Book trailer - "Noggin" by John Corey Whaley

Assignment two of LCN617 – Children’s Literature: Criticism & Practice saw me writing a Critical Rationale for, and book trailer of, John Corey Whaley's second novel Noggin. I won't bore you with the essay, but I am rather proud of the trailer :)... here's a brief summary of the text first, it's a pretty good read.

A brief summary of Noggin

Travis Coates is an average teen boy going through ordinary teenage boy issues and angst via an extraordinary set of circumstances. At the age of 16, Travis was diagnosed with cancer. Desperate for some control in an uncontrollable situation he and his parents agreed to an experimental procedure to have his cancer-free head surgically removed and cryogenically frozen until a time when science had advanced enough to perform a head transplant - attaching his head to another person's healthy, donated body.

A mere five years after his provisional death, Travis is reanimated and reintroduced to a world that has only barely gotten over his departure. Attached to the much stronger (and taller) body of Jeremy Pratt, a boy who had terminal brain cancer at the time of donating his body, Travis emerges from his five-year pause still very much in the body and the mind of a 16-year-old. The peculiar conditions of his resurrection only serve to highlight the uncomfortable and confusing feelings of being a teenager. The world is the same, but different too. Travis’ parents, best friend, and girlfriend are five years older, complete with half a decade of experiences that Travis isn't a part of and can't even begin to fathom at his tender age, especially now that his former girlfriend is engaged to be married. Only one other person in the world, Lawrence, a family man and the one other reanimated human to survive, has experienced what Travis is going through. Lawrence becomes Travis’ confidante and friend helping him through these confusing times. Noggin is a typical coming of age story with an atypical twist.

Reference:

• Whaley, J. C. (2014). Noggin. London : Simon & Schuster.