Booktalking Colorado - Full Booktalk Record

Booktalking Colorado Full Record:

	Title:	Blizzard's Wake
	Author:	Naylor, Phyllis Reynolds
	Date Published:	2002
	Genre:	Real Life
	Grade Level:	5 - 9
	Booktalker:	Bonnie Phinney

Booktalk:
You’d feel the same way I do, if it were your mom. If it were your mom, dead, because some drunk crashed into the side of the car she was riding in. I hate him. I’m glad he’s locked away. I dream about worse things that could happen to him – like if he were walking along the side of the road and I came driving by…My dad says the hate is poisoning me. But I don’t care. I hate him. To be honest, I can hardly think about anything else. It’s been four years -Four long years. But it seems like four days. I don’t lead a normal life any more – can’t seem to invite girls over to spend the night: too many memories. Can’t go to their homes either: hurts to be around their moms. I don’t understand how my brother, Jesse, and my dad can act like it never happened – well, not like it never happened. But they seem to have gotten on with their lives. Why can’t I? Why am I so consumed with hate? I could have gone into town with dad and Jesse to meet my friends on that fateful March day. But I felt like staying home. Felt like working on the bridge my mom never finished – a bridge made of tooth picks and straws. She was an artist. I’m not. So I was home when the blizzard hit. It came on so suddenly, and Jesse and dad got trapped. I could see the lights of the car, but in a storm like that you could get lost in your own backyard if you go out in it. I had to do something, but I wasn’t prepared for what I found. And by the time it was over, it had changed my life forever. Well, maybe not my attitude, completely…I mean, could you ever forgive someone who killed your mom?