Inspire teenagers to read quality literature and help them explore issues relevant to their lives. This outstanding book offers motivational, ready-to-use booktalks for more than 100 of the best new reads for teenagers, guaranteed to pique teen interest. Each booktalk comes with complete bibliographic information, a detailed plot summary, helpful presentation tips, curriculum connections, and suggestions for related books and media. Grades 7-12. To help you keep the booktalk momentum going, Lucy Schall provides engaging follow-up discussion questions and activity ideas that will enhance every teen's reading, writing, and speaking skills. With a focus on recently published fiction and nonfiction titles in a wide variety of genres and themes, these dynamic booktalks center around issues, problems, and challenges that young adults are facing—from family concerns, expectations, and leadership to prejudice, good and evil, and the future. These lively booktalks and activities will motivate your teens to explore the complex world around them through unforgettable literary journeys.

Presents advice on creating a successful booktalk, with information on such topics as setting up, what kinds of books work best, and how to keep the students involved.

Everything librarians need to know to get the most out of booktalking with their teen readers. Booktalking with Teens prepares and inspires librarians to get the most out of booktalking by probing teen reading experiences, illustrating step-by-step booktalk writing instructions, building booktalk programs, and coaching booktalk performance. The book begins by exploring the emotional and intellectual experiences teens report when they read, then examines the many themes, genres, and topics of teen fiction, graphic novels, classics, and nonfiction. The second section focuses on writing booktalks and the third on selecting booktalks for different audiences. Performance topics include preparation for performance, delivery techniques, and interacting with teens. Finally, you will discover how to align your booktalk program with the vision and goals of your library and school district and how to use the expertise, energy, and excitement of booktalking to empower the library staff and raise the library's visibility and value in the community.

Reading for pleasure urgently requires a higher profile to raise attainment and increase children’s engagement as self-motivated and socially interactive readers. Building Communities of Engaged Readers highlights the concept of ‘Reading Teachers’ who are not only knowledgeable about texts for children, but are aware of their own reading identities and prepared to share their enthusiasm and understanding of what being a reader means. Sharing the processes of reading with young readers is an innovative approach to developing new generations of readers. Examining the interplay between the ‘will and the skill’ to read, the book distinctively details a reading for pleasure pedagogy and demonstrates that reader engagement is strongly influenced by relationships between children, teachers, families and communities. Importantly it provides compelling evidence that reciprocal reading communities in school encompass: a shared concept of what it means to be a reader in the 21st century; considerable teacher and child knowledge of children’s literature and other texts; pedagogic practices which acknowledge and develop diverse reader identities; spontaneous ‘inside-text talk’ on the part of all members; a shift in the focus of control and new social spaces that encourage choice and children’s rights as readers. Written by experts in the literacy field and illustrated throughout with examples from the project schools, it is essential reading for all those concerned with improving young people’s enjoyment of and attainment in reading.

For use in schools and libraries only. Relates how Mafatu, a young Polynesian boy whose name means Stout Heart, overcomes his terrible fear of the sea and proves his courage to himself and his people.

Talk Less, Say More is a revolutionary guide to 21st century communication skills to help you be more influential and make things happen in our distracted, attention-deficit world. It's loaded with specific tips and takeaways to ensure that you're fully heard, clearly understood, and trigger positive responses in any business or social situation. It's the first book to deliver a proven method to master the core leadership skill of influence. Talk Less, Say More lays out a powerful 3-step method called Connect, Convey, Convince (R) and guides you in how to use these habits to be more influential. This succinct book solves your modern communication issues in today's demanding, distracted world at a time when interaction skills are plummeting. Communication is the single greatest challenge in business today. It takes just 3 habits to conquer it. Talk Less, Say More will help you achieve more with less. Less wordiness. Less tune-out. Less frustration. You'll gain more time. More positive outcomes. More rewarding relationships.

“An extraordinary novel . . . a triumph of insight and storytelling.” —Associated Press “A true masterpiece.” —Glennon Doyle, author of Untamed An extraordinary story set in the first century about a woman who finds her voice and her destiny, from the celebrated number one New York Times bestselling author of The Secret Life of Bees and The Invention of Wings In her mesmerizing fourth work of fiction, Sue Monk Kidd takes an audacious approach to history and brings her acclaimed narrative gifts to imagine the story of a young woman named Ana. Raised in a wealthy family with ties to the ruler of Galilee, she is rebellious and ambitious, with a brilliant mind and a daring spirit. She engages in furtive scholarly pursuits and writes narratives about neglected and silenced women. Ana is expected to marry an older widower, a prospect that horrifies her. An encounter with eighteen-year-old Jesus changes everything. Their marriage evolves with love and conflict, humor and pathos in Nazareth, where Ana makes a home with Jesus, his brothers, and their mother, Mary. Ana's pent-up longings intensify amid the turbulent resistance to Rome's occupation of Israel, partially led by her brother, Judas. She is sustained by her fearless aunt Yaltha, who harbors a compelling secret. When Ana commits a brazen act that puts her in peril, she flees to Alexandria, where startling revelations and greater dangers unfold, and she finds refuge in unexpected surroundings. Ana determines her fate during a stunning convergence of events considered among the most impactful in human history. Grounded in meticulous research and written with a reverential approach to Jesus's life that focuses on his humanity, The Book of Longings is an inspiring, unforgettable account of one woman's bold struggle to realize the passion and potential inside her, while living in a time, place and culture devised to silence her. It is a triumph of storytelling both timely and timeless, from a masterful writer at the height of her powers.