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Summary and Reviews of Noggin by John Whaley

Noggin by John C. Whaley

Noggin

by John C. Whaley
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  • Critics' Consensus (7):
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  • First Published:
  • Apr 8, 2014, 352 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Mar 2015, 368 pages
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About This Book

Book Summary

Travis Coates has a good head…on someone else's shoulders. A touching, hilarious, and wholly original coming-of-age story from John Corey Whaley, author of the Printz and Morris Award–winning Where Things Come Back.

Travis Coates has a good head…on someone else's shoulders. A touching, hilarious, and wholly original coming-of-age story from John Corey Whaley, author of the Printz and Morris Award–winning Where Things Come Back.

Listen - Travis Coates was alive once and then he wasn't.
Now he's alive again.
Simple as that.

The in between part is still a little fuzzy, but Travis can tell you that, at some point or another, his head got chopped off and shoved into a freezer in Denver, Colorado. Five years later, it was reattached to some other guy's body, and well, here he is. Despite all logic, he's still sixteen, but everything and everyone around him has changed. That includes his bedroom, his parents, his best friend, and his girlfriend. Or maybe she's not his girlfriend anymore? That's a bit fuzzy too.

Looks like if the new Travis and the old Travis are ever going to find a way to exist together, there are going to be a few more scars.

Oh well, you only live twice.

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Reviews

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With incredible creativity, sharp humor, and deep empathy, John Whaley creates a story that is much less about the science fiction of coming back to life and more about living life in the present...continued

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(Reviewed by Tamara Ellis Smith).

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Beyond the Book



Cryonics

In John Corey Whaley's young adult novel, Noggin, 16 year-old Travis Coates undergoes a head transplant. Yes, a head transplant. As in his head is severed from his old body and reattached to a new body. Sounds like science fiction, right? It is…sort of. Cryogenics is the branch of physics that deals with the study of the production and behavior of materials at very low temperatures. Cryonics is the low-temperature preservation of humans in the hopes that they can be resuscitated and healed in the future.

In July 2002, Red Sox legend Ted Williams (The Kid) died at the age of 83. He lived in Florida. His 1996 will stated that he wanted to be cremated and have his ashes spread over one of his favorite Florida Keys fishing holes with ...

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Read-Alikes

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