Booktalking Colorado - Full Booktalk Record

Booktalking Colorado Full Record:

	Title:	Both Sides of Time
	Author:	Cooney, Caroline B.
	Date Published:	1995
	Genre:	Time travel
	Grade Level:	7 - 12
	Booktalker:	Marilyn Bunker

Booktalk:
Anna Sophia Lockwood was on her way to a beach party to celebrate her high school graduation. She had to stop and pick up her boyfriend Sean. He loved to putter around with fixing old vehicles. Sean was not very romantic and Annie was definitely ready for a summer romance. As Annie rode her bike up to the mansion, she thought to herself, “ I am a romantic in the wrong century. I love in the 1990’s and I should have lived in the 1890s. I bet I could have found true love 100 years ago. Look at Sean, all I am ever going to find here is true grease. As Annie waited for Sean, she started wondering through the old decrepit mansion. She felt herself falling, not onto something, but through something. As she walked through the old halls of peeling paint, the ugly old colors turn into rich wallpaper that felt like velvet, the floors grew new carpets of indigo and pompeiian red. Ceilings lost their sag. The old vehicles Sean was working on disappeared to be replaced by matching chestnut horse, who were alive, flicking their tails and perfuming the air. She began seeing people who were only half there. She heard the sound of broken bones and someone falling. What had she just seen? She wandered through half rooms, trying to touch people who were only half there. Hiram Stratton, better known as Strat, followed the apparition as if hypnotized. Her dress was so short, above her ankles. She had on no gloves, no hat, and her hair was down even though it was midafternoon and she had bare legs too. He followed the ghost, as she touched everything, banisters, and statues, draperies, books, and then she turned and headed straight for him. Her lips moved, but the sound was far away. She ran down the stairs and got on her bike, and rode away. Strat followed her and after a short race, Annie stopped and asked, “ Who are you?” After talking with Strat for a few minutes, Annie was stunned to learn it was 1895. Strat brought Anna home, where she was taken in and treated as a friend. She was put into clothes that she could barely breathe in, much less dress herself in. Slippers that would fall apart if used for walking outside. In a few minutes, Anna had become a girl of the 1890s. Strat and Anna had fallen head over heels in love. Anna was ready to stay forever. Shortly after Anna had arrived, the body of Matthew, one of the servants, was found on the back stairs. Even though Hiram Stratton Sr. had already decided that it was an accident, the police became involved. There were so many intrigues going on. Anna had trouble keeping everyone straight. Harriet, a plain girl with thin hair and teeth that stuck out, who loved Strat; Devonny, Strat’s sister, who was beautiful indulged and pampered. Mr. Rowells, an older businessman who was looking for money to finance his latest business venture. Hiram Stratton Sr. who was on his 4th wife, had no charitable bones in his body, and was fat from so many years of fine food and wine, and what he said was the law. A couple of days after Anna arrived, they had just finished breakfast, when the police arrived. They all went into the library. As they stood there, Mr. Rowells, yelled, “That’s her, she’s the one who pushed Matthew, I saw her.” Everyone turned to stare at Anna. She ran out of the house wondering, “How do I explain traveling through time.” She flew out the door, desperate to see the 1995 that wasn’t there. She ducked through the opening of the stonewall in the garden, ran along the path to the stables. She heard the sounds of the 1890’s and then the sounds of the 1990s, a radio, a honking horn. Strat caught up to her. He cried out, “ I Love you.“ Annie tried to kiss him. She was on both side of time and neither side. To find out Anna’s choice, read Both Sides of Time. Two Sequels follow Both Sides of Time, the Prisoner of Time and Out of Time.