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Lester, Julius.
WHEN DAD KILLED MOM
San Diego : Harcourt, 2001.
IL YA
ISBN 0152163050

(2 booktalks)

Booktalk #1

This can't be happening.  It's just too inconceivable.  People don't go around shooting other people on the street in broad daylight.  Not in this small town.  And certainly not people like these.  He is a well-known psychologist.  He works at the local college.   His victim is his wife, Rachel.  But perhaps the real victims are his children -- Jeremy and Jenna.  Told in alternating chapters from the children's point of view, we learn that things are not always what they seem.  Everyone in this story has a secret that they are trying to keep.  As the children come to realize this, they come to terms with what has happened.  But will they ever be able to forgive their father?  Why did he kill their mother?   What really happened When Dad Killed Mom.

Booktalk #2

Imagine you are sitting in art class totally absorbed in your work when the principal sends for you. You wonder what you could possibly have done to merit a trip to the principal’s office. The last thing you expect is to find is your older sister waiting on you with the news that your mother is dead. For Jeremy and Jenna, the world tilts as they discover they haven’t lost just one parent, but two, since their father is under arrest for their mother’s murder.

                    It’s no secret that their parents haven’t been living together since mom moved out to her artist studio in the backyard, but how could their dad, a college professor and psychologist not handle his own life? As Jeremy sides with his mom and Jenna with her dad, they learn new information that could ultimately save their dad or put him away forever. Which will they choose and will they be able to stay a family When Dad Killed Mom?  (Stephanie F. Nichols,  University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC,  sfnichols1@yahoo.com)

SUBJECTS:     Murder -- Fiction.
                        Family problems -- Fiction.
                        Artists -- Fiction.
                        Brothers and sisters -- Fiction.
                        Parent and child -- Fiction.

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