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	What Book Groups Are Saying What Movement Figures Are Saying What Educators Are Saying a a a What Librarians Are Saying What YA Audiences Are Saying Awards What Book Groups Are Saying “A literal page turner whose language is rich and graphic, sometimes poetic and prophetic. A coming of age tale woven from the spectrum of cultural collisions our society offers:  religious, racial, educated or not, rural or urban, rich or poor. The Fog Machine should be read, heard, and shared.” —Jackie Roberts, member of Seattle’s The BookClub, now 20 years running and co-founder of the Interracial Dialogue Series at Seattle Public Libraries “Simply riveting. Reminiscent of Bebe Moore Campbell’s Your Blues Ain’t Like Mine and Kathryn Stockett’s The Help, The Fog Machine generated more conversation than any book our group has read.” —Rita Wilson, member of Minneapolis’ Elephant Park Book Group, now 20 years running “History we should all know, delivered with tension and tenderness, disappointment and discovery, while deftly blurring the line between fiction and non-fiction and capturing Chicago as it was and is.” —Kristy Sweigard, member of Chicago-area (LaGrange) Book Group What Movement Figures Are Saying “A brilliantly crafted, logically interactive story with characters one cares deeply about because they are depicted with emotional depth, authenticity, and consistency. Follett’s voice gave me goose bumps of recognition.” —Janie Forsyth McKinney, communications specialist at UCLA; former Anniston, AL resident who became part of local civil rights lore by aiding victims of the 1961 Freedom Riders bus burning “Your fictional Freedom Summer students and teachers GOT IT. Thank you for remembering my brother. Great book! Great job!” —Ben Chaney, James Earl Chaney Foundation founder, speaker and voter registration activist, and brother of slain civil rights worker James Chaney “Accessible history through a believable, engaging and meaningful story. A wonderful depiction of an era of struggles for dignity and freedom—with enduring lessons.” —Heather Tobis Booth, longtime activist with SNCC in Mississippi Summer, the movement against the Vietnam War, the early women's movement; founder of Midwest Academy, training center for organizers “The Fog Machine brings back memories of my days as a young student rabbi in Lexington, Mississippi and also of my work in Chicago.” —Rabbi Robert J. Marx, founder of the Jewish Council on Urban affairs who marched with Dr. Martin Luther King and worked tirelessly for housing equality on Chicago’s north shore What Educators Are Saying “Immensely enjoyable, with characters you want to know what happens to after the book ends. Covers the high points of the movement from both sides of the color line. Offers young adult readers a way to understand the world and history through relationships—the way they learn best.” —Vickie Malone, McComb High School social studies teacher, whose local cultures class – model for Mississippi’s K-12 public school mandated civil rights education curriculum being rolled out in fall 2011 – produces the www.tellingstories.org oral history project “Wonderfully truthful on the issue of race. One of few, if any, novels about the Civil Rights Era that cover the span between the 1950s and today. A treasure trove for teachers and students.” —Faye Inge, one of the Meridian 5 who desegregated Meridian High in 1965, Freedom School student, journalist, and career educator “A rich and vividly written narrative which transports the reader through American history. The Fog Machine is an anticipated summer selection for our Real Men Read book group.” —Dr. Todd Beach, Eastview High School social studies teacher; 2010 Minnesota Social Studies Teacher of the Year; and advisor to Real Men Read, an Eastview High book group active since 2008   What Librarians Are Saying “I'm a public teen librarian heartily endorsing The Fog Machine. This book delighted me—from the beginning quote showing the pervasiveness of prejudice among all people, to the ending scene making connections between the racism of yore and some of its current forms. It's a marvel that the mechanics of prejudice and its dissolution are so precisely and realistically depicted in terms of relationships. It's like seeing electrons move!”…See More —Shea Peeples, Teen Librarian for Wescott Library in Eagan, MN and founder of Teen Writers Book Group   What YA Audiences Are Saying "THE most amazing book! You have to read it. While most YA books are told from a single POV, multiple POVs in The Fog Machine give a more rounded perspective. It’s hard to tell the “good guy” in this book—is it the middle-class Catholic girl, the black domestic worker who goes north, the Jewish Freedom Summer volunteer?  And what about the Klansman?  Is there good in him? The Fog Machine has much in common with A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. This is history told the way we’d like to be learning it, in a way that makes us want to listen." —Anne, Lauren, Maggie, and Tim, Teen Writers Book Group, Wescott Library, Eagan, MN   Awards The Fog Machine has been recognized as a semifinalist in the 2011 Faulkner-Wisdom Competition for the novel.  For more, see:  http://www.wordsandmusic.org/2011%20Competition%20Lists.