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The FINAL WORD 2010

Join us on Thursday, March 4, 2010 when we meet with the other book clubs at Smithville CHS and celebrate books with author Eric Walters.

Safe as houses by Eric Walters

From the Publisher

The date is October 15, 1954. Thirteen-year-old Elizabeth, who lives in the Toronto suburb of Weston, is a typical grade 8 girl. She has a secret crush on a boy in her class and she thinks Elvis Presley is "dreamy." Elizabeth also has a part-time job babysitting an adorable little grade 2 girl named Suzie, and Suzie's not-so-adorable grade 6 brother, David. Elizabeth's job is to walk Suzie and David home after school and then stay at their house with them until their mother gets home from …+ read moreThe date is October 15, 1954. Thirteen-year-old Elizabeth, who lives in the Toronto suburb of Weston, is a typical grade 8 girl. She has a secret crush on a boy in her class and she thinks Elvis Presley is "dreamy." Elizabeth also has a part-time job babysitting an adorable little grade 2 girl named Suzie, and Suzie's not-so-adorable grade 6 brother, David. Elizabeth's job is to walk Suzie and David home after school and then stay at their house with them until their mother gets home from work. David resents Elizabeth because he thinks he is too old for a babysitter, and he goes out of his way to make life miserable for her.

On this particular evening, however, Elizabeth has more than a badly behaved boy to contend with. It is on this October night that Hurricane Hazel roars down on Toronto, bringing torrential rains that cause extensive flooding. David and Suzie's house is on Raymore Drive, a street that will be practically wiped out by the floodwaters.

David and Suzie's parents are unable to reach the house, which means the children's safety on this most deadly of nights is Elizabeth's responsibility. She finds herself increasingly isolated. They are surrounded by rising water. The electricity goes out. The phone goes dead. Still, Elizabeth is sure they will be safe as long as they remain in the house.

But are Elizabeth and the children really as "safe as houses"? Before this terrifying night is over, Elizabeth and David will have to learn to communicate and cooperate if they are to save their own lives and Suzie's. Their survival in the midst of one of Canada's worst disasters will depend upon their resourcefulness, maturity and courage.

About the Author

Eric Walters published his first novel, Stand Your Ground, in 1993, and has since become one of Canada's best known and most prolific writers of literature for children and young adults. He has had 39 novels published, including Safe as Houses. Eric's books are available in places as far away as Australia and New Zealand, and have been translated into French, Dutch, Japanese and Chinese. Eric's novels have won more than 30 awards; among them the Red Maple, Blue Heron, Snow Willow, tiny Torgi and …+ read moreEric Walters published his first novel, Stand Your Ground, in 1993, and has since become one of Canada's best known and most prolific writers of literature for children and young adults. He has had 39 novels published, including Safe as Houses. Eric's books are available in places as far away as Australia and New Zealand, and have been translated into French, Dutch, Japanese and Chinese. Eric's novels have won more than 30 awards; among them the Red Maple, Blue Heron, Snow Willow, tiny Torgi and Ruth Schwartz awards. Eric has also received awards from the Canadian Library Association and UNESCO. He is the only writer who has won the Ontario Library Association Silver Birch Award three times. A long-time teacher, Eric still interacts with children and teenagers, doing presentations that blend storytelling, drama and audience participation. In his research for Safe as Houses, Eric interviewed people who had survived the great storm, and incorporated some of their actual experiences into the story.

Megiddo's shadow by Arthur Slade

Fueled by anger at the death of his two brothers in World War I, 16-year-old Edward abandons his ailing father on their farm and leaves Canada to enlist. After proving that he can tame any wild horse, he's is sent to Jordan to fight with the Cavalry.

Luckily, his horse is the extraordinary Buke; in battle, a trooper's horse is the key to life and death, and his true companion. In the harsh desert, Edward is grateful for the camaraderie of his tent mates, Cheevers and Blackburn,and letters from Emily, a nurse he met at base camp. As they close in on the enemy Edward finds that the glory and noble vengeance he seeks is replaced by the horror of war and the realization that he must fight not only to survive, but also, to kill.

About the Author

Arthur Slade is the author of Dust, a national bestseller and the winner of the 2001 Governor General's award for children's fiction, the Mr. christie's Book award and the saskatchewan Book award. His novel Tribes was acla Young adult honour Book and was nominated for five other literary prizes. He is also the author of Monsterology, the Canadian Chills series and Northern Frights series. Arthur Slade and his wife and daughter live in Saskatoon. Visit his website at www.arthurslade.com.

Little brother by Cory Doctorow

The ultimate tale of teen rebellion -- one seventeen-year-old against the surveillance state. Big Brother is watching you. Who's watching back? Marcus is only seventeen years old, but he figures he already knows how the system works -- and how to work the system. Smart, fast and wise to the ways of the networked world, he has no trouble outwitting his high school's intrusive but clumsy surveillance systems. But his whole world changes when he and his friends find themselves caught in the aftermath of a major terrorist attack on San Francisco. In the wrong place at the wrong time, Marcus and his crew are apprehended by the Department of Homeland Security and whisked away to a secret prison, where they're mercilessly interrogated for days. When the DHS finally releases them, Marcus discovers that his city has become a police state, where every citizen is treated like a potential terrorist. He knows no one will believe his story, which leaves him only one option: to take down the DHS himself.

About the Author

Cory Doctorow is a coeditor of Boing Boing and the former European director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. He writes columns for Make, Information Week, the Guardian online, and Locus. He has won the Locus Award three times, been nominated for the Hugo and the Nebula, won the Campbell Award, and was named one of the Web’s twenty-five influencers by Forbes magazine and a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. He hopes you’ll use technology to change the world.

The hunger games by Suzanne Collins

From Amazon.com
Katniss is a 16-year-old girl living with her mother and younger sister in the poorest district of Panem, the remains of what used be the United States. Long ago the districts waged war on the Capitol and were defeated. As part of the surrender terms, each district agreed to send one boy and one girl to appear in an annual televised event called, "The Hunger Games." The terrain, rules, and level of audience participation may change but one thing is constant: kill or be killed. When Kat's sister is chosen by lottery, Kat steps up to go in her place.

About the Author
SUZANNE COLLINS’s debut novel, Gregor the Overlander, the first book in the Underland Chronicles, received wide praise both in the United States and abroad. The series has been a New York Times bestseller and received numerous accolades. Also a writer for children’s television, Suzanne lives with her family in Connecticut.

J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit adapted by Charles Dixon illustrated by David Wenzel

From Amazon.com

"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort."
The hobbit-hole in question belongs to one Bilbo Baggins, an upstanding member of a "little people, about half our height, and smaller than the bearded dwarves." He is, like most of his kind, well off, well fed, and best pleased when sitting by his own fire with a pipe, a glass of good beer, and a meal to look forward to. Certainly this particular hobbit is the last person one would expect to see set off on a hazardous journey; indeed, when Gandalf the Grey stops by one morning, "looking for someone to share in an adventure," Baggins fervently wishes the wizard elsewhere. No such luck, however; soon 13 fortune-seeking dwarves have arrived on the hobbit's doorstep in search of a burglar, and before he can even grab his hat or an umbrella, Bilbo Baggins is swept out his door and into a dangerous adventure.
The dwarves' goal is to return to their ancestral home in the Lonely Mountains and reclaim a stolen fortune from the dragon Smaug. Along the way, they and their reluctant companion meet giant spiders, hostile elves, ravening wolves--and, most perilous of all, a subterranean creature named Gollum from whom Bilbo wins a magical ring in a riddling contest. It is from this life-or-death game in the dark that J.R.R. Tolkien's masterwork, The Lord of the Rings, would eventually spring. Though The Hobbit is lighter in tone than the trilogy that follows, it has, like Bilbo Baggins himself, unexpected iron at its core. Don't be fooled by its fairy-tale demeanor; this is very much a story for adults, though older children will enjoy it, too. By the time Bilbo returns to his comfortable hobbit-hole, he is a different person altogether, well primed for the bigger adventures to come--and so is the reader. --Alix Wilber --

About the Author

A writer of fantasies, Tolkien, a professor of language and literature at Oxford University, was always intrigued by early English and the imaginative use of language. In his greatest story, the trilogy The Lord of the Rings (1954--56), Tolkien invented a language with vocabulary, grammar, syntax, even poetry of its own. Though readers have created various possible allegorical interpretations, Tolkien has said: "It is not about anything but itself. (Certainly it has no allegorical intentions, general, particular or topical, moral, religious or political.)" In The Adventures of Tom Bombadil (1962), Tolkien tells the story of the "master of wood, water, and hill," a jolly teller of tales and singer of songs, one of the multitude of characters in his romance, saga, epic, or fairy tales about his country of the Hobbits. Tolkien was also a formidable medieval scholar, as attested to by, among other works, Beowulf: The Monster and the Critics (1936) and his edition of Anciene Wisse:English Text of the Anciene Riwle.