Teaser Tuesday: City of Orphans by Avi

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of A Daily Rhythm. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Avi is an award-winning author who has written many books for young readers.  In City of Orphans he tells about the life of poor immigrant children in 1893 New York.  His book comes alive with believable characters as Bruno of the Pug Ugly gang is threatening the newsies — the young boys who hawk newspapers on the Lower East Side.  It is a dangerous life.  Here’s my teaser:

That’s the moment when Maks does what he’s never done before in his whole life: He cries, “Help!”  And that’s when the body on the ground jumps up. Rises so fast and unexpected, all Maks can see is that whoever it is has this big stick and is swinging it like a whirligig gone wild, smacking Bruno on his shoulder, arm, face — thwack-thwack-thwack! (p.14)

Would your kids keep reading?  Tell me about your current read.  Go on, tease me!