booktalk Archives - Page 908 of 1356

Past Perfect Life
by Elizabeth Eulberg (Author)

Booktalk: Small-town Wisconsin high school senior Allison Smith loves her life the way it is–spending quality time with her widowed father and her tight-knit circle of friends, including best friend Marian and maybe-more-than-friends Neil. Sure she is stressed out about college applications . . . who wouldn’t be? In a few short months, everything’s going to change, big time.

But when Ally files her applications, they send up a red flag . . . because she’s not Allison Smith. And Ally’s–make that Amanda‘s–ordinary life is suddenly blown apart. Was everything before a lie? Who will she be after? And what will she do as now comes crashing down around her?

Snippet: I don’t . . .

I can’t . . .

This can’t be happening.

This has to be a horrible joke. Some sick prank.

While I have the capacity to comprehend the meaning of every word coming out of Sheriff Gleason’s mouth–I can break down what he’s saying into nouns, verbs, and adverbs–none of it makes sense. It’s as if he’s talking about someone else. The names and the locations he’s including are foreign to me. Yet I am the subject.

How can that be possible?

Nikola Tesla for Kids: His Life, Ideas, and Inventions, with 21 Activities
by Amy M. O’Quinn (Author)

Booktalk: Nikola Tesla was a physicist, scientist, electrical engineer, and world-renowned inventor whose accomplishments faded into oblivion after his death in 1943. Tesla was undeniably eccentric and compulsive; some considered him to be somewhat of a “mad” scientist. But in reality, he was a visionary. Many of his ideas and inventions that were deemed impossible during his lifetime have since become reality. He was the first to successfully use rotating magnetic fields to create an AC (alternating current) electrical power supply system and induction motor. He is now acknowledged to have invented the radio ahead of Marconi. Among other things, he developed the Tesla coil, an oscillator, generators, fluorescent tubes, neon lights, and a small remote-controlled boat. He helped design the world’s first hydroelectric plant at Niagara Falls.

Snippet:
CREATE AN ELECTROMAGNET
A regular magnet is permanently magnetic–you can’t just turn the charge on or off. But an electromagnet is magnetic only when it is supplied with electricity, and you can easily change the strength of the electromagnet by changing the amount of electricity that flows through it. Find out for yourself!

Nonfiction Monday

It’s Nonfiction Monday!