shouted a kid from the back. SOUL ENCHILADA was also one they made some noise over. (hey, thunderchikin) PEACE. LOVE AND BABY DUCKS, CHARLES AND EMMA, CLAUDETTE COLVIN, and ABSOLUTELY MAYBE, DAYS OF LITTLE TEXAS, ETERNAL, FADE TO BLUE, FOREST OF HANDS AND TEETH, KISS IN TIME, NEED, and NIGHTSCHOOL all seemed to elicit response. WINTERGIRLS? They had already read and positively shouted that out to me. Long day, but a great one that reminds me why I love YA and teens.

This morning I head to my old stomping ground: Alief school district. I have an hour or so to talk about new books with the librarians. So, here is the Power Point I am using. It is so difficult to try to hit a K-12 audience with books that will keep all of them focused. I hope this works.





BTW, I am going to try to remember to tag entries from now on. If I had time and inclination, I would go back and do tagging for the past three or four years. But...