Chapter Book of the Day – Page 8

A Hitch at the Fairmont

A Hitch at the Fairmont
by Jim Averbeck (Author) and Nick Bertozzi (Illustrator)

Booktalk: After the mysterious death of his mother, eleven-year-old Jack Fair is whisked away to San Francisco’s swanky Fairmont Hotel by his wicked Aunt Edith. There, he seems doomed to a life of fetching chocolates for his aunt and her pet chinchilla. Until one night, when Aunt Edith disappears, and the only clue is a ransom note written…in chocolate?

Suddenly, Jack finds himself all alone on a quest to discover who kidnapped Aunt Edith and what happened to his mother. Alone, that is, until he meets an unlikely accomplice—Alfred Hitchcock himself!

Snippet: Hitchcock was still shaken but seemed to calm down as he mopped his sodden brow. He folded his damp handkerchief in half four times. When he stuffed it in his pocket he was fully composed.

“I suppose you thought that was clever,” he said. “That woman wanted to help you.”

“Into an orphanage,” said Jack. “Who would find Aunt Edith then?”

Hitchcock shrugged. “The police–”

The Kingfisher Soccer Encyclopedia Revised Edition

The Kingfisher Soccer Encyclopedia Revised Edition
by Clive Gifford (Author)

Booktalk: Freshly revised and updated, this is a world soccer book for the 2014 World Cup and beyond. As well as offering practical advice, this informative book also provides an insider’s view of the history of the game, profiles of the great clubs, and facts about women’s soccer teams and players. (Includes free World Cup poster for readers to fill in as the tournament progresses.)

Snippet:
ATTACKING
As soon as a team gains possession of the ball, with time and in space, its players’ thoughts turn to attacking. There are many ways in which a team can launch an attack, from a fast drive into space by a player who is sprinting forward and pushing the ball ahead, to a slow probing attack in which many players keep the ball securely in possession and look for an opening.

Nonfiction Monday

It’s Nonfiction Monday!

Steering Toward Normal

Steering Toward Normal
by Rebecca Petruck (Author)

Booktalk: Eighth grade is set to be a good year for Diggy Lawson: He’s chosen a great calf to compete at the Minnesota State Fair, he’ll see a lot of July, the girl he secretly likes at 4-H, and he and his dad Pop have big plans for April Fool’s Day. But everything changes when classmate Wayne Graf’s mother dies, which brings to light the secret that Pop is Wayne’s father, too. Suddenly, Diggy has a half brother, who moves in and messes up his life. Wayne threatens Diggy’s chances at the State Fair, horns in on his girl, and rattles his easy relationship with Pop.
What started out great quickly turns into the worst year ever…

Snippet: The dust settled to reveal a man stumbling around the truck bed. He heaved a suitcase onto the ground, and it popped open like one of those 3-D party decorations. He lunged for the passenger door, jerking it so hard it squeaked, then reached into the cab with two hands and hauled a boy out, tossing him onto the jumbled mound of spilled clothing. The door hung open. Momentum slammed it shut when the man gunned the truck and sped away. Gravel and dust spewed over the unmoving heap of clothes and boy.

Text Game

Text Game
by Kate Cann (Author)

Booktalk: Mel’s so excited – she has a new boyfriend and he’s perfect. She can’t believe he’s going out with her. But then the weird texts start. They say Ben’s cheating on her, seeing someone else. Should Mel ignore them? Or could they be telling the truth?

Snippet: Ever since I started going out with Ben, I’ve felt great when I wake up in the morning, kind of happy, excited. But when I get up this morning there’s something horrible turning and twisting in my mined, ruining everything, and I know it’s that text.

Twelve Minutes to Midnight

Twelve Minutes to Midnight
by Christopher Edge (Author)

Booktalk: Penelope Tredwell is the feisty thirteen-year-old orphan heiress of Victorian Britain’s bestselling magazine, the Penny Dreadful. Her spine-chilling tales–concealed under the pen name Montgomery Finch–are gripping the public. One day she receives a letter from the governor of the Bedlam madhouse requesting Finch’s help to investigate the asylum’s strange goings-on. Every night at precisely twelve minutes to midnight, the inmates all begin feverishly writing-incoherent ramblings that Penelope quickly realizes are frightening visions of the century to come. But what is causing this phenomenon?

Snippet: They arrived at Bedlam just after 11 p.m, the hospital suddenly looming in front of them out of the fog and drizzle. Above the entrance, its high dome and six-columned portico were wreathed in pale shrouds of mist, while the wings of the hospital stretched out on either side, countless rows of pitch-black windows staring out into the night like empty eyes. As they left their hansom cab and scurried inside, Penelope thought she could almost hear the low moans of the patients incarcerated there, carried on the chill wind that whipped across St. George’s Fields.

Burj Khalifa: The Tallest Tower in the World

Burj Khalifa: The Tallest Tower in the World
by Stuart A. Kallen (Author)

Booktalk: Burj Khalifa is the tallest building in the world, with 163 floors rising half a mile into the sky. World records in construction and design were shattered when this engineering marvel rose out of the desert to reach the clouds above Dubai.

Snippet: The three tower cranes used to build the superstructure of the Burj Khalifa worked 24 hours a day. The cranes were positioned at the top of the tower as it rose from the desert floor.

It’s STEM Friday! (STEM is Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics)

Outside In

Outside In
by Sarah Ellis (Author)

Booktalk: Lynn’s life is full — choir practice, school, shopping for the perfect jeans, and dealing with her free-spirited mother. Then one day her life is saved by a mysterious girl named Blossom, who introduces Lynn to her own world and family — both more bizarre, yet somehow more sane, than Lynn’s own. Blossom’s family is a small band of outcasts and eccentrics who live secretly in an ingenious bunker beneath a city reservoir. The Underlanders forage and trade for the things they need (“Is it useful or lovely?”), living off the things “Citizens” throw away. Lynn is enchanted and amazed. But when she inadvertently reveals their secret, she is forced to take measure of her own motives and lifestyle, as she figures out what it really means to be a family and a friend.

Snippet: “Where are we? What is this place? I mean, what was it before it was your house?”

“It’s one of the forgotten places. Fossick says it was some kind of construction storage area when they were building the reservoir. It got walled off.”

“How did you guys find it?”

“Fossick discovered it, before I was born. He likes to look around behind things. He says that even in a city there are many places unaccounted for. I’ve lived here my whole life.”

I Can Make That!: Fantastic Crafts for Kids

I Can Make That!: Fantastic Crafts for Kids
by Mary Wallace (Author)

Booktalk: FIVE books in one! The Costumes, Puppets, Nature Crafts, Toys, and Games books are now in a single updated volume…just in time for summer fun! Children as young as four years old can take common household items and easy-to-obtain natural materials like twigs and turn them into costumes, puppets, toys, games, and more. Step-by-step instructions and photographs keep things simple and easy to understand, making this book perfect for home, school, library, camp, or even daycare.

Snippet:
Superheroes

Wonderful Wizard

Nonfiction Monday

It’s Nonfiction Monday!

World War I for Kids: A History with 21 Activities

World War I for Kids: A History with 21 Activities
by R. Kent Rasmussen (Author)

Booktalk: It has been 100 years since the start of the “Great War.” The hands-on activities in this book can help students understand life during World War I, a war that eventually involved all of the world’s superpowers.

Snippet: Soldiers stationed at the front spent only a small part of their time in actual combat. In fact, it was not unusual for individual soldiers to spend several months on the western front without seeing an enemy soldier. This is not to say that they were necessarily safe when not fighting. They might not see an enemy when they were on the front lines, but if they climbed out of their trenches, unseen enemies were likely to spot them, with lethal consequences.

Nonfiction Monday

It’s Nonfiction Monday!

Lost in Thought

Lost in Thought (Sententia)
by Cara Bertrand (Author)

Booktalk: Lainey Young has a secret: she’s going crazy. Everyone else thinks she has severe migraines from stress and exhaustion. What she really has are visions of how people died–or are going to die. Not that she tells anyone that. At age 16, she prefers keeping her crazy to herself. When doctors insist she needs a new and stable environment to recover, Lainey’s game to spend two years at a private New England boarding school. She doesn’t really think it will cure her problem, and she’s half right. There is no cure, but as she discovers, she’s not actually crazy.

Almost everyone at Northbrook Academy has a secret too. Half the students and nearly all the staff are members of the Sententia, a hidden society of the psychically gifted. A vision of another student’s impending death confirms Lainey is one of them. She’d like to return the crappy gift of divining deaths with only a touch, but enjoys spending time with Carter Penrose–recent Academy graduate and resident school crush–while learning to control it. Lainey’s finally getting comfortable with her ability, and with Carter, when they uncover her true Sententia heritage. Now she has a real secret.

Once it’s spilled, she’ll be forced to forget protecting secrets and start protecting herself.

Snippet: I saw visions of how they died. Most only lasted a few seconds, a handful were gruesome, and I swore some of them were visions of how people were going to die. They would come with no warning except dizziness, usually right after I’d touched someone or something, and were followed by a severe headache. If I was lucky, I even fainted too, in betweent the vision and the migraine.

If someone were telling me this story, I’d probably have laughed at them. In fact, I knew I would, which is why I absolutely couldn’t bring myself to tell the doctors and especially not the psychologists.