What is Genre?Genre is the way we commonly classify and categorize books.

Why should I bother with it?

The 7 Major Genres

• Fantasy• Realistic Fiction• Mystery• Historical

Fiction• Non-Fiction• Poetry• Science Fiction

Science Fiction

• Also called Sci-Fi• Imaginative and creative• Advanced technology• Often (but not always) takes place in the future

Matched by Ally Condie

In the Society, Officials decide. Who you love. Where you work. When you die.Cassia has always trusted their choices. It’s hardly any price to pay for a long life, the perfect job, the ideal mate. So when her best friend appears on the Matching screen, Cassia knows with complete certainty that he is the one… until she sees another face flash for an instant before the screen fades to black. Now Cassia is faced with impossible choices: between Xander and Ky, between the only life she’s known and a path no one else has ever dared follow — between perfection and passion.

(amazon.com)

Realistic Fiction

• A story that COULD happen but is NOT true• Based on real-

life problems, situations, and characters• No magic or

make-believe

The Tragedy Paper by Elizabeth Laban

Tim Macbeth is a seventeen-year-old albino and a recent transfer to the prestigious Irving School, where the motto is “Enter here to be and find a friend.” A friend is the last thing Tim expects or wants—he just hopes to get through his senior year unnoticed. Yet, despite his efforts to blend into the background, he finds himself falling for the quintessential “It” girl, Vanessa Sheller, girlfriend of Irving’s most popular boy. To Tim's surprise, Vanessa is into him, too, but she can kiss her social status goodbye if anyone ever finds out. Tim and Vanessa begin a clandestine romance, but looming over them is the Tragedy Paper, Irving’s version of a senior year thesis, assigned by the school’s least forgiving teacher.(goodreads)

Fantasy• A story that

could not happen in real life• Imaginative

and creative• Magic,

supernatural creatures, or humans with special abilities are involved

Midnighters by Scott Westerfeld

A few nights after Jessica Day arrives in Bixby, Oklahoma, she wakes up at midnight to find the entire world frozen, except for her and a few others who call themselves midnighters. Dark monsters haunt this magical midnight hour – dark monsters with a mysterious interest in Jessica. The question is, why?

The Secret Hour is a compelling tale of dark secrets, eerie creatures, courage, destiny, and unexpected peril.

(amazon.com)

Mystery

• Full of suspense• Gives the

reader and characters clues along the way• Involves a

puzzle (usually “who did it?”) the reader can solve

The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian

Selznick

Orphan, clock keeper, and thief, Hugo lives in the walls of a busy Paris train station, where his survival depends on secrets and anonymity. But when his world suddenly interlocks with an eccentric, bookish girl and a bitter old man who runs a toy booth in the station, Hugo's undercover life, and his most precious secret, are put in jeopardy. A cryptic drawing, a treasured notebook, a stolen key, a mechanical man, and a hidden message from Hugo's dead father form the backbone of this intricate, tender, and spellbinding story.

(amazon.com)

Historical Fiction

• Story is NOT true, but many of the facts (especially setting) are• Explains how

people lived and acted• Usually takes

place during an interesting time in history

Fever 1793 by Laurie Halse Anderson

Fever 1793 is based on an actual epidemic of yellow fever in Philadelphia that wiped out 5,000 people--or 10 percent of the city's population--in three months.

In the foreground of this story is 16-year-old Mattie Cook, whose mother and grandfather own a popular coffee house on High Street. Mattie's comfortable and interesting life is shattered by the epidemic, as her mother is felled and the girl and her grandfather must flee for their lives. Later, after much hardship and terror, they return to the deserted town to find their former cook, a freed slave, working with the African Free Society, an actual group who undertook to visit and assist the sick and saved many lives. As first frost arrives and the epidemic ends, Mattie's sufferings have changed her from a willful child to a strong, capable young woman able to manage her family's business on her own.

(amazon.com)

Nonfiction

• TRUE- tells about real people, places, and events• Can be narrative

(like a memoir) or informational (like a how-to book)• More topics than

you can count!

Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice by Phillip

Hoose

On March 2, 1955, an impassioned teenager, fed up with the daily injustices of Jim Crow segregation, refused to give her seat to a white woman on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Instead of being celebrated as Rosa Parks would be just nine months later, fifteen-year-old Claudette Colvin found herself shunned by her classmates and dismissed by community leaders. Undaunted, a year later she dared to challenge segregation again as a key plaintiff in Browder v. Gayle, the landmark case that struck down the segregation laws of Montgomery and swept away the legal underpinnings of the Jim Crow South.

Based on extensive interviews with Claudette Colvin and many others, Phillip Hoose presents the first in-depth account of an important yet largely unknown civil rights figure, skillfully weaving her dramatic story into the fabric of the historic Montgomery bus boycott and court case that would change the course of American history.

(amazon.com)

Poetry

• Written in verse, as opposed to prose (regular writing with sentences)• Vivid and

emotional • Can be a

collection of short poems or used to tell a story

Make Lemonade by Virginia Euwer Wolff

Viginia Euwer Wolff's groundbreaking novel, written in free verse, tells the story of fourteen-year-old LaVaughn, who is determined to go to college--she just needs the money to get there. When she answers a babysitting ad, LaVaughn meets Jolly, a seventeen-year-old single mother with two kids by different fathers. As she helps Jolly make lemonade out of the lemons her life has given her, LaVaughn learns some lessons outside the classroom.

(amazon.com)

But, wait! The book I’m reading doesn’t fit into just one of those

categories!

• When your table is called, go to the reading lounge and select a book that is from a different genre than the book you’re currently reading.

• Check out the first 2 pages.• Discuss the book with your

partner. Include:-the genre of the new book

-how you can tell what genre it is

-whether you would keep reading based on what you’ve read so far

Genre Challenge!