Booktalking Colorado - Full Booktalk Record

Booktalking Colorado Full Record:

	Title:	Acceleration
	Author:	McNamee, Graham
	Date Published:	2003
	Genre:	Thriller
	Grade Level:	7 -89
	Booktalker:	Kathy Preller

Booktalk:
Duncan has a summer job, working in the Lost and Found Department for the Toronto Transit Authority. His Dad got the job for him - probably so he'd really want to go to college. It's a mind-numbing job, working underground, in a subbasement, below the subway tunnels. The Lost and Found room is crammed full of junk that people left on busses or subway trains; sunglasses, umbrellas, books, cell phones, jackets. Everything has a little post-it note stuck to it, with an expiration date. Unclaimed stuff gets boxed up and sent to a charity sale. Duncan's going stir-crazy down there, 8 hours a day, nothing to do but rummage through the forgotten junk. He looks for a book to read, and comes across a small, thick book, no title, just a plain brown leather cover. He picks it up, and realizes it's not really a book, but some sort of journal. But inside, there's a graph showing how long it takes mice to drown, then some newspaper clippings about an animal abuse epidemic, and pet owners are warned to keep cats indoors. Duncan realizes this is the diary of some sicko. He drops the book and kicks it away, wiping his hands on his jeans - he feels dirty just touching the thing. A few days later he sees it again, and again reads portions of it - newspaper clippings of fires, now, and little paragraphs of how he chose the buildings, how many fire trucks show up, how the fire advances. Duncan wants to burn the book, but he can't. The psycho that wrote this stuff is still walking around out there. Realizing this guy has probably been writing in the journal for years, Duncan skips to the end, to see where this insanity is going. And he reads: This is kids' stuff. Need something bigger. Been hunting. Riding the subway, searching the faces for the right one. All the pretty ladies sitting across from me. It's like an audition. A cattle call. And Duncan realizes the psycho is going to kill a woman.