Students must choose and read two (2) books from the following list. Reading should be completed prior to the first day of school. The English faculty will evaluate the completed reading within the first month of the 2009 - 2010 school year.
Allende, Isabel. Daughter of Fortune.
Orphaned at birth, Eliza Sommers is raised in the British colony of Valparaiso, Chile, by the well-intentioned Victorian spinster Miss Rose and her more rigid brother Jeremy. Just as she meets and falls in love with the wildly inappropriate Joaquin Andieta, a lowly clerk who works for Jeremy, gold is discovered in the hills of northern California. By 1849, Chileans of every stripe have fallen prey to feverish dreams of wealth. Joaquin takes off for San Francisco to seek his fortune, and Eliza, pregnant with his child, decides to follow him. So begins Isabel Allende's enchanting new novel, Daughter of Fortune, her most ambitious work of fiction yet. As we follow her spirited heroine on a perilous journey north in the hold of a ship to the rough-and-tumble world of San Francisco and northern California, we enter a world whose newly arrived inhabitants are driven mad by gold fever. A society of single men and prostitutes among whom Eliza moves--with the help of her good friend and savior, the Chinese doctor Tao Chien--California opens the door to a new life of freedom and independence for the young Chilean. Her search for the elusive Joaquin gradually turns into another kind of journey that transforms her over time, and what began as a search for love ends up as the conquest of personal freedom. By the time she finally hears news of him, Eliza must decide who her true love really is. Daughter of Fortune is a sweeping portrait of an era, a story rich in character, history, violence, and compassion. In Eliza, Allende has created one of her most appealing heroines, an adventurous, independent-minded, and highly unconventional young woman who has the courage to reinvent herself and to create her own destiny in a new country. A marvel of storytelling, Daughter of Fortune confirms once again Isabel Allende's extraordinary gift for fiction and her place as one of the world's leading writers. -- Summary from Request
Anaya, Rudolfo. Bless Me, Ultima.
When a curandera (herb doctor) comes to stay with a young boy, he tests the bonds that tie him to his culture and finds himself in the secrets of the past.
Armstrong, Lance. It’s Not About the Bike.
World-class hero Lance Armstrong tells his inspiring story, from the dark night of advanced testicular cancer through his dramatic victory in the 1999 Tour de France.
Beah, Ishmael. A Long Way Gone, Memoirs of a Boy Soldier.
This is how wars are fought now: by children, hopped-up on drugs and wielding AK-47s. Children have become soldiers of choice. In the more than fifty conflicts going on worldwide, it is estimated that there are some 300,000 child soldiers. Child soldiers have been profiled by journalists, and novelists have struggled to imagine their lives. But until now, there has not been a first-person account from someone who came through this hell and survived. Ishmael Beah, now 25 years old, tells how at the age of twelve, he fled attacking rebels and wandered a land rendered unrecognizable by violence. By thirteen, he'd been picked up by the government army, and Beah, at heart a gentle boy, found that he was capable of truly terrible acts.--From publisher description.
Braestrup, Kate. Here if You Need Me.
"Ten years ago, Kate Braestrup, her husband, Drew, and their four young children were enjoying a morning like any other. Then Drew, a Maine state trooper, left for work and everything changed. On the very roads that he patrolled each day, an oncoming driver lost control, and Kate lost her husband." "Stunned and grieving, Kate decided to pursue what had been her husband's dream and became a minister. And soon she found a most unusual calling: serving as chaplain for search-and-rescue missions in the Maine woods, giving comfort to people whose loved ones are missing - and to the wardens who sometimes have to deal with dreadful outcomes. Whether with parents whose six-year-old daughter has vanished into the woods, with wardens as they search for a snowmobiler trapped under the ice, or with a man whose sister left an infant seat and a suicide note in her car by the side of the road, Braestrup provides solace, understanding, and spiritual guidance when they're needed most." Here If You Need Me recounts Kate Braestrup's journey from grief to faith to happiness.--BOOK JACKET.
Brokaw, Tom. The Greatest Generation.
Brokaw defines "the greatest generation" as American citizens who came of age during the Great Depression and the Second World War and went on to build modern America. The vehicle used to define the generation further is the stories told by a cross section of men and women throughout the country. The approximately 50 stories are listed in the table of contents under eight topics: Ordinary People; Home Front; Heroes; Women in Uniform and Out; Shame; Love, Marriage and Commitment; Famous People; and the Arena. The individuals are brought to life by photographs within each chapter. YA’s will find this book to be a good resource for decade and World War II research. Unlike any era YAs have known, the 1940s are characterized by a people united by a common cause and values. – School Library Journal
Caputo, Philip. A Rumor of War.
In March of 1965, Marine Lieutenant Philip J. Caputo landed at Danang with the first ground combat unit committed to fight in Vietnam. Sixteen months later, having served on the line in one of modern history's ugliest wars, he returned home--physically whole, emotionally wasted, his youthful idealism shattered. A decade later, Caputo would write in A Rumor of War, "This is simply a story about war, about the things men do in war and the things war does to them." ---Book Jacket
Cook, Robin. Fever.
Charles Martel is a brilliant cancer researcher who discovers that his own daughter is the victim of leukemia. The cause: a chemical plant conspiracy that not only promises to kill her, but will destroy him as a doctor and a man if he tries to fight it. - Book Jacket
Crichton, Michael Prey.
In the Nevada desert, an experiment has gone horribly wrong. A cloud of nanoparticles—micro-robots---has escaped from the laboratory. This cloud is self-sustaining and self- reproducing. It is intelligent and learns from experience. For all practical purposes, it is alive. It has been programmed as a predator. It is evolving swiftly, becoming more deadly with each passing hour. Every attempt to destroy it has failed. And we are the prey. -- Book Jacket
DeMille, Nelson. The Charm School.
On a dark road deep inside Russia, a young American tourist picks up a most unusual passenger: a U.S. P.O.W. on the run with an incredible secret to reveal to an unsuspecting world. Poised against the very heartland of America is a vast and astounding KGB enterprise known as "The Charm School." Three Americans -- an Air Force officer, an embassy liaison, and the chief of the CIA's Moscow station -- take on this renegade power of the Soviet state in a tour de force of suspense, excitement, and danger. --- Book Jacket
Demille, Nelson. The Lion’s Game.
Detective John Corey must somehow capture the world's most dangerous terrorist-- a young Arab known as "The Lion"-- who will stop at nothing in his quest for revenge against America for bombing Libya and killing his family.
FitzGibbon, Daniel. To Bear Any Burden.
During this country's long and bitter involvement in the Vietnam War, more than two and a half million American men and women served in the U.S. armed forces. In addition to providing conventional army, navy, and air force units, the American military fought Vietcong insurgents and North Vietnamese regulars with Army Special Forces. The Green Berets became synonymous with this country's military presence in South Vietnam. From 1968 to 1969, Daniel H. FitzGibbon, a Columbus, Indiana native, graduate of West Point, and today an Indianapolis attorney, served as a captain with the Fifth Special Forces Group in South Vietnam. During his time in country, FitzGibbon wrote letters to his parents back home in Columbus about his experiences running two Special Forces A team camps. These letters were saved by FitzGibbon's mother and were given back to the veteran, who typed and copied them for his children so they would know "what Daddy did in the war." "To Bear Any Burden" examines FitzGibbon's war, from his arrival in South Vietnam at the Cam Ranh Bay replacement center on February 6, 1968, to his life as commander of a Special Forces A team based at Ha Tay. After Ha Tay, FitzGibbon took charge of a struggling A team at Duc Lap in South Vietnam's Central Highlands before finally ending up as a staff officer in the operations and training section of the Fifth Special Forces Group headquarters in Nha Trang. The book also details FitzGibbon's subsequent return to Vietnam in 2002 as a tourist with his wife Joan. Reflecting on his trip, FitzGibbon noted that when he sees the word "Vietnam," he no longer thinks of a war or a source of national discord, but "of a real and vibrant country." – Summary from Request
Gilbert, Elizabeth. Eat, Pray, Love.
Like many others, around the time Elizabeth Gilbert turned 30, she went through an early-onslaught midlife crisis. Although she had everything an educated, ambitious American woman was supposed to want, including a husband, a home, and a successful career as a magazine writer, she was consumed with panic, grief, and confusion. This is an account of her yearlong worldwide pursuit of pleasure, spiritual devotion, guidance, and what she really wanted out of life. – Request
Ilibagiza, Immaculee. Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust.
Immaculee Ilibagiza grew up in a country she loved, surrounded by a family she cherished. But in 1994 her idyllic world was ripped apart as Rwanda descended into a bloody genocide. Immaculee's family was brutally murdered during a killing spree that lasted three months and claimed the lives of nearly a million Rwandans. Incredibly, Immaculee survived the slaughter. For 91 days, she and seven other women huddled silently together in the cramped bathroom of a local pastor while hundreds of machete-wielding killers hunted for them. It was during those endless hours of unspeakable terror that Immaculee discovered the power of prayer, eventually shedding her fear of death and forging a profound and lasting relationship with God. She emerged from her bathroom hideout having discovered the meaning of truly unconditional love--a love so strong she was able to seek out and forgive her family's killers. The triumphant story of this remarkable young woman's journey through the darkness of genocide will inspire anyone whose life has been touched by fear, suffering, and loss. – Summary from Request
Irving, John. A Prayer for Owen Meany.
In the summer of 1953, two 11-year-old boys--best friends--are playing in a Little League baseball game in New Hampshire. One of the boys hits a foul ball that kills his best friend's mother. Owen Meany believes he didn't hit the ball by accident. He believes he is God's instrument. What happens to Owen after 1953 is extraordinary and terrifying. He is Irving's most heartbreaking hero. --- Summary from Request
Kingsolver, Barbara. Poisonwood Bible: a novel.
The Poisonwood Bible is a story told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They carry with them everything they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it -- from garden seeds to Scripture -- is calamitously transformed on African soil. What follows is a suspenseful epic of one family's tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction over the course of three decades in postcolonial Africa – Summary from Request
Koontz, Dean. Intensity.
Chyna Shepherd, a young woman struggling to rise above a troubled, difficult past, finds herself suddenly caught in the black shadow of a sociopath--a "homicidal adventurer" whose belief in a life of intensity utterly discounts the value of others. Over the course of just 36 hours, Chyna discovers in herself depths of fear she has never before known.
McBride, James. The Color of Water.
This national bestseller tells the story of James McBride and his mother--a rabbi's daughter, born in Poland and raised in the South, who fled to Harlem, married a black man, founded a church, and put 12 children through college.
Mortenson, Greg.
Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace -- One School at a Time.
The astonishing, uplifting story of a real-life Indiana Jones and his humanitarian campaign to use education to combat terrorism in the Taliban’s backyard Anyone who despairs of the individual’s power to change lives has to read the story of Greg Mortenson, a homeless mountaineer who, following a 1993 climb of Pakistan’s treacherous K2, was inspired by a chance encounter with impoverished mountain villagers and promised to build them a school. Over the next decade he built fifty-five schools especially for girls that offer a balanced education in one of the most isolated and dangerous regions on earth. As it chronicles Mortenson’s quest, which has brought him into conflict with both enraged Islamists and uncomprehending Americans, Three Cups of Tea combines adventure with a celebration of the humanitarian spirit. – Summary from Request
Nam, Vickie. Yell-Oh Girls.
Chosen from hundreds of submissions from all over the country, these poignant, honest, real, and surprising pieces on being Asian-American address such topics as culture clash, body image, interracial dating, adoption, and stereotypes.
Pausch, Randy. The Last Lecture.
"We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand." --Randy Pausch. When Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University, was asked to give a "last lecture," he didn't have to imagine it as his last, since he had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. But the lecture he gave - "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams" - wasn't about dying. It was about the importance of overcoming obstacles, of enabling the dreams of others, of seizing every moment (because "time is all you have... and you may find one day that you have less than you think"). It was a summation of everything Randy had come to believe. It was about living. In this book, Randy Pausch has combined the humor, inspiration and intelligence that made his lecture such a phenomenon and given it an indelible form. It is a book that will be shared for generations to come. – Summary from Request
Picoult, Jodi. Nineteen Minutes.
In the aftermath of a small-town school shooting, lawyer Jordan McAfee finds himself defending a youth who desperately needs someone on his side, while detective Patrick Ducharme works with a primary witness, the daughter of the judge assigned to the case.
Phillips, Michael. The Gift of Valor.
Every day, ordinary young Americans are fighting and dying in Iraq, with the same bravery, honor, and sense of duty that have distinguished American troops throughout history. One of these is Jason Dunham, a twenty-two-year-old Marine corporal from the one-stoplight town of Scio, New York, whose stunning story reporter Michael M. Phillips discovered while he was embedded with a Marine infantry battalion in the Iraqi desert. Corporal Dunham was on patrol near the Syrian border, on April 14, 2004, when a black-clad Iraqi leaped out of a car and grabbed him around his neck. Fighting hand-to-hand in the dirt, Dunham saw his attacker drop a grenade and made the instantaneous decision to place his own helmet over the explosive in the hope of containing the blast and protecting his men. When the smoke cleared, Dunham’s helmet was in shreds, and the corporal lay face down in his own blood. The Marines beside him were seriously wounded. Dunham was subsequently nominated for the Congressional Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest award for military valor. Phillips’s minute-by-minute chronicle of the chaotic fighting that raged throughout the area and culminated in Dunham’s injury provides a grunt’s-eye view of war as it’s being fought today—fear, confusion, bravery, and suffering set against a brotherhood forged in combat. His account of Dunham’s eight-day journey home and of his parents’ heartrending reunion with their son powerfully illustrates the cold brutality of war and the fragile humanity of those who fight it. Dunham leaves an indelible mark upon all who know his story, from the doctors and nurses who treat him, to the readers of the original Wall Street Journal article that told of his singular act of valor. --- Summary from Request
Rodriguez, Richard. Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez.
“Hunger of Memory" is the first memoir of Mexican-American Rodriguez, who began his schooling in Sacramento, California knowing just 50 words of English. Here is the poignant journey of a "minority student" who pays the cost of his social assimilation and academic success with a painful alienation--from his past, his parents, and his culture.
Santiago, Esmeralda. Almost a Woman.
In a tale with both the universal underpinnings of the classic coming-of-age or immigrant stories and the very personal details of one young girl’s life in a new country, Santiago, a published author and editor who moved to the United States from Puerto Rico when she was 13, relates her experiences in Brooklyn as she struggled to find her own way through language and cultural barriers and a protective mother. – Summary from Request
Stark, Peter. Last Breath: Cautionary Tales from the Limits of Human Endurance.
Sudden, extreme deaths have always fascinated us-- and now more than ever as athletes and travelers rise to the challenges of high-risk sports and journeys on the edge. In this spellbinding book, veteran travel and outdoor sports writer Peter Stark reenacts the dramas of what happens inside our bodies, our minds, and our souls when we push ourselves to the absolute limits of human endurance. Combining the adrenaline high of extreme sports with the startling facts of physiological reality, Stark narrates a series of outdoor adventure stories in which thrill can cross the line to mortal peril. Each death or brush with death is at once a suspense story, a cautionary tale, and a medical thriller. Stark describes in unforgettable detail exactly what goes through the mind of a cross-country skier as his body temperature plummets-- apathy at ninety-one degrees, stupor at ninety. He puts us inside the body of a doomed kayaker tumbling helplessly underwater for two minutes, five minutes, and ten minutes. He conjures up the physiology of a snowboarder frantically trying not to panic as he consumes the tiny pocket of air trapped around his face under thousands of pounds of snow. These are among the dire situations that Stark transforms into harrowing accounts of how our bodies react to trauma, how reflexes and instinct compel us to fight back, and how, why, and when we let go of our will to live. In an increasingly tamed and homogenized world, risk is not only a means of escape but a path to spirituality. As Peter Stark writes, "You must try to understand death intimately and prepare yourself for death in order to live a full and satisfying life." In this fascinating, informative book, Stark reveals exactly what we’re getting ourselves into when we choose to live-- and die-- at the extremes of endurance. -- Summary from Request
Vreeland, Susan. Girl in Hyacinth Blue.
A professor invites a colleague from the art department to his home to see a painting that he has kept a secret for decades. The professor swears it is a Vermeer--- why has he hidden this important work for so long? The reasons unfold in a series of stories that trace ownership of the painting back to World War II and Amsterdam, and still further back to the moment of the work’s inspiration. --- Book Cover
Wandzilak, Kristina. The lost years: surviving a mother and daughter’s worst nightmare.
This riveting memoir of survival and transformation reveals the brutal details of the worst that can happen to an ordinary family and how they triumphed over adversity. It describes the true story of a daughter's decline into alcohol and drug addiction, prostitution and homelessness, and her mother's attempts to rescue her yet protect herself and her other children. Written as a dual narrative, mother and daughter give their firsthand accounts of the years lost to addiction and despair, and the subsequent recovery and reconciliation. --- Summary from Request |
