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Klappentext:

Four 13-year-old friends build themselves a raft to ride the Millstone River on. They’ve kept the trip a secret and plan to be back before their parents start worrying about them. On the river, the raft floating high and dry, the friends are enjoying the ride – until they reach fast water and the sabotaged raft breaks apart, throwing them into the cold waters of the river. Stranded in the middle of the woods, they face a long, dangerous walk home.

Auszug:

One week and a lot of hard work later, the raft was ready to go. Jed and the others had spent almost the whole last day finishing it. After that, they had a quick swim and
talked about their plans to raft down the river the next day. They could hardly wait. Before they returned home, they decided it would be a good idea to christen the raft. They took a long piece of the rope that was left over from making the raft and tied an empty bottle to one end of it. Then they tied the other end to the branch of a tree above the raft. Jed held the bottle and got ready to throw it. ‘Wait a minute,’ said Joline. ‘We’ve forgotten the most important thing!’ ‘What’s that?’ Carlos wanted to know.
‘The name. When you christen a ship you need a name. What are we going to call our raft?’ ‘How about ‘S.S. CJCJ’? said Chester. ‘What’s that?’ Jed asked.
‘It stands for Chester and Joline, Carlos and Jed.’ ‘Or Carlos and Jed, Chester and Joline,’ Carlos said. ‘Yeah. I like that better, too,’ said Jed.
‘What does ‘S.S.’ mean?’ Carlos asked. ‘Sailing Ship,’ Chester said. ‘It’s what they always call ships, like the S.S. Queen Mary.’
‘I’ve got a better idea for a name,’ said Jed. ‘How about “S.S. Secret”? Because it’s a secret raft. No one knows about it except us.’ ‘And Slo-Mo and his gang!’ Carlos added quickly.
‘Right. I forgot about them. What about ‘S.S. Almost Secret’? Jed laughed. ‘Listen. We’ll just call it “S.S. Rocky Hill”, okay?’ Joline looked around at the others. They all nodded.
‘Ready, Jed?’ Chester said. ‘Take good aim! The bottle has to break, you know. It’s bad luck if it doesn’t.’ Jed hesitated. He looked unhappy.
‘Hello, earth to Jed Crane! Are you there? It’s time for you to throw the bottle,’ Joline said with a smile. ‘I – I don’t know. I don’t think it’s such a good idea after all.’
‘Huh? What’s wrong with you, man?’ Carlos said.
‘If I throw the bottle it’ll break into pieces and they’ll all end up in the river.’ There was a sad look in Jed’s eyes. ‘Hey, we’ll pick up the pieces afterwards, if it’ll make you feel any better,’ Carlos said. He looked at Joline and Chester and rolled his eyes. ‘Well – okay – but all the pieces,’ Jed said slowly. ‘Every one of them. Don’t worry,’ Carlos said, winking at the others.
‘You’ve got a deal!’ Jed said and laughed. Immediately, he raised the bottle high and said in a loud voice, ‘I christen you S.S. Rocky Hill!’ Then he threw it. It hit the side of the raft with a loud bang and broke. ‘Hooray!’ shouted the others and exchanged noisy high fives. As they continued to laugh and fool around, Jed stood there, watching them quietly. After a while, Carlos noticed the way Jed was looking at them. ‘Oh oh, let’s get those pieces of glass out of the river before Jed here has a heart attack!’ he said. Late that evening, long after they had gone home, an old car came driving down the river road. It stopped near the raft. Four people got out, each of them carrying a flashlight. The driver made a sign to the others to be quiet. For several moments, they stood there and looked up and down the river. Then they moved slowly down the riverbank to the edge of the water. There, before them in the light of their flashlights, lay the raft. Laughing softly, the driver of the car turned to the others and said, ‘Okay, guys, you know what to do. Let’s get started!’
For the next hour the four of them worked quietly. No one said a word. When they were finished, the driver of the car went from one end of the raft to the other, checking what they had done. ‘Good work,’ he said finally and smiled at them. ‘Let’s get out of here!’ He turned and started slowly up the riverbank, the others close behind him.

Rezension von der Klasse 8d des Gymnasium Nordhorn:

‘Interesting’
‘Exciting’
‘Good tension’
‘We liked the Activities, they helped us understand the novel’
‘We liked the ending!’
‘Sometimes the plot develops unexpectedly’
‘Novel is very varied’
‘easy to read and to understand’
OUR FAVORITE CHARACTERS: JED and JOLINE

Setting SOS Rocky Hill

Klappentext:

Neil Green is an active student at Caribou Middle High School. He likes his school and his school likes him. So he thought. Until he began getting shocking text messages. His best friend Darby tells him to ignore them, but then a nasty website appears, presenting Neil and Darby in a false light, and turning Caribou Middle High into their own personal chamber of horrors. Realizing that they have to defend themselves, they set up their own website to combat the cyber bully.

Auszug:

It was late October, the break for the potato harvest was over and life was back to normal in Northern Maine. School was in full swing again. Almost. Some students were finding it difficult to concentrate on their schoolwork after the long, three-week break. Their minds were on other things, not all of them good. You could see it in their eyes. Sylvia’s eyes were scanning the faces in the crowded cafeteria when the idea came to her. Smiling, she turned to Cora. ‘I know how we can have some fun,’ she said. Cora’s blank face lighted up. ‘How?’
‘We pick a victim and rattle their cage!’ ‘Huh?’ Cora’s face went blank again. Sylvia leaned closer to her friend. ‘We pick someone we don’t like and bully them.’
‘Bully them? What if they’re bigger than us?’ ‘Bigger, smaller, faster, slower – it doesn’t make any difference. We do it electronically. You know, via IM, email or computer.’ ‘Oh, yeah. That’d be fun!’ Cora clapped her hands like a little girl. Suddenly, she stopped, a question written all over her face. ‘But who?’
Sylvia narrowed her eyes and smiled. ‘That shouldn’t be a problem. Think of all the kids we don’t like.’ She started scanning the faces in the cafeteria again. A moment later she stopped
and turned again to her friend. ‘That guy, for example!’ she said in a whisper. ‘Which guy?’ Cora’s voice was full of excitement. ‘The one in the blue sweatshirt, talking to some girls, three tables from here.’ ‘You mean Neil, Neil Green?’ Cora’s eyes opened wider and wider. Sylvia laughed softly. ‘That’s the one. The one and only Neil Green. ’Cora looked puzzled. ‘Why him?’ Before Sylvia could answer, Cora smiled and said, ‘Wait a minute! Last year! You had the hots for him but he never even looked at you. I remember!’
Sylvia gave her friend an angry look. ‘Not because of that. I forgot about that a long time ago,’ she said. ‘It’s because he’s such a conceited bastard. Look at him. Look at that smile. It’s got I’m-the-coolest-guy-here written all over it. Do you see it?’ ‘Yeah.’ Cora nodded quickly to show how strongly she agreed with her friend. ‘Why don’t we begin with an IM? Got any ideas?’ Cora’s face went blank again. She looked at Sylvia and shook her head.
‘Well, I have! Listen!’ Sylvia looked around and then began to whisper to her friend.

Rezension Cyber Nightmare von Sarah Garus (Hildegardisschule Bochum):

Wir haben die Lektüre Cyber Nightmare mit unserer 10. Klasse gelesen. Eine fesselnde Geschichte, die auf ein großes Problem der heutigen Zeit aufmerksam macht. Neil Green (der Protagonist) erfährt wohl eine der gemeinsten Arten des Mobbing: er wird unter anderem als schwul bezeichnet, wobei ich denke, dass dieser Vorwurf, welcher alle in Entsetzen und Spott versetzt, ein wenig auf den konservativen, amerikanischen Denkstrukturen basiert.
Der Autor Paul Davenport hat auch durch die Wahl der Täter, Mädchen, den Nagel auf den Kopf getroffen. Mädchen sind heutzutage teilweise viel verhaltensauffälliger als Jungen und ihre Rachegelüste sprengen so manche Vorstellungskraft. Dem Leser wird vom ersten Kapitel an Sylvias und Coras Absicht vor Augen geführt, was mich persönlich etwas stört, da meiner Meinung nach die Lektüre so etwas an Spannung einbüßt, da man schon weiß, wer Neil in der Hand hält. Was der Lektüre aber einen Pluspunkt einbringt, ist Neils Absicht, sich selbst zu verteidigen. Er schafft es, den ,,Mund zu öffnen ” und setzt dadurch ein öffentliches Zeichen gegen die in der Gesellschaft weit verbreitete Form der Diskriminierung, das Mobbing.
Insgesamt hatte ich viel Spaß an dem kleinen Büchlein, weil sich so die Diskrepanz zwischen dem Schulenglisch und dem umgangssprachlichen Englisch wieder mehr offenbart hat. Ein Buch in einfacher Sprache mit Sätzen, die für Schüler gut zu verstehen sind. Zudem sind auch die „questions & activities” -Übungen eine sehr gute Hilfe zum Verständnis und für eventuelle Klausurvorbereitungen.

Setting Cyber Nightmare

Cyber Bully Rap

Davenport Stories auf der Frankfurter Buchmesse

You won’t see us in these videos but we were there – somewhere else. Whatever, I’ve chosen two videos about the fair. The first is to give you an idea of the upbeat atmosphere  and the XXL dimensions of the book fair. In the second, the ‘Dummfrager’ pokes fun at some of the would-be experts there. I like that. The fair was an exciting event, a must not only for booklovers, but also for those who prefer the newer media forms.

In diesem Jahr findet die Frankfurter Buchmesse vom 14. bis 18. Oktober statt. Ehrengast ist China. Die ersten drei Messetage sind dem Fachpublikum vorbehalten. Privatbesucher heißen wir am Wochenende – am 17. und 18. Oktober – herzlich willkommen.