| Booktalk
#1
Duncan's summer is about to
get worse. This is his last summer before graduation. He'd
love just hanging out with his friends but his dad was able to get him
a job. And what a lousy job. He's working under the city in
the transit authority lost and found. All day he sorts and retrieves
and packs up the unclaimed items. Sometimes when it is slow, Duncan
picks up a book from the lost and found and reads. What he reads
this time is not what he expects. This isn't a regular book.
It's more of a diary. The more he reads, the more he becomes convinced
that this is the diary of a serial killer. And it's up to Duncan
to stop him.
Booktalk #2
I want to tell you guys about
this exciting book I just read. It’s called Acceleration and it’s
by Graham McNamee. First of all, look at this cover. What’s
the first thing you see when you look at it? The eyes? It gave
me the feeling right away that there was going to be a sinister character
in this book, and I wanted to know more about him right away. So
I started reading the book and I met Duncan the main character. He’s
17 and he has a boring summer job. How many of you have ever had
a boring summer job? - yeah, me too. Well Duncan’s job is in the
dungeon of the subway system. He organizes items in the lost and
found. Pretty boring, huh? Well it's not so boring when Duncan
is looking through a stack of books at work, and he notices one that stands
out. It has a plain leather cover and when he opens it he realizes
it’s someone’s journal. Of course he reads it, and it’s really disturbing
- all about this guy mutilating animals and starting fires. He gets
really worried when the guy starts writing about plans to start “hunting.”
Can you imagine reading the thoughts of a disturbed criminal? Lemme
just read you a little bit of it...
Read excerpt from page 47
It sounds like this guy is
going to commit murder. What do you guys think Duncan should do?
What would you do? He thinks about going to the cops, but he’s got a record,
and his fingerprints are now all over the journal. Will they even take
him seriously? Can Duncan track the guy down himself? What’s
he gonna do if he finds him? Check out Acceleration to find out.
(Stella Shafer, MLIS student, iSchool, University of Washington)
Booktalk #3
Duncan is obsessed with a girl
he doesn't even know. Maya. He only saw her for a minute. He's never even
talked to her. But he hears her screaming in his dreams all the time. Last
summer, he was swimming in the lake when Maya got pulled under and drowned.
He couldn't get to her on time. Even though swimming was the only thing
he was really good at, he couldn't save her. Duncan was always taught
that guys should be heroes, but he failed to save her.
So he feels like he fits in
at his new summer job at the dungeon, also known as the lost and found
for the Toronto subway. Looking through the lost items, Duncan finds a
diary. It has the strangest leather cover that feels almost like
skin. Someone left it on the train, and it is filled with the most
twisted and disgusting stories. Animal mutilations, torture, abuse...and
plans to capture and kill three women. Duncan has found the diary of a
serial killer.
What should he do with it?
Duncan knows that he found this diary for a reason. He won't go to the
police. If he can save these women from this killer himself, he can finally
make up for not saving that girl in the lake. But is it safe for a high
school student to be stalking a sadistic serial killer? How far will he
go to make up for the past? And will he survive to find out? (Jessica
Ewing, Queens Library, Queens, New York) |
