This was an easy one for me. Famous Last Words was Ok - I can see some kids who would read it. But it never grabbed me in any way and I thought there was no real depth to the book. After I read it I went back to see what it had beat out and was surprised to see it beat our Afterworlds.
I had actually read all the books that were in the Glory O'Brien pool so I was excited to read Glory and see how it compared. And I was not disappointed! I love this book, I loved the voice of Glory and as she was telling the future, I could really see that happening. Do I think you can drink a bat and see the future? No, but I thought the story of the future was really compelling. As the books have been talked up multiple times in previous posts, I'll keep it short. Glory O'Brien all the way!
We wanted to create a way where we could read a few books, learn about many titles and have fun doing it! The tournament style reading of the Mighty Smackdown means that in the first round each participant reads two books, discusses both in a blog post, selecting one book to move on to the next round. Teachers are asked to commit to one round but most, if not all, continue on. We will read to the end when we will have only one book left standing!
To be honest, I was quite surprised that Famous Last Words had made it this far in the competition. I found the novel to be okay and liked the friendship between Willa and Wyatt. For the most part, however, I found the novel to be very surface, lacking in development/depth and I never was willing or convinced to suspend belief. My vote to move on is most definitely Glory O'Brien: History of the Future. When I did some research about A.S. King, I was not surprised to find that what she writes inevitably gets honored/recognized in some way. Glory's voice is strong and I appreciated how King revealed the story and characters to us. Was I wholly convinced about drinking the bat and seeing the future? No, but as Vanessa said in her post, the story of the future was really compelling. Looking forward to Glory O'Brien moving on!
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