Summer Reading American Lit. 11th Grade
Buck: A Memoir (Asante) - Buck is a powerful memoir of how a rebellious, precocious kid educated himself
through the most unconventional teachers—outlaws and eccentrics, rappers and mystic strangers, ghetto
philosophers and strippers, and, eventually, an alternative school that transformed his life with a single blank
sheet of paper. It’s a one-of-a-kind story about finding your purpose in life, and an inspiring tribute to the
power of art.
Caleb’s Crossing (Brooks) - In 1665, a young man from Martha’s Vineyard became the first Native American to
graduate from Harvard College. The narrator of Caleb’s Crossing is Bethia Mayfield, growing up in the tiny
settlement of Great Harbor amid a small band of pioneers and Puritans. Restless and curious, she yearns after
an education that is closed to her by her sex. As often as she can, she slips away to explore the island’s
glistening beaches and observe its native Wampanoag inhabitants. At twelve, she encounters Caleb, the
young son of a chieftain, and the two forge a tentative, secret friendship that draws each into the alien world
of the other. Bethia’s minister father tries to convert the Wampanoag, awakening the wrath of the island’s
strongest pawaaw, against whose ritual magic he must test his own beliefs. One of his projects becomes the
education of Caleb, and a year later, Caleb is in Cambridge, studying Latin and Greek among the colonial elite.
Bethia, also in Cambridge at the behest of her imperious elder brother, finds herself enmeshed in Caleb’s fate
as he crosses between cultures.
Ghost World (Clowes) - 1998 Ignatz Award Winner, Outstanding Graphic Novel: The inspiration for the feature
film and one of the most acclaimed graphic novels ever.Ghost World has become a cultural and generational
touchstone, and continues to enthrall and inspire readers over a decade after its original release as a graphic
novel. Originally serialized in the pages of the seminal comic book Eightball throughout the mid-1990s, this
quasi-autobiographical story (the name of one of the protagonists is famously an anagram of the author's
name) follows the adventures of two teenage girls, Enid and Becky, two best friends facing the prospect of
growing up, and more importantly, apart. Daniel Clowes is one of the most respected cartoonists of his
generation, and Ghost World is his magnum opus. Adapted into a major motion picture directed by Terry
Zwigoff (director of the acclaimed documentary Crumb), which was nominated for an Academy Award for
Best Adapted Screenplay. This graphic novel is a must for any self-respecting comics fan's.
Croak (Damico) - Sixteen-year-old Lex Bartleby has sucker-punched her last classmate. Fed up with her
punkish, wild behavior, her parents ship her off to upstate New York to live with her Uncle Mort for the
summer, hoping that a few months of dirty farm work will whip her back into shape. But Uncle Mort’s true
occupation is much dirtier than that of shoveling manure. He’s a Grim Reaper. And he’s going to teach her the
family business. Lex quickly assimilates into the peculiar world of Croak, a town populated entirely by reapers
who deliver souls from this life to the next. Along with her infuriating yet intriguing partner Driggs and a
rockstar crew of fellow Grim apprentices, Lex is soon zapping her targets like a natural born Killer.
Yet her innate ability morphs into an unchecked desire for justice—or is it vengeance?—whenever she’s
forced to Kill a murder victim, craving to stop the attackers before they can strike again. So when people start
to die—that is, people who aren’t supposed to be dying, people who have committed grievous crimes against
the innocent—Lex’s curiosity is piqued. Her obsession grows as the bodies pile up, and a troubling question
begins to swirl through her mind: if she succeeds in tracking down the murderer, will she stop the carnage—or
will she ditch Croak and join in?
Townie (Dubus) - After their parents divorced in the 1970s, Andre Dubus III and his three siblings grew up
with their exhausted working mother in a depressed Massachusetts mill town saturated with drugs and crime.
To protect himself and those he loved from street violence, Andre learned to use his fists so well that he was
even scared of himself. He was on a fast track to getting killed--or killing someone else. He signed on as a
boxer. Nearby, his father, an eminent author, taught on a college campus and took the kids out on Sundays.
The clash of worlds couldn't have been more stark--or more difficult for a son to communicate to a father.
Only by becoming a writer himself could Andre begin to bridge the abyss and save himself. His memoir is a
riveting, visceral, profound meditation on physical violence and the failures and triumphs of love.
David & Goliath (Gladwell) - We all know that underdogs can win–that’s what the David versus Goliath legend
tells us, and we’ve seen it with our own eyes. Or have we? In David and Goliath, Malcolm Gladwell, uncovers
the hidden rules that shape the balance between the weak and the mighty, the powerful and the
dispossessed. Gladwell examines the battlefields of Northern Ireland and Vietnam, takes us into the minds of
cancer researchers and civil rights leaders, and digs into the dynamics of successful and unsuccessful
classrooms–all in an attempt to demonstrate how fundamentally we misunderstand the true meaning of
advantages and disadvantages. When is a traumatic childhood a good thing? When does a disability leave
someone better off? Do you really want your child to go to the best school he or she can get into? Why are
the childhoods of people at the top of one profession after another marked by deprivation and struggle?
Drawing upon psychology, history, science, business, and politics, David and Goliath is a beautifully written
book about the mighty leverage of the unconventional.
Something Like Hope (Goodman) - Seventeen-year-old Shavonne has been in juvenile detention since the
seventh grade. Mr. Delpopolo is the first counselor to treat her as an equal, and he helps her get to the
bottom of her self-destructive behavior, her guilt about past actions, and her fears about leaving the Center
when she turns eighteen. Shavonne tells him the truth about her crack-addicted mother, the child she had
(and gave up to foster care) at fifteen, and the secret shame she feels about what she did to her younger
brother after her mother abandoned them. Meanwhile, Shavonne’s mentally unstable roommate Cinda
makes a rash move, and Shavonne’s quick thinking saves her life—and gives her the opportunity to get out of
the Center if she behaves well. But Shavonne’s faith is tested when her new roommate, mentally retarded and
pregnant Mary, is targeted by a guard as a means to get revenge on Shavonne. As freedom begins to look
more and more likely, Shavonne begins to believe that maybe she, like the goslings recently hatched on the
Center’s property, could have a future somewhere else—and she begins to feel something like hope.
The Art of Fielding (Harbach) - At Westish College, baseball star Henry Skrimshander seems destined for big
league until a routine throw goes disastrously off course. In the aftermath of his error, the fates of five people
are upended. Henry's fight against self-doubt threatens to ruin his future. College president Guert Affenlight
has fallen unexpectedly and helplessly in love. Owen Dunne becomes caught up in a dangerous affair. Mike
Schwartz realizes he has guided Henry's career at the expense of his own. And Pella Affenlight returns to
Westish after escaping an ill-fated marriage, determined to start a new life. As the season counts down to its
climactic final game, these five are forced to confront their deepest hopes, anxieties, and secrets. Written
with boundless intelligence and filled with the tenderness of youth, "The Art of Fielding is mere baseball
fiction the way Moby Dick is just a fish story" (Nicholas Dawidoff). It is an expansive, warmhearted novel about
ambition and its limits, about family and friendship and love, and about commitment--to oneself and to
others.
Flowers in the Sky (Joseph) –Fifteen-year-old Nina Perez is faced with a future she never expected. She must
leave her Garden of Eden, her lush island home in Samana, Dominican Republic, when she's sent by her
mother to live with her brother, Darrio, in New York, to seek out a better life. As Nina searches for some
glimpse of familiarity amid the urban and jarring world of Washington Heights, she learns to uncover her own
strength and independence. She finds a way to grow, just like the orchids that blossom on her fire escape. And
as she is confronted by ugly secrets about her brother's business, she comes to understand the realities of life
in this new place. But then she meets him—that tall, green-eyed boy—one that she can't erase from her
thoughts, who just might help her learn to see beauty in spite of tragedy.
Relish (Knisley) - Lucy Knisley loves food. The daughter of a chef and a gourmet, this talented young cartoonist
comes by her obsession honestly. In her forthright, thoughtful, and funny memoir, Lucy traces key episodes in
her life thus far, framed by what she was eating at the time and lessons learned about food, cooking, and life.
Each chapter is bookended with an illustrated recipe--many of them treasured family dishes, and a few of
them Lucy's original inventions. A welcome read for anyone who ever felt more passion for a sandwich than is
strictly speaking proper, Relish is a graphic novel for our time: it invites the reader to celebrate food as a
connection to our bodies and a connection to the earth, rather than an enemy, a compulsion, or a consumer
product.
DJ Rising (Maias) - Sixteen-year-old Marley Diego-Dylan is one of the only kids in his elite high school on
financial aid. His father died a few years back, and his mom spends her days strung out on heroin in front of
the television. Marley fights to keep everything together, but he dreams of becoming a star DJ. His career
surges when he lands a substitute gig at a local club. Soon he’s spinning vinyl at the hottest clubs. When his
mother’s situation take a turn for the worst, however, he’s reality-checked back into his old life and must
choose between his dreams and his old responsibilities. Maia’s first teen novel balances true-to-life urban
teenspeak, well-drawn characters and a plot that often seems too good to be true. The descriptions of
Marley’s—aka DJ Ice—DJ sessions are near euphoric, and music fans will love learning about the artists he
blends for the dance floor. The novel itself feels just as glossy as the DJ sequences and lacks much of the
realistic grit that other works embrace, such as Coe Booth’s Tyrell (2006). Still, readers will relish reading
about Marley’s rise to fame despite his harrowing situation.
Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass (Medina) - One morning before school, some girl tells Piddy Sanchez
that Yaqui Delgado hates her and wants to kick her ass. Piddy doesn’t even know who Yaqui is, never mind
what she’s done to piss her off. Word is that Yaqui thinks Piddy is stuck-up, shakes her stuff when she walks,
and isn’t Latin enough with her white skin, good grades, and no accent. And Yaqui isn’t kidding around, so
Piddy better watch her back. At first Piddy is more concerned with trying to find out more about the father
she’s never met and how to balance honors courses with her weekend job at the neighborhood hair salon. But
as the harassment escalates, avoiding Yaqui and her gang starts to take over Piddy’s life. Is there any way for
Piddy to survive without closing herself off or running away? In an all-too-realistic novel, Meg Medina portrays
a sympathetic heroine who is forced to decide who she really is.
The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey (Mosley) - Ptolemy Grey is ninety-one years old and has been all but
forgotten-by his family, his friends, even himself-as he sinks into a lonely dementia. His grand-nephew,
Ptolemy's only connection to the outside world, was recently killed in a drive-by shooting, and Ptolemy is too
suspicious of anyone else to allow them into his life. until he meets Robyn, his niece's seventeen-year-old
lodger and the only one willing to take care of an old man at his grandnephew's funeral. But Robyn will not
tolerate Ptolemy's hermitlike existence. She challenges him to interact more with the world around him, and
he grasps more firmly onto his disappearing consciousness. However, this new activity pushes Ptolemy into
the fold of a doctor touting an experimental drug that guarantees Ptolemy won't live to see age ninety- two
but that he'll spend his last days in feverish vigor and clarity. With his mind clear, what Ptolemy finds-in his
own past, in his own apartment, and in the circumstances surrounding his grand-nephew's death-is shocking
enough to spur an old man to action, and to ensure a legacy that no one will forget.
What Can’t Wait (Perez) - Seventeen-year-old Marisa Moreno has smarts and plenty of promise, but she’s
marooned in a broken-down Houston neighborhood—and in a Mexican immigrant family where making ends
meet matters more than making it to college.·Caught between the expectations of two different worlds and
carrying a dark secret, Marisa will have to decide what can't wait. Kirkus Reviews described What Can't Wait
as "Un magnifico debut."
We All Fall Down (Sheff) – In a raw, honest and expletive-ridden narrative, 23-year-old Sheff effectively
chronicles the ups and downs of trying to overcome his methamphetamine addiction and pull his life together.
Fortunately, the author is not as whiny or narcissistic in this memoir as he was in his first, Tweak (2008),
though he still manages to be quite unlikable and astonishingly unsympathetic. Sheff bounces in and out of
two detox centers and impulsively into an ill-considered live-in relationship with a girl in Charleston, S.C. (A
disclaimer at the beginning indicates that "[c]ertain names, locations, and identifying characteristics have
been changed.") His good intentions are frequently thwarted by bad decisions. Frustration with a dead-end
job in a coffee shop leads him to chronic alcohol consumption and pot smoking, once more testing the
patience of loved ones. His frequent bouts of self-pity and rationalization, along with the constant use of
"fucking" and "goddamn," quickly become tiresome. The author is forthright about the hypocrisy he feels
when he speaks at schools about the dangers of drug abuse while still smoking pot daily. When he declares, "I
am an asshole," it's impossible to disagree. He manages to end on a somewhat hopeful note: "I've got to hold
on, is all," he says. It's painfully honest—but also painful to read, likely guaranteeing avid teen interest.
(Memoir. 15 & up)
Hellhound on His Trail (Sides) - On April 23, 1967, Prisoner #416J, an inmate at the notorious Missouri State
Penitentiary, escaped in a breadbox. Fashioning himself Eric Galt, this nondescript thief and con man—whose
real name was James Earl Ray—drifted through the South, into Mexico, and then Los Angeles, where he was
galvanized by George Wallace’s racist presidential campaign. On February 1, 1968, two Memphis garbage men
were crushed to death in their hydraulic truck, provoking the exclusively African American workforce to go on
strike. Hoping to resuscitate his faltering crusade, King joined the sanitation workers’ cause, but their march
down Beale Street, the historic avenue of the blues, turned violent. Humiliated, King fatefully vowed to return
to Memphis in April. With relentless storytelling drive, Sides follows Galt and King as they crisscross the
country, one stalking the other, until the crushing moment at the Lorraine Motel when the drifter catches up
with his prey. Against the backdrop of the resulting nationwide riots and the pathos of King’s funeral, Sides
gives us a riveting cross-cut narrative of the assassin’s flight and the sixty-five-day search that led investigators
to Canada, Portugal, and England—a massive manhunt ironically led by Hoover’s FBI. Magnificent in scope,
drawing on a wealth of previously unpublished material, this nonfiction thriller illuminates one of the darkest
hours in American life—an example of how history is so often a matter of the petty bringing down the great.
Stitches (Small) - One day David Small awoke from a supposedly harmless operation to discover that he had
been transformed into a virtual mute. A vocal cord removed, his throat slashed and stitched together like a
bloody boot, the fourteen-year-old boy had not been told that he had cancer and was expected to die. In
Stitches, Small, the award-winning children’s illustrator and author, re-creates this terrifying event in a life
story that might have been imagined by Kafka. As the images painfully tumble out, one by one, we gain a
ringside seat at a gothic family drama where David—a highly anxious yet supremely talented child—all too
often became the unwitting object of his parents’ buried frustration and rage. Believing that they were trying
to do their best, David’s parents did just the reverse. Edward Small, a Detroit physician, who vented his own
anger by hitting a punching bag, was convinced that he could cure his young son’s respiratory problems with
heavy doses of radiation, possibly causing David’s cancer. Elizabeth, David’s mother, tyrannically stingy and
excessively scolding, ran the Small household under a cone of silence where emotions, especially her own,
were hidden. Depicting this coming-of-age story with dazzling, kaleidoscopic images that turn nightmare into
fairy tale, Small tells us of his journey from sickly child to cancer patient, to the troubled teen whose risky
decision to run away from home at sixteen—with nothing more than the dream of becoming an artist—will
resonate as the ultimate survival statement.
The Final Four (Volponi) - Four players with one thing in common: the will to win. Malcolm wants to get to the
NBA ASAP. Roko wants to be the pride of his native Croatia. Crispin wants the girl of his dreams. M.J. just
wants a chance. March Madness is in full swing, and there are only four teams left in the NCAA basketball
championship. The heavily favored Michigan Spartans and the underdog Troy Trojans meet in the first game in
the semifinals, and it's there that the fates of Malcolm, Roko, Crispin, and M.J. intertwine. As the last
moments tick down on the game clock, you'll learn how each player went from being a kid who loved to shoot
hoops to a powerful force in one of the most important games of the year. Which team will leave the
Superdome victorious? In the end it will come down to which players have the most skill, the most drive, and
the most heart.
Make Lemonade (Wolff) - Fourteen-year-old LaVaughn dreams of going to college, but her family is poor and
the only way she can afford to go is to work part-time while she attends high school. LaVaughn finds a job
babysitting for Jolly, a 17-year-old single mother with two children. Jolly, a high school dropout who can barely
read, is worried when she is fired from her job (her boss harasses her) and can't make ends meet. Jolly is too
proud to apply for welfare, but LaVaughn encourages her to enroll in a high school program for young
mothers. But when LaVaughn is about to graduate and Jolly has found a new sense of independence, life
brings new changes to their friendship.
How to Save a Life (Zarr) - Jill MacSweeney just wishes everything could go back to normal. But ever since her
dad died, she’s been isolating herself from her boyfriend, her best friends—everyone who wants to support
her. And when her mom decides to adopt a baby, it feels like she’s somehow trying to replace a lost family
member with a new one. Mandy Kalinowski understands what it’s like to grow up unwanted—to be raised by
a mother who never intended to have a child. So when Mandy becomes pregnant, one thing she’s sure of is
that she wants a better life for her baby. It’s harder to be sure of herself. Will she ever find someone to care
for her, too? As their worlds change around them, Jill and Mandy must learn to both let go and hold on, and
that nothing is as easy—or as difficult—as it seems.