Booktalking Colorado - Full Booktalk Record

Booktalking Colorado Full Record:

	Title:	Shadow Spinner
	Author:	Fletcher, Susan
	Date Published:	1998
	Genre:	Fantasy
	Grade Level:	5 - 9
	Booktalker:	Susan Bartel

Booktalk:
Once upon a time, there was a Sultan. He married. And when his wife was unfaithful, he had her killed. Each evening thereafter, he took a new wife and, in order to avoid that wife also being unfaithful, he had her killed in the morning. This went on until there were almost no young women left in the kingdom. Then the Sultan married Shahrazad. Shahrazad saved her life by telling a story. She told a riveting tale, and ended the storytelling session just at the height of the action or the suspense. In this way, the Sultan had to spare her life in order to hear the end of the story. But, Shahrazad was running out of stories. Marjan was a crippled serving girl who loved to tell stories. One day she and her mistress enter the Sultan’s harem to sell jewelry. While the mistress is selling jewelry, Marjan entertained the children of the harem women with a story. The story was so entertaining, and one that no one had heard before, and word spread to Shahrazad that Marjan had a new and very good story for her to tell the Sultan that evening. The Sultan loved the story. He believed he’d heard it years ago when he was just a boy. He demanded that Shahrazad tell him the continuation of the story because he remembers there’s more to the story than what he’s been told. Shahrazad, of course, doesn’t know the rest of the story. Marjan doesn’t either. Marjan heard the story from an old man who told stories for a living in the bazaar. Now it would appear that the lives of Marjan, Shahrazad, and all the young women of the kingdom depend on finding the original storyteller with the ending to the tale. But none of the women, once in the harem, are allowed to leave. How will Marjan and Shahrazad escape the harem, find the storyteller and do it all in time to save the women of the kingdom?