Book Trailer Examples

http://www.justreadit.net

Why Do We Like, or Dislike, Characters?

• What does the author think about the characters? Are there any that are completely unlikable? How does the author show that? What is it that the author does not like about some people?
• Who (what type of people) does the author feel are treated unfairly?
• Does the main character have any flaws? Why does the author create those flaws? What does the character need to learn about herself? About life? About friendship?
• How does your author feel about the society presented in the book? Are there people/situations that are presented in an unfavorable light? How do those things realate to our society? Is the author being critical of our society in some way?



What Happened to Cass McBride was a difficult book to read. Cass McBride is the most popular girl in school. She's been a trend setter since the day she walked onto the campus, and everyone copies her style-even when her style isn't deliberate. Cass clings to her popularity, and her father grooms her for her expected success in life.

David is the ultimate outsider. He's as low on the high school food chain as a boy can be. But one day he decides to just go for it-he reaches for the gold ring. He asks Cass McBride out on a date. Cass rejects him diplomatically (she needs his vote for homecoming queen), but leaves a nasty note about him for a friend in the next class. David sees her leave the note, takes and reads it, and later that night, he hangs himself. David's brother Kyle finds the body. And he finds the note that Cass wrote. He decides to make her pay.

There is very little that is likable about Cass, even though the reader begins to understand her better when her dysfunctional family is revealed. She is calculating and manipulative. Everything, from the clubs she joins to the people she has as friends, is designed to further her personal agenda.

There is also not much to like about Kyle. Both teens come from families with parents who withhold love from the children; Cass's father with his incessant push for Cass to live the perfect life so she can get into the perfect school and be a reflection of his own perfection, and David and Kyle's mother with her vitriolic verbal abuse, all combine in a perfect storm that shatters lives. Beyond the mystery of whether or not Cass will be found in time to save her life, this book explores what causes human personalities to develop. This is a book that raises questions: what motivates parents to scar their children, what are the base causes of suicide, but it does not provide any easy answers. The reader feels Cass's claustrophobia as she lies buried and attempts to connect with Kyle and get him to release her. Even though I came to have empathy for both Cass and Kyle, I never really connected to either of them. The only truly sympathetic character is the suicide victim David. His chilling last words, pinned to the skin of his chest, "Words are teeth. And they Eat me alive. Feed on my corpse instead" will haunt me for some time to come.

What to Write When You Don't Know What to Write

• Did you connect to the character? If so, why? Be specific-both about the character and yourself (or people that you know.)

• Why are you drawn to the characters in the book? Are they like characters your read about in other books or that you have seen in movies? Is there something about the character that you like? Are they like you in some way, or would you like to be more like him/her? Why?

• What kind of atmosphere does the author of your book create? Is there fear? How is it created? Is there humor? Is it light-hearted? How does the author achieve this tone?

• What lessons do the characters learn? How can those lessons be applied to life in the “real” world?

• Why did the author write this book? What message was he/she sending?


An example: In The Hunger Games books, what was Suzanne Collins saying about OUR society? About the media? About our finding entertainment in watch "reality" portrayed on television and Internet? In that last book (or movie) what message was she sending about the idea of heroism? Did Katniss actually accomplish ANYTHING? Was she just a symbol? If so, why was that important? Were there actually ANY good guys to take over the government?

Who Do You See?

What happens when a student never sees himself represented in the books provided in schools and libraries? How does she identify with the characters and stories she reads if she can't recognize any of the characters she meets? How do teachers and librarians learn about the students and patrons they serve if they don't read and provide the books that represent a broad spectrum of culture and circumstance? How do we teach students to be tolerant of others if we do not tolerate books in our collections that may make us uncomfortable?

As I read The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian, I realized that it is the first YA novel I have ever read that has a Native American as the protagonist. That bothers me, so I started looking in our school literature books. The 10th and 11th grade lit books each have fewer than five pieces related to Native Americans, and several of those are Native American legends.

When Junior realized the inadequacy of the textbooks in the reservation school, I felt his frustration. I wondered how this could happen in a system that is supposed to provide adequate textbooks through government funding. This led me to wonder about the frustration that other kids feel, or may not recognize that they are feeling, when none of the books they read reflect their lives or culture. Junior made a radical educational change in his life, and he finally realizes that as "Arnold," he doesn't belong to a single tribe. He belongs to multiple tribes. Wouldn't providing books that students identify with support them in coming to the same realization?

Some people have objected to this book because of the sexual nature of some of the thoughts of the fourteen year old boy and "vulgar" language. I wonder if perhaps the true objection, the unvoiced objection, is to the reality of the shoddy treatment, the abysmal education system, and the dire poverty endured by Native Americans in this country.

You'll create a web advertisement for your book. Here's a sample from Photoshow:

http://www.photoshow.com/watch/Zk4Bq3DG

And here are directions and an example from Powtoon:
https://www.powtoon.com/online-presentation/g9VrllelfC3/book-trailers-in-powtoon/#/

Wizards Named Harry

There's just something about a hero who faces insurmountable odds that draws me into a story. Apparently, if you give him a magic wand or a staff, I'll read the entire series and be bereft when it ends. I fear that nothing will ever top J.K. Rowling's work, but Jim Butcher's Harry has instituted himself in my heart.

Harry Dresden has definite echoes of Harry Potter. He was orphaned, and he has a very small circle of friends. Okay-other than being a wizard-they don't have a great deal in common beyond those two details. And Butcher has written fifteen Harry Dresden books, with more to come.

But none of that explains why I so enjoy this character. If I'm going to "list" reasons, I'll have to start with his sense of humor. He generally quips when he's in dangerous situations, but even in casual conversation, you can expect a line like this: "Gandalf never had this kind of problem." In addition, Harry's friends always have his back, even when things are most desperate and he feels completely alone and isolated. None of us can ask for much more in life-that those who care about us always have our backs, or at least offer words of encouragement when most needed. Couple that with the thirty pound cat named Mister, and the mystical, giant foo dog Mouse, and I'm reading cover-to-cover as rapidly as possible.

I also love that Harry changes over the course of the series, and so do his friends. Butters is one of my favorite secondary characters. He is obviously terrified by the things he learns about the world, but he always throws himself into danger in order to help save his friends (and the world). No spoilers, but Butters becoming what he becomes in the last book is the most satisfying literary moment I've experienced in a long time.

At one point, I was disappointed with the seeming resolution of one storyline. It just didn't feel finished to me, and I kept expecting it to reappear. In Skin Game Butcher brought that storyline back in magnificent form. It explained an issue of seeming irrelevance that occurred over and over  in the last several books, and I was astounded by this author's planning and execution of the plot line.

Butcher published Skin Game, book 15, in 2014, and he's started a different series. I'm pleased to read anything he writes, but I'll be thrilled when he brings Harry and his friends back for the next installment.

Oh, My

As I continue through Armada, I'm seeing signposts on nearly every page. Zack is having huge realizations on a regular basis. This has to happen, because he's found out that there really are aliens, and they really are planning an invasion of Earth!

Zack, along with the other top scoring players of the Armada and Terra Firma video games, is recruited by the Earth Defense Alliance to pilot drones to defend Earth against the imminent invasion. As he and the other recruits sit in an orientation session, the invasion begins, and all hands dash to their battle stations. As Zack takes his place, a computer voice tells him he must must agree to become a member of the Earth Defense Alliance.

I expected Zack to agree immediately; he's been playing this "game" for years, but he hesitates. His response "That's a little manipulative" (145) contradicts what I expected to happen. I expected him to agree without hesitation. Up until this point he has felt overwhelmed by the situation, but it all made sense to him. I think that this moment is going to lead to some internal conflict and cause him to begin to question the motives of the people who recruited him.

As Zack fights, he employs some of the strategies he's used in playing the video games, and they are successful. At one point when the alien ships are behaving exactly as those in the video game, he asks himself how the video company could "simulate the enemy's maneuvers and tactics" (151) so accurately. As he faces this question, I find myself questioning the reality of what is happening.

All those signposts-what do they mean!?!

In Armada by Ernest Cline, Zack Lightman is a senior in high school who is addicted to video games-specifically Armada-an MMO (massive multiplayer online-I had to look that up!) about aliens invading earth. When the story opens, Zack is ranked number six in the world for this particular game.

I've never played video games, but I can see the attraction. The characters feel as though they are engaged in an actual battle with all of the accompanying adrenaline rush but without the actual physical danger. For Zack though, it all becomes very real the day he looks out the window at school and sees a space ship that is an exact replica of one of the alien ships in the game he plays. He does not call attention to is because he is afraid no one else will see it. People already believe he is a psychopath because of something that happened when he was in junior high. He fears that he is having a psychotic break-just like he believes his deceased father had many years ago. His father, also a gamer, left behind journals that detailed his belief that the government was using video games and movies to prepare citizens for an imminent alien invasion.

Zack read his father's journals as a ten-year-old, and he goes back to them after he sees the ship. As he reads he realizes that perhaps he had been wrong; he understands the "hint of a method behind his seeming madness" (27). I think that this realization is going to cause Zack to delve more deeply into his father's writing, and I think he's going to discover that his father was not crazy, and he may even find out that he's not really dead.

I also think that there is something up with Ray, Zack's boss at the video game store. Every time Zack goes to work, Ray coerced [him] into playing video games rather than actually working. He insists that, in addition to Armada, Zack also play another game created by the same company. I'm pretty sure that this foreshadows Ray not being exactly who he says he is.

At work one day Zack has a sudden realization when it strikes him that "it had never occurred to [him] to make a connection between the alien invasion plotline of Chaos Terrain's games and the conspiracy theory outlined in [his] father's notebook" (46). This solidifies my belief that Zack is not crazy-and neither was his father. I am more convinced than ever that Zack's dad may be alive somewhere, and there has been a huge government coverup.

I'll continue to write about this one, but if my predictions based on these signposts are correct, I won't tell you. No spoilers here; you'll have to read it yourself!