Summer Reading 2015
Class of 2017
Allende, Isabel. The House of Spirits. In one of the most important and beloved Latin American
works of the twentieth century, Isabel Allende weaves a luminous tapestry of three generations of the
Trueba family, revealing both triumphs and tragedies. Here is patriarch Esteban, whose wild desires
and political machinations are tempered only by his love for his ethereal wife, Clara, a woman touched
by an otherworldly hand. Their daughter, Blanca, whose forbidden love for a man Esteban has deemed
unworthy infuriates her father, yet will produce his greatest joy: his granddaughter Alba, a beautiful,
ambitious girl who will lead the family and their country into a revolutionary future. 433p. Amazon
Blais, Madeleine. In These Girls, Hope is a Muscle. Chronicles one basketball season of a girls'
high school team in Amherst, Massachusetts. 266p. Summary from Request.
Blehm, Eric. Fearless: The Undaunted Courage and Ultimate Sacrifice of Navy SEAL Team SIX
Operator Adam Brown. Blehm presents a deeply personal glimpse inside the SEAL Team SIX
brotherhood that shows how these elite operators live out the rest of their lives, away from danger, as
husbands, fathers, and friends. Adam Brown waged a war against his own worst impulses,
persevered to reach the top tier of the U.S. military, and his final act of bravery led to the ultimate
sacrifice. 257p. Summary from Request.
Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. A book burner in a future fascist state finds out books are a vital part
of a culture he never knew. He clandestinely pursues reading, until he is betrayed. 192p. Destiny
Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. In early nineteenth-century England, an orphaned young woman
accepts employment as a governess at Thornfield Hall, a country estate owned by the mysteriously
remote Mr. Rochester. 284 p. Summary from Request.
Bronte, Emily. Wuthering Heights. Classic novel of consuming passions, played out against the
lonely moors of northern England, recounts the turbulent and tempestuous love story of Cathy and
Heathcliff. A masterpiece of imaginative fiction, the story remains as poignant and compelling today as
it was when first published in 1847. 415p. Amazon
Burgess, Anthony. A Clockwork Orange. Told through a central character, Alex, the disturbing
novel creates an alarming futuristic vision of violence, high technology, and authoritarianism. A modern
classic of youthful violence and social redemption set in a dismal dystopia whereby a juvenile
delinquent undergoes state-sponsored psychological rehabilitation for his aberrant behavior. 192p.
Summary from Request
Capote, Truman. In Cold Blood. Based on the true story of a prosperous and respected Kansas
farmer who, along with his wife and children, is murdered by two mindless ex-convicts. 410p. Summary
for Request
Clare, Cassandra. City of Ashes. Sixteen-year-old Clary continues trying to make sense of the
swiftly changing events and relationships in her life as she becomes further involved with the Shadow
hunters and their pursuit of demons and discovers some terrifying truths about her parents, her brother
Jace, and her boyfriend Simon. 453p. Summary from Agent
Davis, Sampson. The Pact. Follows the experiences of the authors, three friends who grew up in
impoverished families in Newark, New Jersey, and who supported one another in their dreams of
becoming doctors in spite of tremendous disadvantages. 248p. Destiny
Summer Reading 2015
Class of 2017
deRosnay, Tatiana. Sarah’s Key. Paris, July 1942: Sarah, a ten year-old girl, is brutally arrested with
her family by the French police in the Vel’ d’Hiv’ roundup, but not before she locks her younger brother
in a cupboard in the family's apartment, thinking that she will be back within a few hours. Paris, May
2002: On Vel’ d’Hiv’s 60th anniversary, journalist Julia Jarmond is asked to write an article about this
black day in France's past. Through her contemporary investigation, she stumbles onto a trail of longhidden family secrets that connect her to Sarah. Julia finds herself compelled to retrace the girl's
ordeal, from that terrible term in the Vel d'Hiv', to the camps, and beyond. As she probes into Sarah's
past, she begins to question her own place in France, and to reevaluate her marriage and her life.
Tatiana deRosnay offers us a brilliantly subtle, compelling portrait of France under occupation and
reveals the taboos and silence that surround this painful episode. 320p. Amazon
Eggars, Dave. Zeitoun. The true story of one family, caught between America’s two biggest policy
disasters: the war on terror and the response to Hurricane Katrina. Abdulrahman and Kathy Zeitoun
run a house-painting business in New Orleans. In August of 2005, as Hurricane Katrina approaches,
Kathy evacuates with their four young children, leaving Zeitoun to watch over the business. In the days
following the storm he travels the city by canoe, feeding abandoned animals and helping elderly
neighbors. Then, on September 6th, police officers armed with M-16s arrest Zeitoun in his home. Told
with eloquence and compassion, Zeitoun is a riveting account of one family’s unthinkable struggle with
forces beyond wind and water. 368p. Amazon
Ellison, Ralph. The Invisible Man. A Black man's search for success and the American dream leads
him out of college to Harlem and a growing sense of personal rejection and social invisibility. 541 p.
Destiny
Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God. A Black woman searches for a fulfilling
relationship through two loveless marriages and finally finds it in the person of Tea Cake, an itinerant
laborer and gambler. 231p. Destiny
Hyde, Catherine Ryan. Pay It Forward. It all started with the social studies teacher's extra-credit
assignment: come up with a plan to change the world for the better, and do it. Twelve-year-old Trevor
McKinney began by doing something good for three people. But instead of paying him back, he asked
them to "pay it forward" by doing a favor for three more people, who in turn would help three others,
and so on, each act a link in a chain of human kindness. And no one -- not his teacher, his mom, or
anyone in his small California town -- could ever have dreamed of how far Trevor's plan would go.
288p. Amazon
Kamkwamba, William. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind. A true story of tenacity and imagination
describes how an African teenager built a windmill from scraps to create electricity for his home and his
village, improving life for himself and his neighbors. 320p. Destiny
Kent, Kathleen. The Heretic’s Daughter. Martha Carrier was one of the first women to be accused,
tried and hanged as a witch in Salem, Massachusetts. Like her mother, young Sarah Carrier is bright
and willful, openly challenging the small, brutal world in which they live. Often at odds with one another,
mother and daughter are forced to stand together against the escalating hysteria of the trials and the
superstitious tyranny that led to the torture and imprisonment of more than 200 people accused of
witchcraft. This is the story of Martha's courageous defiance and ultimate death, as told by the
daughter who survived. 477p. Summary from Agent.
Grennan, Conor. Little Princes. This is the epic story of Conor Grennan’s battle to save the lost
children of Nepal and how he found himself in the process. Part Three Cups of Tea, part Into Thin Air,
Grennan’s remarkable memoir is at once gripping and inspirational, and it carries us deep into an
exotic world that most readers know little about. 320p. Amazon
Summer Reading 2015
Class of 2017
Magoon, Kekla. Rock and the River. In 1968 Chicago, fourteen-year-old Sam Childs is caught in a
conflict between his father's nonviolent approach to seeking civil rights for African Americans and his
older brother, who has joined the Black Panther Party. 290p. Destiny
McCormick, Patricia. Never Fall Down. Cambodian child soldier Arn Chorn-Pond defied the odds
and used all of his courage and wits to survive the murderous regime of the Khmer Rouge" 216p.
Provided by publisher.
Morgan, David Lee, Jr. Lebron James: The Rise of a Star. The son of an unmarried, teenage
mother, African American LeBron James overcame a culture of drugs, poverty, and violence in the
Akron, Ohio, housing projects where he grew up to become a basketball superstar who signed more
than $100 million dollars in promotional contracts before the end of his senior year in high school.
172p. Destiny
Morgenstern, Erin. Night Circus. Waging a fierce competition for which they have trained since
childhood, circus magicians Celia and Marco unexpectedly fall in love with each other and share a
fantastical romance that manifests in fateful ways. 387p. Destiny
Picoult, Jodi. Nineteen Minutes. The people of Sterling, New Hampshire, are forever changed after
a shooting at the high school leaves ten people dead, and the judge presiding over the trial tries to
remain unbiased, even though her daughter witnessed the events and was friends with the assailant.
455p. Destiny
Shakur, Tupac Amaru. The Rose that Grew from Concrete. A collection of verse by the late hiphop star Tupac Shakur includes more than one hundred poems confronting such wide-ranging topics
as poverty, motherhood, Van Gogh, and Mandela. 149p. Destiny
Strayed, Cheryl. Wild: from Lost to Found on the Pacific Coast Trail. At twenty-two, Cheryl
Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother’s death, her family scattered and
her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most
impulsive decision of her life. With no experience or training, driven only by blind will, she would hike
more than a thousand miles of the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and
Oregon to Washington State—and she would do it alone. Told with suspense and style, sparkling with
warmth and humor, Wild powerfully captures the terrors and pleasures of one young woman forging
ahead against all odds on a journey that maddened, strengthened, and ultimately healed her. 315p.
Amazon