People, no matter what their age, want to

be entertained while they are learning.

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Mini Theme
Become the Character! First-Person Booktalks with Teens
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In my many years as a school library
media specialist, a professor of school
library media and youth literature
courses, and a presenter at workshops
and conferences, I have discovered that
people, no matter what their age, want to
be entertained while they are learning.
You can share absolutely essential
information with your audience, but if
you dont do so with enthusiasm and in
an interesting manner, you may as well
be reciting the ingredient panel from a
cereal box.
The entertainer role is of utmost
importance when booktalking, and
especially when interacting with
teens. Teens frequently say they
dont read or dont have time to read, so
when a booktalker enters a secondary
classroom to talk about books, the
presentation had better be entertaining.
Without even realizing it, I had been
adapting my own personal booktalking
style through the years, based on the
responses of the students I interacted
with in schools. Three distinct styles
of booktalks make up my repertoire:
excerpt (read a portion of the book
aloud), discussion (talk about a character
or an incident from the book), and first
person (become
a character in
the book). I vary
the types during
a booktalking
session to ensure
that teens dont
quickly become
bored with me
just talking
about books.
Realizing that varying booktalk styles
worked really well with teens, I began
to discuss and model the three styles
in the young-adult literature courses I
teach, during conference presentations,
and in workshops. I knew professionals
interested in sharing young-adult
literature with teens were responding well
to the different styles of booktalking, but
I wanted to know more about how teens
were responding to these different styles.
Evaluating Booktalk Styles
I designed a short evaluation form,
asking which one of the three
booktalking styles (excerpt, discussion,
or first person) a listener liked best.
Library media specialists and classroom
teachers then presented booktalking
sessions with teens, introducing at least
five books while using the three styles.
Immediately after the booktalking
sessions, the 1,541 teens involved (684
boys and 857 girls), in 15 Houston-
area school districts and a few private
schools, filled out the form. The 6th-
12th grade students included students
in 83 different classrooms with subject
areas as varied as AP art for juniors and
seniors, 7th grade science, 11th grade
English, and 8th grade special-needs
language arts. When asked what their
favorite style of booktalk was, both sexes
clearly favored the first-person booktalk.
Over 45 percent of the boys and 54
percent of the girls chose first person
as their favorite, over the discussion
and the excerpt styles that are most
often presented in booktalking sessions.
Perhaps the teens liked this style because
it was new to them. Even though some of
the booktalkers involved in this project
indicated before presenting that doing a
first-person booktalk was scary to them,
a majority discovered that this was the
style they most enjoyed presenting in.
Perhaps their enthusiasm rubbed off on
the teen audiences. Whatever the reason,
first-person booktalks hold the teens
attention and should be an integral
part of a booktalking presentation with
secondary students.
Sample First-Person Booktalks
How do you decide which books work
well with first-person booktalks? Most
any book can be presented in this style,
but it is easiest to write a first-person
booktalk for a book that is written in
first person. However, a first-person
booktalk is not the same as reading an
excerpt from a book written in first
person. In a first-person booktalk you
are writing the script and can introduce
any part of the book. You can even
decide to create a first-person booktalk
from a secondary characters perspective.
I often get asked if a female booktalker
can present a first-person booktalk for
a male character. Most certainly, and a
male booktalker can present a first-person
booktalk from a female perspective.
Such booktalks definitely get the teens
attention! For example, I recently
presented the following first-person
booktalk for Firestorm, by David Klass:
Let me tell you about myself. My name
is Jack Danielson. Pretty normal name,
right? I thought I was a typical senior
in high school with the typical hobbies:
chicks, flicks, and fast cars. In that
order. Oh yeahand sports. Left that
out, but I am a natural at sports. I am
the starting running back on the football
team. Im 62, have straw-colored hair,
piercing blue eyes, and above-average
brain power. Oh yeahand a winning
smile. That smile is for P. J. Peters, my
girlfriend. So, in other words, I lived
a pretty normal high-school jocks life.
Then this guy shows up in the diner
where P. J. and I were eating after a
game, and he just stared at me. He
didnt look at anyone else, just me.
And a weird looking guy toohe was
gangly and tall and had an Adams
apple sticking out so far that I wanted
to pluck it. Now, this part you arent
By Ruth E. Cox Clark
24 LIBRARY MEDIA CONNECTION October 2007
Of special interest to grades... K-5 6-8 9-12
going to believe, but its true. He stares
at me, and then his eyes roll back in his
head and when they reappear there are
no pupils, just a burst of white light. No
one sees this but me. Matter of fact, no
one else even saw the guy, not even P. J.
That night is when my days of flirting
with P. J. and playing football ended.
My dad is now dead and I am on the
run. Before he was gunned down by
more tall guys, just like the one in the
diner, he told me that I am the last hope
for this planet. He said I have been sent
back from the future to save the Earth
from what we humans were doing to it.
He said that I am Firestorm and our
enemies have been looking for itfor
me. I have no idea what he was talking
about, but he died before he could tell
me any more. He just threw a set of
boat keys at me and told me to run.
You can even present a first-person
booktalk for a character that is not alive,
such as the following one for A Certain
Slant of Light, by Laura Whitcomb:
I was hovering above Mr. Brown, an
English teacher, and the latest of the
humans I had been haunting. I was with
him in his classroom when I saw the boy
looking right at me. Living humans are
not supposed to see me. I am a ghost.
Ive been dead for over 130 years, so I
should know that living humans cannot
see me. Only other ghosts can. It scared
me at first that this living boy could
somehow see me, so I slid away and
hid, but I kept watching him. Whenever
he came to Mr. Browns English class,
I was somewhere in the room, usually
hiding, but he always knew I was there.
From the outside he looked like so many
of the other young people of this time
periodunkempt, with hair hanging
in his eyes, but those eyes were always
very intently watching me. So one day
I waited outside the classroom. I was
hiding behind a tree, but he walked
right up to it and stopped. He didnt
say anything. He just smiled and slowly
walked away. I couldnt help myself, I
followed him. I could feel myself being
pulled in two directions. Normally I
would be following the English teacher,
Mr. Brown, but I had to find out why
this boy could see me, so I followed him
instead. He stopped behind the school,
Find your inner actor, and mix up your booktalking repertoire with some first-
person booktalks to keep students wondering who you will become next.
where no one could see him, and waited.
I surprised myself by marching up to
him and demanding to know if he could
hear me, too. He answered with, I have
ears, dont I? I was so upset I told him
not to speak to me again, and I fled.
I stayed right by Mr. Browns side for
days, but my curiosity got the best of me
and I spoke with the boy again. I found
out that he, too, is a ghost, but his spirit
had taken over the body of a living boy
whose own spirit no longer wanted to be
there. The ghosts name is James, and
we fell in love, but it is difficult when
one of you has a body and the other
does not. So now we are looking for a
human girl whose spirit is dying. We are
looking for a body for me.
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LIBRARY MEDIA CONNECTION October 2007 25
Making Teens Sit Up and
Take Notice
First-person booktalks are fun
to write and as fun to share. They allow
you to do more than read from a book or
discuss it. They allow you to become part
of a book, enticing the potential reader to
join your character in the story. Teenagers
have been read to by teachers from their
first days in pre-K or kindergarten. An
excerpt-style booktalk is nothing new to
them; nor is a library media specialists
or teachers discussing a book a new
experience. But, when a booktalker
becomes the character in a book, teens
sit up and take notice, as this is a style of
introducing a book that they may have
never seen or heard before.
Find your inner actor, and mix up
your booktalking repertoire with some
first-person booktalks to keep students
wondering who you will become next.
Browse the accompanying annotated
bibliography of titles with first-person
booktalks in the second volume of
Tantalizing Tidbits for Teens: More Quick
Booktalks for the Busy High School Library
Media Specialist. Try some of these and
create your own. Become a character! n
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26 LIBRARY MEDIA CONNECTION October 2007
Of special interest to grades... K-5 6-8 9-12
Dr. Ruth E. Cox Clark is an associate professor
in the Department of Library Science & Instructional
Technology, College of Education, at East Carolina
University in Greenville, North Carolina. She is the
author of several books and articles. She can be
reached at clarkr@ecu.edu, or you may read her
blog at (http://madchatterya.blogspot.com).
References:
Cox Clark, Ruth, Tantalizing Tidbits for Teens
Volume II: More Quick Booktalks for the Busy High
School Library Media Specialist. Linworth, 2007.
Klass, David, Firestorm. The Caretaker Trilogy:
Book 1. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2006.
Witcomb, Laura, A Certain Slant of Light.
Houghton Mifflin, 2006.
Novels with First-Person Booktalks in
Tantalizing Tidbits for Teens, Vol. II.
Block, Francesca Lia, Wasteland. HarperCollins, 2003.
Marina and Lex are siblings and best friends, but
their relationship changes when Lex cannot handle
his feelings for Marina.
Brooks, Kevin, Candy. Scholastic, Inc., 2005.
Fifteen-year-old Joe falls for Candy, a drug addicted
runaway who sells her body to stay alive on the
streets of London.
Cohn, Rachel, Pop Princess. Simon & Schuster, 2004.
Fifteen-year-old Wonder Blake realizes that being a
pop princess is not what she wants.
Flinn, Alex. Fade to Black. HarperCollins, 2005.
HIV-positive Alex Crusan is attacked, and Clinton
Cole is the suspect because he hasnt been quiet
about his dislike of Alex.
Gantos, Jack, The Love Curse of the Rumbaughs.
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2006.
Ivy inherited the curse of excess love for ones
mother and a skill for taxidermy.
Giles, Gail, Shattering Glass. Roaring Brook Press,
2002.
A new student decides the school geek can be the
most popular guy in school, with deadly results.
Holub, Josef, An Innocent Soldier. Scholastic, Inc.,
2005.
Josef is conscripted into Napoleons great army,
in lieu of the farmers own son, and endures the
hardship of a Russian winter.
McNamee, Graham, Acceleration. Random House
Books for Young Readers, 2003.
Seventeen-year-old Duncan works in the Toronto
Transit Commissions lost and found and finds the
leather-bound journal of a psychopathic killer.
Trembath, Don. Rooster. Orca Book Publishers, 2005.
Rooster has his hands full with coaching the
special-needs bowling team, but he has to get it
together if he wants to graduate from high school.
Van Diepen, Allison, Street Pharm. Simon &
Schuster, 2006.
When his father is sent to prison, seventeen-year-
old Ty takes over the drug dealing business.
Zeises, Lara M. Anyone but You. Delacorte Press
(Random House), 2005.
Seattle and Critter have been pseudo siblings and
best friends since their parents got together, but as
teens they are now attracted to each other.