Booktalking Colorado - Full Booktalk Record

Booktalking Colorado Full Record:

	Title:	Stetson
	Author:	Rottman, S. L.
	Date Published:	2002
	Genre:	Real Life
	Grade Level:	7 - 8
	Booktalker:	Sam Marsh
	Awards:	Former Blue Spruce Award Nominee

Notes:
Good "Boy's" book.

Booktalk:
It was NOT a day to remember. I had taken a dare/bet to earn ten badly needed dollars, promising to get us out of an end-of-period quiz. Unfortunately, the first-year, smiley-faced Ms. Pepper had taken my antics harder then I'd anticipated. I guess the dead mouse I left on her desk sealed it. I stopped at the office on my way out, and as Mr. Johnson was in a meeting I told Mrs. Beard that I was suspending myself for the rest of the day and the next and that I'd meet with the principal at 8:00 when I got back the day after that. I went over to Jason's Salvage Yard where I worked in my 'spare' time and started stripping the latest additions to the lot down to their component sellable parts. Jason was the closest thing I had to a parent...or friend. I was pretty much a loner, and liked it that way. My mom left when I was little, and I never heard from her since. At first Dad did his best to take care of me, but the older I got the less his best became. He had degenerated from a laughing, caring parent into a drunken slob with matching beer gut. We had a big fight after he got trashed celebrating my first day of junior high and threw up on me. That was the climax, and he hasn't done anything positive since. He never finished school and it bugs him that I'm still going and may actually graduate. He's been trying to get me to quit and work full time with him at the mill. I'm the one who buys the groceries. His money goes mainly for beer. Then, there's my car. I got it two years ago and spend every spare minute and penny on it. Its almost totally reconstructed. I won't let dad touch it and won't drive it myself until I'm finished. It drives dad nuts. Of course, he hasn't had a license for some time with his drinking problem. Today, Jason has a Honda Civic with a full set of good wheels that he knows I've been searching for. He tells me that when I've finished with the four new cars, I can have the wheels. After finishing two of them, its time to head home, so I set off with two of the tires for my day's pay. Jason offers me a ride, but I know it's out of his way, and I don't mind the exercise. I notice that there is a truck is parked between the shed and trailer, meaning dad probably borrowed it for something. Then, I hear dad's bellow, demanding that I get in the trailer. After setting the wheels inside the shed and relocking it, I head to the trailer. I stop in surprise as I enter. The curtains, always shut, are wide open and the room is actually somewhat clean. And, there is a girl in a t-shirt and miniskirt sitting on the sofa. "I'm Kayla. Who are you." "I'm Stet." "Stetson," dad corrects . "Why are you here?" "My mother died last week. No one else would take me." Yeah, I was sorry about her mother, but "...why are you here?" Dad's smirking, enjoying the show. "So Dad came and got me this morning and brought me back here." "...that makes her your sister," Dad says. I have a sister??!!