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What Ori's Reading
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(I volunteer a half hour each week with Mrs. Castro's fifth grade class reading and talking about mysteries.)
I read Lois Duncan when I was their age and enjoyed her very much. This book is hot off the press and is not yet officially released as we are reading it. The story is about high schooler, Sarah Zoltanne. Sarah is new in the town of Pine Crest. Her mother uprooted her from Ventura, California because she expects to remarry. Sarah's potential step-father has a daughter, Kyra, who knows a lot of information about the people in the town.
Eric Garrett, a friend of Kyra's, is in charge of the high-school fair. He pressures Sarah into play the part of a fortune teller. Using some high tech equipment (a wireless transmitter and headphones), Sarah tells the fortunes of the students who enter her tent while Kyra feeds her the information. At one point, the crystal ball she has been using as a prop in her act clouds over and shows her something she never expected.
Sarah is sensitive, pretty cool (she calls her mother by her first name), does her homework, but does not feel that she fits in with a crowd of kids at Pine Crest High who have grown up together. The story deals with the issues of loneliness, honor, kindness, death of a parent, a parent remarrying, fitting in at a new school, history of the Salem witch trials, and what all the kids seem to like these days--the supernatural. At the back of the book is an annotated list of recommended and related books.
Mrs. Castro's class seems to be enjoying it and have had some pretty good laughs about some of the characters in the story.
We are reading this book in half hour increments, and it looks as if it will take about six more sessions to finish it (for a total of eight), which means I am going to have to read very, very fast if we are going to find out what happens before the end of the school year.