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Hanukkah Hamster
by Michelle Markel (Author) and André Ceolin (Illustrator)

Booktalk: The holiday season is a busy time, with people bustling about. And it’s a busy time for Edgar, a cabdriver who conveys passengers around the city. All day long Edgar drives his cab; many people going to many different places. At the end of one busy day, Edgar is so tired he climbs into the backseat of his cab to take a nap. But he discovers he is not alone. A little hamster has somehow been left behind from one of the many fares Edgar has driven. Edgar dutifully reports the hamster to the cab company’s Lost and Found department, but in the meantime the little creature needs to be taken care of. Edgar brings the hamster to his apartment, making it a bed, feeding it, and even giving it a name, Chickpea. As Edgar starts his Hanukkah observance, with no family nearby to share in it, the little hamster becomes more than a casual companion to the lonely man. But what happens when Chickpea’s owner is found?

Snippet:

The Poet X
by Elizabeth Acevedo (Author)

Booktalk: Xiomara Batista feels unheard and unable to hide in her Harlem neighborhood. Ever since her body grew into curves, she has learned to let her fists and her fierceness do the talking. But Xiomara has plenty she wants to say, and she pours all her frustration and passion onto the pages of a leather notebook, reciting the words to herself like prayers–especially after she catches feelings for a boy in her bio class named Aman, who her family can never know about. With Mami’s determination to force her daughter to obey the laws of the church, Xiomara understands that her thoughts are best kept to herself. When she is invited to join her school’s slam poetry club, she knows that she could never get around Mami’s rules to attend, much less speak her words out loud. But still, she can’t stop thinking about performing her poems. Because in the face of a world that may not want to hear her, Xiomara refuses to be silent.

Snippet:
ABOUT A

Every time I think about Aman
poems build inside me
like I’ve been gifted a box of metaphor Legos
that I stack and stack and stack.
I keep waiting for someone to come knock them over.
But no one at home cares about my scribbling.

Watch the poet perform “Music for A”.

A 2018 Cybils Poetry nominee

BONUS! Download the Teacher’s Guide