Booktalking Colorado - Full Booktalk Record

Booktalking Colorado Full Record:

	Title:	Harmony
	Author:	Murphy, Rita
	Date Published:	2002
	Genre:	Fantasy
	Grade Level:	6 - 7
	Booktalker:	Sam Marsh

Booktalk:
I guess you could say that Uncle Felix caught a falling star. He was setting up his Harmony Box one night in August, trying to capture the sound planets make when they move by one another in space, and was watching a meteor show (the Perseid), when a bright star fell and crashed to earth through the roof of aunt Nettie Mae's chicken coop. While the star was quite remarkable, the naked child lying beside it and crowing like a rooster was even more remarkable. That would be me. I was raised as their own child, and Uncle Felix says I am a star child. He wanted to name me Arcturus, but Nettie May said that was too heavy a name for a child of any type to carry through life. So, I was named for Uncle Felix's "Harmony Box," for the sound of the harmony of the stars, and Nettie Mae's people who had lived in harmony in the mountains for four generations. But, ever since my fourteenth birthday last year, there has been a restlessness inside me. I've been able to do things that just aren't normal. For instance, I can move silverware wherever I want to on the table...without touching them, but just by thinking about where I want them to go. I can think of combustion, and start a fire in the grate without matches or tinder. Our cat Fellini was the first to know my secret, and now she won't sit on my lap. I don't even know what my abilities are, or what the truth is, so I haven't been able to tell Nettie Mae or Felix. I'm afraid to know the truth, because I don't want to be someone's scientific project...or a subject of any MORE gossip. I've spent most of my life trying to live down the events of my 'birth' as it is. I don't want to be seen as any more strange than I already am. But, last Saturday, I walked through the front door of my best friend, Shawnie Pawlett's house, and I set off the smoke alarms on the first floor and blew up the microwave. Now Fellini and Shawnie know, and Fellini is a lot more reliable about keeping secrets.