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.
Archer, Jeffrey. Twelve Red Herrings.
One of the world's great storytellers and author of the international bestseller Honor Among Thieves presents a collection of twelve inventive and ingeniously plotted stories. Each make superb use of "red herrings", or misleading clues, and offer magnificent twists and surprises.
Am I Blue? (Ed.) Marion Dane Bauer.
This critically acclaimed, first-ever collection of original stories devoted to the topic of growing up gay or lesbian, or with gay or lesbian parents or friends, features works by Marion Dane Bauer, Lois Lowry, Francesca Lia Block, Bruce Coville, James Cross Giblin, M.E. Kerr, William Sleaton, Jane Yolen, and eight others.
Ashe, Arthur. Days of Grace.
An inspiring memoir by the late Arthur Ashe--tennis champion, social activist, AIDS victim, man of courage and grace. Ashe tells about the athlete's life; tennis court contemporaries such as Connors, McEnroe, and Navratilova; his passionate devotion to his wife and daughter; the places he has been; people he has known; and more.
Berg, Elizabeth. Joy School.
For Katie, being 13 is hard: she's still a child, but she thinks she's a woman? Maybe. It's harder still because her mother is dead and her army colonel dad has moved her to a new town. At first, Katie makes no friends. Then she meets Jimmy and falls in love. She is sure that Jimmy returns her love and that they will have a life together. (So what if he's married and has a child?) Katie's first friends are Cynthia, a lonely girl with a too-perfect mother and an old, very Italian grandmother, and Taylor, a model who introduces her to boys, stealing, and sex. The characters in this novel are so real, so perfectly drawn, that readers will become 13 again, if only for a short while. A beautiful almost-coming-of-age novel about a memorable young woman. -- From Library Journal
Buck, Pearl. The Good Earth.
First published in 1931, this classic novel about Chinese peasant life around the turn of the 20th century seems a little dated now but still possesses enough emotional power to engage modern listeners. The book traces the slow rise of Wang Lung from humble peasant farmer to great landlord-a feat he achieves by steadily adding to his lands and making enormous sacrifices to retain them through hard times. As one of the first Western novels to explore the lives of ordinary Chinese, this work has had an enormous influence on American views of China, and it propelled Buck to the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1938. – Library Journal
Coben, Harlan. The Woods.
Twenty years ago, four teenagers at summer camp walked into the woods at night. Two were found murdered, and the others were never seen again. Four families had their lives changed forever. Now, two decades later, they are about to change again. For county prosecutor Paul Copeland, mourning the loss of his sister has only recently begun to subside. Balancing family life and a rapidly ascending career distracts him from his past traumas, but only for so long. When a homicide victim is found with evidence linking him to Cope, the well-buried family secrets are threatened. Is this victim one of the campers who disappeared with his sister? Could his sister be alive? Cope has to confront so much he left behind that summer--he must decide what is better left hidden in the dark and what truths can be brought to the light.--From publisher description.
Cook, Robin. Toxin.
When a doctor's daughter becomes infected with E. coli, the widespread dangers of bacterial contamination are no longer a subject for debate, but a grim reality. In desperation, he is forced to follow a trail of ignorance and corruption from the tangled red-tape of the medical community to the highest levels of the powerful meat industry.
Crichton, Michael. Timeline.
When archaeologists make a shocking discovery at a medieval site, they are swept off to the headquarters of a secretive multinational corporation that has developed an astounding technology. Then the group gets the chance to not only study the past but also to enter it.
DeMille, Nelson. Plum Island.
Convalescing from a bullet wound on Long Island, NYPD homicide detective John Corey helps the local sheriff investigate a shooting. The victims are a married couple, both biologists on Plum Island, a top secret animal disease research site. When the media suggests that they stole a deadly virus, suddenly a local murder becomes a crime with worldwide implications in this masterwork of entrancing characters, a killer plot, and brilliant comic touches.
Ellison, Ralph. The Invisible Man.
Invisible Man is a milestone in American literature, a book that has continued to engage readers since its appearance in 1952. A first novel by an unknown writer, it remained on the bestseller list for sixteen weeks, won the National Book Award for fiction, and established Ralph Ellison as one of the key writers of the century. The nameless narrator of the novel describes growing up in a black community in the South, attending a Negro college from which he is expelled, moving to New York and becoming the chief spokesman of the Harlem branch of "the Brotherhood", and retreating amid violence and confusion to the basement lair of the Invisible Man he imagines himself to be. --Request
Gaines, Ernest. A Lesson Before Dying.
Set in a small Cajun community in the late 1940s, A Lesson Before Dying is a novel of one man condemned to die for a crime he did not commit and a young man who visits him in his cell. In the end, the two men forge a bond as they both come to understand the simple heroism of resisting--and defying--the expected.
Grisham, John. The Pelican Brief.
Two Supreme Court justices are murdered within hours of each other, and Darby Shaw, a law student at Tulane, thinks she has the answer. She prepares a meticulous, speculative brief that builds a strong case against a surprise suspect -- a suspect with powerful friends that wants her and her brief out of the way for good.
Kerr, M.E. Night Kites.
Seventeen-year-old Erick's comfortable and well-ordered life begins to fall apart when he is forced to keep two secrets: the identity of his new girlfriend and the nature of his brother's debilitating disease. Summary from Book
King, Stephen. Cell.
Civilization doesn't end with a bang or a whimper. It ends with a call on your cell phone. What happens on the afternoon of October 1 came to be known as the Pulse, a signal sent though every operating cell phone that turns its user into something...well, something less than human. Savage, murderous, unthinking-and on a wanton rampage. Terrorist act? Cyber prank gone haywire? It really doesn't matter, not to the people who avoided the technological attack. What matters to them is surviving the aftermath. Before long a band of them-"normies" is how they think of themselves-have gathered on the grounds of Gaiten Academy, where the headmaster and one remaining student have something awesome and terrifying to show them on the school's moonlit soccer field. Clearly there can be no escape. The only option is to take them on. --Request
Kinsella, W.P. Shoeless Joe.
“If you build it, he will come.” The mysterious words of an Iowa baseball announcer lead Ray Kinsella to carve a baseball diamond in his cornfield in honor of his hero, the baseball legend Shoeless Joe Jackson. This is a book not so much about baseball as it is about dreams, magic, life. ---Book Jacket
Lamb, Wally. She’s Come Undone.
In this engaging first novel, narrator Dolores Price recounts her life story from age four to age 40. The troubled product of a stormy marriage, she is already sipping Maalox in grade school. Then her father walks out on her mother, who suffers a nervous collapse, and Dolores moves to her repressive grandmother's house in Rhode Island. By the time she reaches eighth grade, she has only one friend: a boarder who eventually rapes her. Anesthetizing herself with junk food and soap operas, Dolores becomes an obese, isolated young woman who attempts suicide during her first semester in college and spends seven years in a mental institution. Oddly enough, this relentless parade of disasters makes for interesting reading. The author keenly evokes his protagonist's profound alienation and self-loathing, endowing Dolores with a bleak sense of humor that keeps readers rooting for her. Ironically, the book itself "comes undone" as its heroine develops self-esteem, at which point an absorbing portrait of a woman on a collision course with her problems turns into a disappointing series of clichés about love, forgiveness and Dolores's ticking biological clock. Nonetheless, this is a promising debut. -- From Publishers Weekly
Lamb, Wally. I’ll Fly Away.
In 2003 Wally Lamb—the author of two of the most beloved novels of our time, She's Come Undone and I Know This Much Is True—published Couldn't Keep It to Myself, a collection of essays by the students in his writing workshop at the maximum-security York Correctional Institution, Connecticut's only prison for women. Writing, Lamb discovered, was a way for these women to confront painful memories, face their fears and their failures, and begin to imagine better lives. The New York Times described the book as "Gut-tearing tales . . . the unvarnished truth." The Los Angeles Times said of it, "Lying next to and rising out of despair, hope permeates this book." Now Lamb returns with I'll Fly Away, a new volume of intimate, searching pieces from the York workshop. Here, twenty women—eighteen inmates and two of Lamb's cofacilitators—share the experiences that shaped them from childhood and that haunt and inspire them to this day. These portraits, vignettes, and stories depict with soul-baring honesty how and why women land in prison—and what happens once they get there. The stories are as varied as the individuals who wrote them, but each testifies to the same core truth: the universal value of knowing oneself and changing one's life through the power of the written word. – Product Description from Amazon.com
Malcolm X. The Autobiography of Malcolm X as told to Alex Haley.
“With its first great victory in the landmark Supreme Court decision, Brown vs. Board of Education in 1954, the Civil Rights movement gained the powerful momentum it needed to sweep forward into its crucial decade, the 1960s. As voices of protest and change rose above the din of history and false promises, one sounded more urgently, more passionately than the rest. Malcolm X - once called the most dangerous man in America - challenged the world to listen and learn the truth as he experienced it. And his enduring message is as relevant today as when he first delivered it. In its searing pages, Malcolm X the Muslim leader, firebrand, and anti-integrationist, tells the extraordinary story of his life and the growth of the Black Muslim movement to veteran writer and journalist Alex Haley. In a unique collaboration, Alex Haley worked with Malcolm X for nearly two years, interviewing, listening to, and understanding the most controversial leader of his time. Raised in Lansing, Michigan, Malcolm Little's road to world fame was as astonishing as it was unpredictable. After drifting from a childhood of poverty to petty crime, Malcolm found himself in jail. It was there that he came into contact with the teachings of a little-known Black Muslim leader named Elijah Muhammed. The newly renamed Malcolm X devoted himself body and soul to the teachings of Elijah Muhammed and the world of Islam, and became the Nation's foremost spokesman. When his own conscience forced him to break with Elijah Muhammed, Malcolm founded the Organization of Afro-American Unity, to reach African Americans across the country with an inspiring message of pride, power, and self-determination. The Autobiography of Malcolm X defines American culture and the African-American struggle for social and economic equality that has now become a battle for survival. His fascinating perspective on the lies and limitations of the American Dream, and the inherent racism in a society that denies its non-white citizens the opportunity to dream, gives extraordinary insight into the most urgent issue of our day. The Autobiography of Malcolm X stands as the definitive statement of a movement and a man whose work was never completed, but whose message is timeless. It is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand America.”-- Agent
Mazer, Norma Fox. Good Night Maman.
After spending years fleeing from the Nazis in war-torn Europe, twelve-year-old Karin Levi and her older brother, Marc, find a new home in a refugee camp in Oswego, New York.
Obama, Barack. The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream.
Senator Obama calls for a different brand of politics--a politics for those weary of bitter partisanship and alienated by the "endless clash of armies" we see in Congress and on the campaign trail; a politics rooted in the faith, inclusiveness, and nobility of spirit at the heart of our democracy. He explores those forces--from the fear of losing, to the perpetual need to raise money, to the power of the media--that can stifle even the best-intentioned politician. He examines the growing economic insecurity of American families, the racial and religious tensions within the body politic, and the transnational threats--from terrorism to pandemic--that gather beyond our shores. And he grapples with the role that faith plays in a democracy. Only by returning to the principles that gave birth to our Constitution, he says, can Americans repair a broken political process, and restore to working order a government dangerously out of touch with millions of ordinary Americans.--From publisher description.
Obama, Barack. Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance.
In this lyrical, unsentimental, and compelling memoir, the son of a black African father and a white American mother searches for a workable meaning to his life as a black American. It begins in New York, where Barack Obama learns that his father, a figure he knows more as a myth than as a man has been killed in a car accident. This sudden death inspires an emotional odyssey, first to a small town in Kansas, from which he retraces the migration of his mother's family to Hawaii, and then to Kenya, where he meets the African side of his family, confronts the bitter truth of his father's life, and at last reconciles his divided inheritance. – Summary from Request
Picoult, Jodi. Vanishing Acts: A Novel.
Delia Hopkins and her bloodhound Greta work with local New Hampshire police to locate missing persons. One day Delia's father, Andrew, is arrested, accused of kidnapping her 28 years earlier. Delia discovers she is a missing person, and during her father's trial she begins to recover parts of her old life. Why did he kidnap her? What is her mother like? How would her life have been different? While Delia struggles to answer her many questions, the legal system struggles with the intersection of the letter of the law and the legal and moral responsibility of a parent for a child. As the story makes clear, there is very little about life that is definitively black or white. Picoult creates another captivating tale where life's complications are tested in court. Her characters are realistic, and listeners will be drawn into their dilemmas; the descriptions of life in jail are graphic and disturbing. Each character is read by a different actor, all of whom do an excellent job. – Library Journal from Request
Preston, Richard. The Hot Zone.
The true story of how a deadly virus from the central African rain forest suddenly appears in a Washington, D.C., animal test lab. In a matter of days, 90% of the primates exposed to the virus are dead, and secret government forces are mobilized to stop the spread of this exotic "hot" virus.
Rodriguz, Luis J. Always Running.
In the tradition of The Autobiography of Malcolm X and Manchild in the Promised Land – an explosive memoir of hopelessness and resurrection that vividly portrays the brutality of barrio gang life.
Rubio, Gwyn Hyman. Icy Sparks.
This enthralling story takes us into the heart and mind of little Icy Sparks, where we learn firsthand what it is like to grow up with a serious disability. Raised in backwoods Kentucky by her maternal grandparents, Matanni and Patanni, Icy would have had a hard enough life even without the onset of Tourette's syndrome at the age of ten. The violent spasms, croaks, and popping eyes earn her the nickname "frog child," and we see how her childhood is marred by the humiliation of the illness. After an extremely bad episode, Icy is committed to a state hospital, where an attempt at diagnosis fails and a period of overmedication renders her senseless. It is not until college that the correct diagnosis is made, and Icy can reach true understanding. Her journey from childhood to adulthood, with all of its obstacles, is inspiring and truly touches the heart. ---Library Journal
Watson, Larry. Montana 1948: A Novel.
"From the summer of my twelfth year I carry a series of images more vivid and lasting than any others of my boyhood and indelible beyond all attempts the years make to erase or fade them...” So begins David Hayden's story of what happened in Montana in 1948. The events of that cataclysmic summer permanently alter twelve-year-old David's understanding of his family: his father, a small-town sheriff; his remarkably strong mother; the Hayden's Sioux housekeeper, Marie Little Soldier, whose revelations are at the heart of the story; David's uncle, a war hero and respected doctor. As their story unravels around David, he learns that truth is not what you believe it to be, that power is abused, and that sometimes you have to choose between family loyalty and justice. In a voice as brilliantly clear as the eastern Montana sky, Larry Watson has created a completely new American classic. With nearly perfect pitch, Watson evokes a time, a place, and more: a story whose pages will not stop turning, because its characters will not let them. – Summary from Book
Zoya. Zoya’s Story.
A gripping personal true story that goes beyond the headlines, this searing memoir of a young woman’s life under Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban regime is also an epic tale of fear and suffering, courage and hope.
Zusak, Markus. I Am the Messenger.
Meet Ed Kennedy--underage cabdriver, pathetic card player, and useless at romance. He lives in a shack with his coffee-addicted dog, the Doorman, and he's hopelessly in love with his best friend, Audrey. His life is one of peaceful routine and incompetence, until he inadvertently stops a bank robbery. That's when the first Ace arrives. That's when Ed becomes the messenger. . . . Chosen to care, he makes his way through town helping and hurting (when necessary), until only one question remains: Who's behind Ed's mission? Winner of the 2003 Children's Book Council Book of the Year Award in Australia, I Am the Messenger is a cryptic journey filled with laughter, fists, and love. --- “From the Hardcover edition." |
