What is Genre?
Genre is the way we commonly classify and
categorize books.
Why should I bother with it?
The 7 Major Genres
•
•
•
•
Fantasy
• Non-Fiction
Realistic Fiction • Poetry
Mystery
• Science Fiction
Historical 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.
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.
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 indepth 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.
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 fourteenyear-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 seventeenyear-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.
But, wait! The book I’m reading
doesn’t fit into just one of those
categories!
Genre Challenge!
• 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