Booktalking Colorado - Full Booktalk Record

Booktalking Colorado Full Record:

	Title:	A Certain Slant of Light
	Author:	Whitcomb, Laura
	Date Published:	2005
	Genre:	Supernatural
	Grade Level:	9
	Booktalker:	Cathy Genato

Booktalk:
Have you heard about those people who have had near-death experiences & how they say that they saw this bright light when they were dying? In A Certain Slant of Light, souls are lights. It’s a ghost story about Helen, whose soul hasn’t gone to the light yet, even though she’s been dead for 150 years. During those years, she attached her soul to several people, going to someone new when her old host died. Through them, she filled some of her loneliness, because she had never met anyone else like her. Her current host is Mr. Brown, an 11th grade school teacher. She’s shocked when she finds someone in his class staring @ her one day. It’s Billy Blake, who was messing with drugs so much that his spirit just left his body. But he didn’t die because his body was taken over by James Deardon -- another spirit who had been dead 85 years. Suddenly, there’s another person in Helen’s world who can see her & talk to her. She leaves her host, & takes Billy (whose body has been taken over by James) as her host. They fall in love, so they decide to find a body for Helen. James can tell when a body is empty because it has a kind of hollow ringing. They go to the mall & find a girl – Jenny – who goes to Billy’s school. Helen takes over Jenny’s body, but it’s hard acting like she’s Jenny, whose parents are very strictly religious. Jenny/Helen & Billy/James meet @ school & anywhere else they can. Then one day the police come after Billy & ask him to testify against 2 of his friends who are charged with rape. But the problem is, James wasn’t in Billy’s body when it happened, so he doesn’t remember. James decides he has to give Billy’s body back, which he does. Helen can’t stand life without James, so she takes a bunch of sleeping pills. As she’s drifting away, she feels a faint flutter in her stomach, & realizes she’s pregnant. It brings Jenny back into her body. Then Billy shows up because he had found a picture of him & Jenny when Helen & James were in their bodies. As they talk, Helen’s spirit leaves & she relives her death. Then she sees her daughter, who had been 2 when she died, but lived a full life. Then James appears & they are dead happily ever after.