HASTINGS HIGH SCHOOL
FACULTY/STAFF BOOK CLUB
Book-love, I say again, lasts throughout life, it never flags or fails, but, like Beauty itself, is a joy forever.
~ Holbrook Jackson (1931) ~
2011-2012 READING SELECTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
Our September book club selection will be Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (2010).
Date, time, and place for discussion will be determined when we come back in August.
From a single, abbreviated life grew a seemingly immortal line of cells that made some of the most crucial
innovations in modern science possible. And from that same life, and those cells, Rebecca Skloot has fashioned
in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks a fascinating and moving story of medicine and family, of how life is
sustained in laboratories and in memory. Henrietta Lacks was a mother of five in Baltimore, a poor African
American migrant from the tobacco farms of Virginia, who died from a cruelly aggressive cancer at the age of
30 in 1951. A sample of her cancerous tissue, taken without her knowledge or consent, as was the custom then,
turned out to provide one of the holy grails of mid-century biology: human cells that could survive--even thrive-in the lab. Known as HeLa cells, their stunning potency gave scientists a building block for countless
breakthroughs, beginning with the cure for polio. Meanwhile, Henrietta's family continued to live in poverty
and frequently poor health, and their discovery decades later of her unknowing contribution--and her cells'
strange survival--left them full of pride, anger, and suspicion. For a decade, Skloot doggedly but
compassionately gathered the threads of these stories, slowly gaining the trust of the family while helping them
learn the truth about Henrietta, and with their aid she tells a rich and haunting story that asks the questions,
Who owns our bodies? And who carries our memories?
2011 SUMMER READING SUGGESTIONS (. . . with apologies for lifting book descriptions from several
sources . . .)
FICTION
Allison, Will. Long Drive Home: A Novel. 2011.
Glen is an accountant living in New Jersey with his successful wife, Liz, and their six-year-old daughter, Sara.
On an ordinary drive home from school, a series of mundane decisions grow increasingly dire and culminate in
a car accident that sets road-raging Glen onto a path of deception and self-destruction. The novel is told from
Glen's perspective, in part through a confessional letter written to Sara, an obvious but nonetheless effective
tension builder. It's a slow burn as guilt chips away at Glen's sanity and his marriage crumbles, his impotent
angst finds an unlikely outlet, and he comes under ever more scrutiny by a strangely motivated detective.
Barry, Brunonia. The Lace Reader. 2009.
Brunonia Barry dreamt she saw a prophecy in a piece of lace, a vision so potent she spun it into a novel. The
Lace Reader retains the strange magic of a vivid dream, though Barry's portrayal of modern-day Salem,
Massachusetts--with its fascinating cast of eccentrics--is reportedly spot-on. Some of its stranger residents
include generations of Whitney women, with a gift for seeing the future in the lace they make. Towner Whitney,
back to Salem from self-imposed exile on the West Coast, has plans for recuperation that evaporate with her
great-aunt Eva's mysterious drowning. Fighting fear from a traumatic adolescence she can barely remember,
Towner digs in for answers. But questions compound with the disappearance of a young woman under the thrall
of a local fire-and-brimstone preacher, whose history of violence against Whitney women makes the situation
personal for Towner. Her role in cop John Rafferty's investigation sparks a tentative romance. And as they
scramble to avert disaster, the past that had slipped through the gaps in Towner's memory explodes into the
present with a violence that capsizes her concept of truth. Readers will look back at the story in a new light,
picking out the clues in this complex, lovely piece of work.
Binchy, Maeve. Minding Frankie. 2011.
In vintage Binchy style, a cast of colorfully eccentric characters living in a snug Dublin neighborhood
seamlessly weave in and out of each other’s lives, united by family, faith, friendship, and community. When a
young alcoholic learns he has fathered a child with a dying woman, he must step into the role of father,
protector, and provider to his infant daughter, Frankie, in a matter of weeks. Determined to succeed, though
totally unprepared for his new responsibilities, Noel gets an essential assist from his visiting American cousin.
Exercising her tremendous gifts of organization and insight, Emily cobbles together a neighborhood support
system, featuring a few familiar faces from previous Binchy books. As everybody begins to mind Frankie, a
suspicious social worker pokes her nose in where it doesn’t belong, attempting to dredge up any dirt she can on
Noel and his slightly unorthodox network of babysitters. Readers will need a box of tissues handy as the goodhearted residents of St. Jarlath’s Crescent prove that it does indeed take a village to raise a child.
Blake, Sarah. The Postmistress. 2010.
Weaving together the stories of three very different women loosely tied to each other, debut novelist Blake takes
readers back and forth between small town America and war-torn Europe in 1940. Single, 40-year-old
postmistress Iris James and young newlywed Emma Trask are both new arrivals to Franklin, Mass., on Cape
Cod. While Iris and Emma go about their daily lives, they follow American reporter Frankie Bard on the radio
as she delivers powerful and personal accounts from the London Blitz and elsewhere in Europe. While Trask
waits for the return of her husband—a volunteer doctor stationed in England—James comes across a letter with
valuable information that she chooses to hide. Blake captures two different worlds—a naïve nation in denial
and, across the ocean, a continent wracked with terror—with a deft sense of character and plot, and a perfect
willingness to take on big, complex questions, such as the merits of truth and truth-telling in wartime.
Brooks, Geraldine. Caleb’s Crossing. 2011.
When Pulitzer Prize winner Geraldine Brooks came to live on Martha's Vineyard in 2006, she ran across a map
by the island's native Wampanoag people that marked the birthplace of Caleb, first Native American to
graduate of Harvard College--in 1665. Her curiosity piqued, she unearthed and fleshed out his thin history,
immersing herself in the records of his tribe, of the white families that settled the island in the 1640s, and 17thcentury Harvard. In Caleb's Crossing, Brooks offers a compelling answer to the riddle of how--in an era that
considered him an intellectually impaired savage--he left the island to compete with the sons of the Puritanical
elite. She relates his story through the impassioned voice of the daughter of the island's Calvinist minister, a
brilliant young woman who aches for the education her father wastes on her dull brother. Bethia Mayfield
meets Caleb at twelve, and their mutual affinity for nature and knowledge evolves into a clandestine, lifelong
bond. Bethia's father soon realizes Caleb's genius for letters and prepares him for study at Harvard, while
Bethia travels to Cambridge under much less auspicious circumstances. This window on early academia
fascinates, but the book breathes most thrillingly in the island's salt-stung air, and in the end, its questions of
the power and cost of knowledge resound most profoundly not in Harvard's halls, but in the fire of a
Wampanoag medicine man.
Cleve, Chris. Incendiary. 2004.
An al-Qaeda bomb attack on a London soccer match provides the tragicomic donnée of former Daily Telegraph
journalist Cleave's impressive multilayered debut: a novel-length letter from an enraged mother to Osama bin
Laden. Living hand to mouth in London's East End, the unnamed mother's life is shattered when her policeman
husband (part of a bomb disposal unit) and four-year-old son are killed in the stadium stands. Complicating
matters: our narrator witnesses the event on TV, while in the throes of passion with her lover, journalist Jasper
Black. The full story of that day comes out piecemeal, among rants and ruminations, complete with the widow's
shell-shocked sifting of the stadium's human carnage. London goes on high terror alert; the narrator downs
Valium and gin and clutches her son's stuffed rabbit. After a suicide attempt, she finds solace with married
police superintendent Terrence Butcher and in volunteer work. When the bomb scares escalate, actions by
Jasper and his girlfriend Petra become the widow's undoing. The whole is nicely done, as the protagonist's
headlong sentences mimic intelligent illiteracy with accuracy, and her despairingly acidic responses to events—
and media versions of them—ring true. But the working-class London slang permeates the book to a distracting
degree.
Cleve, Chris. Little Bee. 2009.
The publishers of Chris Cleave's novel "don't want to spoil" the story by revealing too much about it, and
there's good reason not to tell too much about the plot's pivot point. All you should know going in to Little Bee
is that what happens on the beach is brutal, and that it braids the fates of a 16-year-old Nigerian orphan (who
calls herself Little Bee) and a well-off British couple--journalists trying to repair their strained marriage with a
free holiday--who should have stayed behind their resort's walls. The tide of that event carries Little Bee back
to their world, which she claims she couldn't explain to the girls from her village because they'd have no context
for its abundance and calm. But she shows us the infinite rifts in a globalized world, where any distance can be
crossed in a day--with the right papers--and "no one likes each other, but everyone likes U2." Where you have
to give up the safety you'd assumed as your birthright if you decide to save the girl gazing at you through razor
wire, left to the wolves of a failing state.
Edwards, Kim. The Lake of Dreams. 2011.
When Lucy Jarrett returns to her childhood home in Lake of Dreams, N.Y., she learns that her brother, Blake,
who's gone into the family business, and his girlfriend hope to drain a controversial marsh to construct a highend property. Meanwhile, Lucy, who remains haunted by her father's death in a fishing accident years earlier,
reconnects with her first boyfriend, Keegan Fall, now a successful glass artist. But when she sees something
familiar in the pattern of one of his pieces, and discovers a hidden note in her childhood home, Lucy finally digs
into her family's mysterious past. Unfortunately, the lazy expository handling of information mutes the intrigue,
and readers will see the reignited spark between Keegan and Lucy coming for miles. All loose ends eventually
come together with formulaic ease to rock the family boat.
Ford, Jaime. Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet. 2010.
Henry Lee is a 12-year-old Chinese boy who falls in love with Keiko Okabe, a 12-year-old Japanese girl, while
they are scholarship students at a prestigious private school in World War II Seattle. Henry hides the
relationship from his parents, who would disown him if they knew he had a Japanese friend. His father insists
that Henry wear an "I am Chinese" button everywhere he goes because Japanese residents of Seattle have
begun to be shipped off by the thousands to relocation centers. This is an old-fashioned historical novel that
alternates between the early 1940s and 1984, after Henry's wife Ethel has died of cancer. A particularly
appealing aspect of the story is young Henry's fascination with jazz and his friendship with Sheldon, an older
black saxophonist just making a name for himself in the many jazz venues near Henry's home. Other aspects of
the story are more typical of the genre: the bullies that plague Henry, his lack of connection with his father, and
later with his own son. Readers will care about Henry as he is forced to make decisions and accept
circumstances that separate him from both his family and the love of his life.
Franklin, Thomas. Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter. 2011.
Edgar Award-winning author Tom Franklin returns with his most accomplished and resonant novel so far—an
atmospheric drama set in rural Mississippi. In the late 1970s, Larry Ott and Silas "32" Jones were boyhood
pals. Their worlds were as different as night and day: Larry, the child of lower-middle-class white parents, and
Silas, the son of a poor, single black mother. Yet for a few months the boys stepped outside of their
circumstances and shared a special bond. But then tragedy struck: Larry took a girl on a date to a drive-in
movie, and she was never heard from again. She was never found and Larry never confessed, but all eyes rested
on him as the culprit. The incident shook the county—and perhaps Silas most of all. His friendship with Larry
was broken, and then Silas left town.
More than twenty years have passed. Larry, a mechanic, lives a solitary existence, never able to rise above the
whispers of suspicion. Silas has returned as a constable. He and Larry have no reason to cross paths until
another girl disappears and Larry is blamed again. And now the two men who once called each other friend are
forced to confront the past they've buried and ignored for decades.
Larson, Erik. In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin. 2011.
In the Garden of Beasts is a vivid portrait of Berlin during the first years of Hitler’s reign, brought to life
through the stories of two people: William E. Dodd, who in 1933 became America’s first ambassador to
Hitler’s regime, and his scandalously carefree daughter, Martha. Ambassador Dodd, an unassuming and
scholarly man, is an odd fit among the extravagance of the Nazi elite. His frugality annoys his fellow Americans
in the State Department and Dodd’s growing misgivings about Hitler’s ambitions fall on deaf ears among his
peers, who are content to “give Hitler everything he wants.” Martha, on the other hand, is mesmerized by the
glamorous parties and the high-minded conversation of Berlin’s salon society—and flings herself headlong into
numerous affairs with the city’s elite, most notably the head of the Gestapo and a Soviet spy. Both become
players in the exhilarating (and terrifying) story of Hitler’s obsession for absolute power, which culminates in
the events of one murderous night, later known as “the Night of Long Knives.” The rise of Nazi Germany is a
well-chronicled time in history, which makes In the Garden of Beasts all the more remarkable. Erik Larson has
crafted a gripping, deeply-intimate narrative with a climax that reads like the best political thriller, where we
are stunned with each turn of the page, even though we already know the outcome.
McLain, Paula. The Paris Wife. 2011.
History is sadly neglectful of the supporting players in the lives of great artists. Fortunately, fiction provides
ample opportunity to bring these often fascinating personalities out into the limelight. Paula McLain brings
Hadley Richardson Hemingway out from the formidable shadow cast by her famous husband. Though doomed,
the Hemingway marriage had its giddy high points, including a whirlwind courtship and a few fast and furious
years of the expatriate lifestyle in 1920s Paris. Hadley and Ernest traveled in heady company during this ginsoaked and jazz-infused time, and readers are treated to intimate glimpses of many of the literary giants of the
era, including Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, James Joyce, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. But the real star of the story
is Hadley, as this time around, Ernest is firmly relegated to the background as he almost never was during their
years together. Though eventually a woman scorned, Hadley is able to acknowledge without rancor or
bitterness that "Hem had helped me to see what I really was and what I could do." Much more than a womanbehind-the-man homage, this beautifully crafted tale is an unsentimental tribute to a woman who acted with
grace and strength as her marriage crumbled.
Patchett, Anne. State of Wonder. 2011.
Dr. Marina Singh, a research scientist with a Minnesota pharmaceutical company, is sent to Brazil to track
down her former mentor, Dr. Annick Swenson, who seems to have all but disappeared in the Amazon while
working on what is destined to be an extremely valuable new drug, the development of which has already cost
the company a fortune. Nothing about Marina's assignment is easy: not only does no one know where Dr.
Swenson is, but the last person who was sent to find her, Marina's research partner Anders Eckman, died
before he could complete his mission. Plagued by trepidation, Marina embarks on an odyssey into the insectinfested jungle in hopes of finding her former mentor as well as answers to several troubling questions about
her friend's death, the state of her company's future, and her own past.
Once found, Dr. Swenson, now in her seventies, is as ruthless and uncompromising as she ever was back in the
days of Grand Rounds at Johns Hopkins. With a combination of science and subterfuge, she dominates her
research team and the natives she is studying with the force of an imperial ruler. But while she is as threatening
as anything the jungle has to offer, the greatest sacrifices to be made are the ones Dr. Swenson asks of herself,
and will ultimately ask of Marina, who finds she may still be unable to live up to her teacher's expectations.
Picoult, Jodi. Sing You Home. 2010.
Popular author Picoult tackles the controversial topic of gay rights in her latest powerful tale. When music
therapist Zoe Baxter’s latest pregnancy ends in a stillbirth, her husband Max decides he can’t handle any more
heartbreak and leaves her. As she picks up the pieces of her life, Zoe is surprised to find herself falling for a
school counselor who happens to be a woman. While Zoe is finding happiness with Vanessa, Max falls off the
wagon and is helped by a pastor from his brother’s evangelical church. Vanessa and Zoe wed in Massachusetts,
and Vanessa offers to carry one of the fertilized embryos Zoe and Max stored. Excited by the prospect of being
a mother, Zoe goes to Max to get him to release the embryos to her and is shocked when he instead sues her for
custody of them, backed by his church. Told from the perspectives of all three major characters, Picoult’s
gripping novel explores all sides of the hot-button issue and offers a CD of folk songs that reflect Zoe’s feelings
throughout the novel.
Scottoline, Lisa. Save Me. 2011.
At the start of this gut-wrenching stand-alone from bestseller Scottoline (Think Twice), an explosion rips
through the nearly empty cafeteria of Reesburgh (Pa.) Elementary School. Lunch mother Rose McKenna leads
two girls to safety before racing to rescue her own daughter, Melly, but Rose soon learns that she may face both
civil and criminal charges for her heroics because one of the girls she saved was seriously injured in the
resulting fire that killed three school staff members. The tension rises as the united front presented by Rose and
her lawyer husband, Leo Ingrassia, begins to disintegrate in the face of media demands, legal maneuverings,
and social pressures. Rose must also deal with school bullying (Melly has a noticeable facial blemish), difficult
legal problems, and her husband's reaction when a secret from her past is revealed.
Simonson, Helen. Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand: A Novel. 2010.
In her witty and wise debut novel, newcomer Helen Simonson introduces the unforgettable character of the
widower Major Ernest Pettigrew. The Major epitomizes the Englishman with the "stiff upper lip," who clings to
traditional values and has tried (in vain) to pass these along to his yuppie son, Roger. The story centers around
Pettigrew's fight to keep his greedy relatives (including his son) from selling a valuable family heirloom--a pair
of hunting rifles that symbolizes much of what he stands for, or at least what he thinks he does. The embattled
hero discovers an unexpected ally and source of consolation in his neighbor, the Pakistani shopkeeper Jasmina
Ali. On the surface, Pettigrew and Ali's backgrounds and life experiences couldn't be more different, but they
discover that they have the most important things in common. This wry, yet optimistic comedy of manners with a
romantic twist will appeal to grown-up readers of both sexes.
Verghese, Abraham. Cutting for Stone. 2009.
This brilliant novel revolves around what is broken -- limbs, family ties, trust -- and the process of rebuilding
them. It starts with the birth of twin boys to a nursing nun, Sister Mary Praise Joseph, in a small hospital on the
outskirts of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; an event which no one had expected: "The everyday miracle of conception
had taken place in the one place it should not have: in Sister Mary Praise Joseph's womb." The delivery rapidly
becomes a debacle when it's clear that Mary Praise Joseph can't deliver her baby normally; the last minute
arrival home at "Missing" (the Mission Hospital) by Indian obstetrician Hema saves the children, but their
mother dies and their presumed father, surgeon Thomas Stone, disappears into the night.
NONFICTION
Hillenbrand, Laura. Unbroken. 2010.
From the bestselling author of Seabiscuit, comes Unbroken, the inspiring true story of a man who lived
through a series of catastrophes almost too incredible to be believed. In evocative, immediate descriptions,
Hillenbrand unfurls the story of Louie Zamperini--a juvenile delinquent-turned-Olympic runner-turned-Army
hero. During a routine search mission over the Pacific, Louie’s plane crashed into the ocean, and what
happened to him over the next three years of his life is a story that will keep you glued to the pages, eagerly
awaiting the next turn in the story and fearing it at the same time. You’ll cheer for the man who somehow
maintained his selfhood and humanity despite the monumental degradations he suffered.
Lemmon, Gayle (Tzemach). The Dressmaker of Khair Khana: Five Sisters, One Remarkable Family, and
the Woman Who Risked Everything to Keep Them Safe. 2011.
The life Kamila Sidiqi had known changed overnight when the Taliban seized control of the city of Kabul. After
receiving a teaching degree during the civil war—a rare achievement for any Afghan woman—Kamila was
subsequently banned from school and confined to her home. When her father and brother were forced to flee
the city, Kamila became the sole breadwinner for her five siblings. Armed only with grit and determination, she
picked up a needle and thread and created a thriving business of her own. The Dressmaker of Khair Khana
tells the incredible true story of this unlikely entrepreneur who mobilized her community under the Taliban.
Former ABC News reporter Gayle Tzemach Lemmon spent years on the ground reporting Kamila's story, and
the result is an unusually intimate and unsanitized look at the daily lives of women in Afghanistan. These
women are not victims; they are the glue that holds families together; they are the backbone and the heart of
their nation. Afghanistan's future remains uncertain as debates over withdrawal timelines dominate the news.
Martin, Demetri. This Is a Book. 2011.
In this collection of essays, musings, and drawings, Comedy Central host Martin gently skewers contemporary
social trends, conventions, and insecurities, taking on topics from social hotlines to family and relationships.
With a gift for describing awkward situations, Martin challenges readers to recognize the human need for
connection and recognition. The theme is seen in a panel in which a limousine displaying two flags on its hood
is labeled "important"; another displaying seven flags is "very important." He also answers the big questions
with essays like "Who I Am" in which he declares: "I am bravery. I am courage. I am valor. I am daring. I am
holding a thesaurus." Throughout, Martin jokes in many guises, silly one moment, barbed the next, and he
achieves a satirical brilliance that moves easily among surprising topics, like philosophy, to easy targets, like
healthy lifestyles.
Maushart, Susan. The Winter of Our Disconnect. 2011.
Australian journalist and single parent Maushart reports on her family’s decision to take a figurative six-month
voyage into an unplugged life—easier said than done when your family consists of three teenagers! No wonder
she describes the “voyage” as The Caine Mutiny, with her playing Captain Queeg. As it happens, the voyage is
relatively storm free, though there are some squalls at the beginning. Maushart nearly goes through withdrawal
after turning off her iPhone and finds that her work takes twice as long without a computer. In a way, the kids
are more adaptable (perhaps because their mother offers them various bribes). They quickly learn how to do
homework without access to Wikipedia and discover such joys as playing the saxophone and having singalongs. Interspersed with the family’s experience is a great deal of timely information about the impact of
electronic technology on Generation M (8- to 18-year-olds), and not all of it is pretty. Nevertheless, the entire
family is relieved when the experiment is over but delighted to discover that it has introduced them to ‘life
itself.’
O’ Rourke, Megahn. The Long Goodbye. 2011.
In this eloquent, somber memoir about the death of her mother and grieving aftermath, poet and journalist
O'Rourke ponders the eternal human question: how do we live with the knowledge that we will one day die?
O'Rourke's mother died of metastatic colorectal cancer on Christmas day 2008; the headmaster of a Westport,
Conn., private school, she was only 55 years old, and left a stricken husband, two sons, and daughter O'Rourke,
the eldest sibling. O'Rourke had shuttled back and forth from her life in Brooklyn and then job at Slate over the
preceding year to care for her increasingly debilitated mother. The two were extremely close, and the shock of
her mother's illness devastated the whole family (the author married her longtime boyfriend shortly after the
Stage 4 diagnosis, then separated just as quickly). Over the last months, O'Rourke was bracing herself,
"preparing" for her mother's death, by reading everything she could during the dizzying rounds of doctors' and
hospital visits, until the family could take their mother home to die in a heavily medicated peace. Anxious by
nature, secretive, often emotionally brittle, O'Rourke grew acutely sensitive to her mother's changing states
over the last months, desperate for a sign of her mother's love to carry her through the months of bereavement.
O'Rourke heals herself in this pensive, cerebral work, moving from intense anguish and nostalgia to finding
solace in dreams, sex, and the comforting words of other authors.
Ozma, Alice. The Reading Promise: My Father and the Books We Shared. 2011.
Named for two literary characters ("Alice" from Lewis Carroll and "Ozma" from L. Frank Baum), the author is
the daughter of a Philadelphia-area elementary school librarian. Father and daughter embarked on a streak of
reading-out-loud sessions every night before bed as Ozma was growing up. At first they decided on 100 nights
straight of reading before bed—a minimum 10 minutes, before midnight, every night, no exceptions—then it
stretched to 1,000, and soon enough the author was headed to college and they had spent eight years straight
reading before bedtime, from Oz stories to Shakespeare. Reading with her father offered a comforting
continuity in the midst of her mother's disquieting move away from the family, her older sister's absence as a
foreign exchange student, and the parsimoniousness of her single father. Ozma's account percolates
chronologically through her adolescence, as father and daughter persevered in their streak of nightly reading
despite occasional inconveniences such as coming home late, sleepovers (they read over the phone), and a rare
case of the father's laryngitis. Ozma's work is humorous, generous, and warmly felt, and with a terrific reading
list included, there is no better argument for the benefits of reading to a child than this rich, imaginative work.
Robbins, Alexandra. The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth: Popularity, Quirk Theory, and Why Outsiders
Thrive after High School. 2011.
In a smart, entertaining, reassuring book that reads like fiction, Alexandra Robbins manages to cross Gossip
Girl with Freaks and Geeks and explain the fascinating psychology and science behind popularity and
outcasthood. She reveals that the things that set students apart in high school are the things that help them
stand out later in life. Robbins follows seven real people grappling with the uncertainties of high school social
life, including:
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The Loner, who has withdrawn from classmates since they persuaded her to unwittingly join her own
hate club;
The Popular Bitch, a cheerleading captain both seduced by and trapped within her clique's perceived
prestige;
The Nerd, whose differences cause students to laugh at him and his mother to needle him for not being
"normal";
The New Girl, determined to stay positive as classmates harass her for her mannerisms and target her
because of her race;
The Gamer, an underachiever in danger of not graduating, despite his intellect and his yearning to
connect with other students;
The Weird Girl, who battles discrimination and gossipy politics in school but leads a joyous life outside
of it;
The Band Geek, who is alternately branded too serious and too emo, yet annually runs for class
president.
In the middle of the year, Robbins surprises her subjects with a secret challenge--experiments that force them to
change how classmates see them.
Robbins intertwines these narratives--often triumphant, occasionally heartbreaking, and always captivating-with essays exploring subjects like the secrets of popularity, being excluded doesn't mean there's anything
wrong with you, why outsiders succeed, how schools make the social scene worse--and how to fix it.
The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth is not just essential reading for students, teachers, parents, and anyone who
deals with teenagers, but for all of us, because at some point in our lives we've all been on the outside looking
in.
Strauss, Darrin. Half a Life. 2010.
Although the accident was what insurers call a “no fault fatality,” the moment Strauss’ car struck and killed his
classmate Celine, a girl he hardly knew, his life was understandably changed forever. Prompted to tell his story
(he first told portions on This American Life) by new fatherhood and the realization that the earth-crumbling
event had occurred half his lifetime ago, Strauss takes advantage of the perhaps unfortunate ability the accident
gave him to introspect and proceeds to do so for 200 pages of conversational free-form essay. Remaining well
on this side of overly sentimental, Strauss deconstructs the past 18 years and views them from every vantage
point; he sees his embarrassingly self-centered thoughts immediately afterward and the premature graying of
his hair and stress-related stomach problems of his late twenties. “Name an experience. It’s a good bet I’ve
thought of Celine while experiencing it.”
Wilkerson, Isabel. The Warmth of Other Suns. 2010.
Ida Mae Brandon Gladney, a sharecropper's wife, left Mississippi for Milwaukee in 1937, after her cousin was
falsely accused of stealing a white man's turkeys and was almost beaten to death. In 1945, George Swanson
Starling, a citrus picker, fled Florida for Harlem after learning of the grove owners' plans to give him a
"necktie party" (a lynching). Robert Joseph Pershing Foster made his trek from Louisiana to California in
1953, embittered by "the absurdity that he was doing surgery for the United States Army and couldn't operate in
his own home town." Anchored to these three stories is Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Wilkerson's
magnificent, extensively researched study of the "great migration," the exodus of six million black Southerners
out of the terror of Jim Crow to an "uncertain existence" in the North and Midwest. Wilkerson deftly
incorporates sociological and historical studies into the novelistic narratives of Gladney, Starling, and
Pershing settling in new lands, building anew, and often finding that they have not left racism behind. The
drama, poignancy, and romance of a classic immigrant saga pervade this book, hold the reader in its grasp,
and resonate long after the reading is done.
HASTINGS READS SELECTIONS (2011)
The theme for Hastings Reads is The Civil War.
Adult Selection: TBD
Young Adult (Middle School) Selection: Iron Thunder by Avi (tentative)
Picture Book Selection: B Is for Battle Cry: A Civil War Alphabet by Patricia Bauer and Patrick Geister