3 fantasy booktalks

This post is a set of booktalks I gave in my Children's Literature class recently. My theme was fantasy books about animals or toys (as a segment of the fantasy genre as a whole). Keep in mind that a booktalk tries to sell a book to a reader, it is not a review. Also, these are intended for an elementary school age audience. See if you are convinced to read them!


Poor Mr. Fox! All he wants to do is provide some dinner for his family. Is it his fault that the best places to find dinner happen to be the storehouses of three of the meanest, nastiest farmers in the valley? Boggis is a chicken farmer who is enormously fat – he eats three chickens for breakfast, lunch and dinner every day! Bunce is a short, potbellied farmer who eats doughnuts filled with liver paste, ew! Bean is a turkey and apple farmer who is tall and skinny. He doesn’t eat, only drinks cider made from his apples. They are not happy that Mr. Fox is stealing from them and they plan to dig him out of his hole even if they have to take down the entire hillside. But Mr. Fox is pretty clever and with the help of some other animals from the forest he makes a plan to outsmart the terrible Boggis, Bunce and Bean! To find out how he tricks them, read Fantastic Mr. Fox by Roald Dahl.
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Do you have a favorite toy or stuffed animal? One that you love more than anything? Abeline does. Her grandmother gave her a 3' tall china rabbit with soft ears and a tail. His name was Edward Tulane and she dressed him in the finest outfits and set him in a chair at the dinner table. But Edward did not appreciate Abeline's love. He was proud and cold hearted and only cared about himself. One day Abeline's family journeys to England on a great steamer ship and Edward is accidentally tossed overboard and spends several months at the bottom of the sea before a storm carries him to the net of a fisherman. He soon journeys across the country and through many different owners, all the while learning how to love. Join Edward in The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo.
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Raise your hand if you know what a typewriter is?.... some of you do, great.... for those who don't, it is a machine that your parents and grandparents might have used way back before everyone had computers. It had a keyboard like a computer, you put a piece of paper in the back and as you pushed the keys it printed the letters on the paper. It didn't have spell check!...... Well Farmer Brown had one stored in his barn and his cows found it. It turns out, Farmer Brown's cows like to type! They like to type all day long: click, clack, moo; click, clack, moo; clickety, clackety, moo! So They typed a note to Farmer Brown demanding warm electric blankets for themselves and for the hens because the barn is very cold at night. When Farmer Brown says. "No way!" and the cows and hens go on strike! They won't give him any milk or eggs! What is Farmer Brown going to do? How can he run a farm with no milk and no eggs?  Read Click Clack Moo: Cows That Type by Doreen Cronin to find out if he has to give in to those cows. Moooo!