• Dear Bully - Edited by Megan Kelley Hall
and Carrie Jones
• (Lexile Unknown)
Non-Fiction Book # 1
• “This anthology of personal essays provides
empathetic and heartfelt stories from each
corner of the schoolyard: the bullied, the
bystander and the bully himself are all
represented. Their words will be a welcome
palliative or a wise pre-emptive defense
against the trials of adolescent social
dynamics.” - New York Times
• “You’ll love it if…You know someone (or are
someone) who’s ever been involved in any
type of bullying incident. There’s something
in it for everyone on all sides of the
spectrum. You’ll love it even more if you
can find a story that inspires you to help
someone else.” –Seventeen.com
Non-Fiction Book #2
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Unbroken – Laura Hillenbrand
(Lexile 950)
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“A master class in narrative
storytelling…Extraordinarily moving…A
powerfully drawn survival epic.” – The Wall
Street Journal
•
“Unbroken is wonderful twice over, for the tale it
tells and for the way it’s told. A better book than
Seabiscuit, it manages maximum velocity with no
loss of subtlety. [Hillenbrand has] a jeweler’s eye
for a detail that makes a story live.” – Newsweek
•
“A one-in-a-billion story…seems designed to
wrench from self-respecting critics all the blurby
adjectives we normally try to avoid. It is
amazing, unforgettable, gripping, harrowing,
chilling, and inspiring. It sucked me in and swept
me away. It kept me reading late into the night.
I could not…(it really hurts to type this)…put
it…(must find the strength to resist)…down.” –
New York Magazine
Non-Fiction Book #3
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Outliers – Malcolm Gladwell
(Lexile 1080L)
•
In this stunning new book, Malcolm Gladwell
takes us on an intellectual journey through the
world of "outliers"--the best and the brightest,
the most famous and the most successful. He
asks the question: what makes high-achievers
different?
•
His answer is that we pay too much attention to
what successful people are like, and too little
attention to where they are from: that is, their
culture, their family, their generation, and the
idiosyncratic experiences of their upbringing.
Along the way he explains the secrets of
software billionaires, what it takes to be a great
soccer player, why Asians are good at math, and
what made the Beatles the greatest rock band.
•
Brilliant and entertaining, Outliers is a landmark
work that will simultaneously delight and
illuminate.
• When the Game Was Ours – Larry Bird &
Magic Johnson with Jackie MacMullin
• (Lexile Unknown)
Non-Fiction Book #4
•
From the moment these two players took the court on opposing sides,
they engaged in a fierce physical and psychological battle. Their
uncommonly competitive relationship came to symbolize the most
compelling rivalry in the NBA. These were the basketball epics of the
1980s--Celtics vs Lakers, East vs West, physical vs finesse, Old School vs
Showtime, even white vs black. Each pushed the other to greatness-together Bird and Johnson collected 8 NBA Championships, and 6 MVP
awards and helped save the floundering NBA at its most critical time.
When it started they were bitter rivals, but along the way they became
lifelong friends.
•
With intimate, fly-on-the-wall detail, When the Game Was Ours
transports readers to this electric era of basketball and reveals for the
first time the inner workings of two players dead set on besting one
another. From the heady days of trading championships to the darker
days of injury and illness, we come to understand Larry's obsessive
devotion to winning and how his demons drove him on the court. We
hear him talk with candor about playing through chronic pain and its
truly exacting toll. In Magic we see a young, invincible star struggle
with the sting of defeat, not just as a player but as a team leader. We
are there the moment he learns he's contracted HIV and hear in his
own words how that devastating news impacted his relationships in
basketball and beyond. But always, in both cases, we see them prevail.
•
A compelling, up-close-and-personal portrait of basketball's most
inimitable duo, When the Game Was Ours is a reevaluation of three
decades in counterpoint. It is also a rollicking ride through professional
basketball's best times.
Non-Fiction Book #5
• Survival of the Sickest – Dr. Sharon Moalam
• (Lexile Unknown)
• AP Biology Selection
• Joining the ranks of modern myth busters,
Dr. Sharon Moalem turns our current
understanding of illness on its head and
challenges us to fundamentally change the
way we think about our bodies, our health,
and our relationship to just about every
other living thing on earth. Through a fresh
and engaging examination of our
evolutionary history, Dr. Moalem reveals
how many of the conditions that are
diseases today actually gave our ancestors a
leg up in the survival sweepstakes. But
Survival of the Sickest doesn't stop there. It
goes on to demonstrate just how little
modern medicine really understands about
human health, and offers a new way of
thinking that can help all of us live longer,
healthier lives.
Non-Fiction Book #6
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Take Your Eye Off the Ball – Pat Kirwan
(Lexile Unknown)
Football Team Selection
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An in-depth analysis of how general managers,
coaches, scouts, and NFL players break down the X’s
and O’s on the gridiron. Those who know what to look
for take their eye off the ball!
•
To have coached at the highest level and then moved
into the administrative and management realm and
know what you're talking about in both is relatively
unique. Pat can 'talk the talk' to players but still speak
the language of contracts and deals. Pat boils even the
most complicated nuances of football down to the base
elements so that everyone can understand it. - Brad
Childress –Former head coach, Minnesota Vikings.
•
I wish I had been coached as a player the way I've been
coached by Pat as an analyst. He's expanded my
knowledge and understanding of the big picture of the
game. He's schooled at every position on both sides of
the ball, and not just in terms of how to play the
position; he also explains to you why things need to be
done a certain way - Tim Ryan --Co-host, Movin' the
Chains, SiriusXM NFL Radio
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I Am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced – Nujood Ali
(Lexile Unknown)
•
Chosen by Glamour magazine as a Woman of the Year in
2008, Nujood of Yemen has become an international hero
for her astonishingly brave resistance to child marriage.
Sold off by her impoverished family at the age of 10,
continually raped by her husband before she even reached
puberty, Nujood found the courage to run away, and with
the help of an activist lawyer, sympathetic judges, and the
international press, she divorced her husband and
returned home. Her clear, first-person narrative, translated
from the French and written with Minoui, is spellbinding:
the horror of her parents’ betrayal and her mother-in-law’s
connivance, the “grown-ups” who send the child from
classroom and toys to nightmare abuse. She never denies
the poverty that drives her parents and oppresses her
brothers, even as she reveals their cruelty. Unlike her
passive mother, she is an activist, thrilled to return to
school, determined to save others, including her little
sister. True to the child’s viewpoint, the “grown-up” cruelty
is devastating. Readers will find it incredible that such
unbelievable abuse and such courageous resistance are
happening now. --Hazel Rochman
•
"A powerful new autobiography...It’s hard to imagine that
there have been many younger divorcées — or braver ones
— than a pint-size third grader named Nujood Ali."
—Nicholas Kristof, New York Times
Non-Fiction Book #7
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Non-Fiction Book #8
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Zoobiquity– Barbara Hatterson-Horowitz and
Kathryn Bowers
(Lexile Unknown)
•
Do animals overeat? Get breast cancer? Have fainting spells?
•
A Discover Magazine Best Book of 2012
•
An O, The Oprah Magazine “Summer Reading” Pick
•
Finalist, 2013 AAAS/Subaru SB&F Prize for Excellence in Science
Books
•
Inspired by an eye-opening consultation at the Los Angeles Zoo,
which revealed that a monkey experienced the same symptoms of
heart failure as her human patients, cardiologist Barbara NattersonHorowitz embarked upon a project that would reshape how she
practiced medicine. Beginning with the above questions, she began
informally researching every affliction that she encountered in
humans to learn whether it happened with animals, too. And
usually, it did: dinosaurs suffered from brain cancer, koalas can
catch chlamydia, reindeer seek narcotic escape in hallucinogenic
mushrooms, stallions self-mutilate, and gorillas experience clinical
depression. Natterson-Horowitz and science writer Kathryn Bowers
have dubbed this pan-species approach to medicine zoobiquity.
Here, they present a revelatory understanding of what animals can
teach us about the human body and mind, exploring how animal
and human commonality can be used to diagnose, treat, and heal
patients of all species.
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Non-Fiction Book #9
•
Last Chance In Texas: The Redemption of Criminal Youth – John
Hubner
(Lexile Unknown)
A powerful, bracing and deeply spiritual look at intensely, troubled
youth, Last Chance in Texas gives a stirring account of the way one
remarkable prison rehabilitates its inmates.
While reporting on the juvenile court system, journalist John
Hubner kept hearing about a facility in Texas that ran the most
aggressive–and one of the most successful–treatment programs for
violent young offenders in America. How was it possible, he
wondered, that a state like Texas, famed for its hardcore attitude
toward crime and punishment, could be leading the way in the
rehabilitation of violent and troubled youth?
Now Hubner shares the surprising answers he found over months of
unprecedented access to the Giddings State School, home to “the
worst of the worst”: four hundred teenage lawbreakers convicted of
crimes ranging from aggravated assault to murder. Hubner follows
two of these youths–a boy and a girl–through harrowing group
therapy sessions in which they, along with their fellow inmates,
recount their crimes and the abuse they suffered as children. The
key moment comes when the young offenders reenact these soulshattering moments with other group members in cathartic
outpourings of suffering and anger that lead, incredibly, to genuine
remorse and the beginnings of true empathy . . . the first steps on
the long road to redemption.
•
Last Chance in Texas tells a profoundly moving story about the
children who grow up to inflict on others the violence that they
themselves have suffered. It is a story of horror and heartbreak, yet
ultimately full of hope.
Historical Fiction #1
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Between Shades of Gray – Ruta Sepetys
(Lexile 490)
“Starred Review”
•
“Sepetys’ first novel offers a harrowing and
horrifying account of the forcible relocation of
countless Lithuanians in the wake of the Russian
invasion of their country in 1939. In the case of
16-year old Lina, her mother, and her younger
brother, this means deportation to a forced labor
camp in Siberia, where conditions are all too
painfully similar to those of Nazi concentration
camps. Lina’s great hope is that somehow her
father, who has already been arrested by the
Soviet secret police, might find and rescue them.
A gifted artist, she begins secretly creating
pictures that can—she hopes—be surreptitiously
sent to him in his own prison camp. Whether or
not this will be possible, it is her art that will be
her salvation, helping her to retain her identity,
her dignity, and her increasingly tenuous hold on
hope for the future. Many others are not so
fortunate.” (Booklist)
•
A harrowing page-turner.” – Publishers Weekly
Historical Fiction #2
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Sarah’s Key – Tatiana de Rosnay
(Lexile 610)
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“This is a remarkable historical novel, a book
which brings to light a disturbing and
deliberately hidden aspect of French behavior
towards Jews during World War II. Like Sophie’s
Choice, it’s a book that impresses itself upon
one’s heart and soul forever.” (Naomi Ragen)
•
“Sarah’s Key unlocks the star crossed, heart
thumping story of an American journalist in Paris
and the 60-year-old secret that could destroy her
marriage. This book will stay on your mind long
after it is back on the shelf.” (Risa Miller)
•
“Polly Stone’s flawless transitions alternate
between English and French and the 1942 and
present time setting of two stories.” (The Chapel
Hill Herald)
Historical Fiction #3
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The Watch that Ends the Night – Allan Wolf
(Lexile Unknown)
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“A masterpiece. Wolf leaves no emotion
unplumbed, no area of research uninvestigated,
and his voices are so authentic they hurt.
Everyone should read it.” (Booklist)
•
“Twenty-four voices of passengers, rats and even
the iceberg, evoke the human tragedy of the illfated voyage. Wolf brings the history and, more
importantly, the human scale of the event to life
by giving voice to the players themselves…A
lyrical, monumental work of fact and imagination
that reads like an oral history revved up by the
drama of the event.” (Kirkus Reviews)
•
“Wolf’s novel in verse gives voice, through firstperson accounts, to a cross section of passengers
and crew on the Titanic: how they boarded, why
they’re there, and how they face the
disaster…The themes of natural disaster,
technology, social class, survival, and death all
play out here.” (The Horn Book)
• Fallen Angels – Walter Dean Myers
• (Lexile 650)
Historical Fiction #4
• 1989 Coretta Scott King Award Winner
• A coming-of-age tale for young adults
set in the trenches of the Vietnam War
in the late 1960s, this is the story of
Perry, a Harlem teenager who
volunteers for the service when his
dream of attending college falls
through. Sent to the front lines, Perry
and his platoon come face-to-face with
the Vietcong and the real horror of
warfare. But violence and death aren't
the only hardships. As Perry struggles to
find virtue in himself and his comrades,
he questions why black troops are given
the most dangerous assignments, and
why the U.S. is even there at all.
Historical Fiction #5
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Flygirl – Sherri L. Smith
(Lexile 680)
•
All Ida Mae Jones wants to do is fly. Her daddy
was a pilot, and years after his death she feels
closest to him when she’s in the air. But as a
young black woman in 1940s Louisiana, she
knows the sky is off limits to her, until America
enters World War II, and the Army forms the
WASP Women Airforce Service Pilots. Ida has a
chance to fulfill her dream if she’s willing to use
her light skin to pass as a white girl. She wants to
fly more than anything, but Ida soon learns that
denying one’s self and family is a heavy burden,
and ultimately it’s not what you do but who you
are that’s most important.
•
This book discusses the value of friendship,
bonding in times of stress, the strength of
friendship, racial and gender issues, and the deep
ties of family.— Jennifer Rummel - YABookNerd
• Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets
of the Universe – Benjamin Saenz
Fiction #1
• (Lexile 380)
• *ALA Stonewall Honor Book
•
When Aristotle and Dante meet, in the summer of 1987, they are
15-year-olds existing in “the universe between boys and men.” The
two are opposites in most ways: Dante is sure of his place in the
world, while Ari feels he may never know who he is or what he
wants. But both are thoughtful about their feelings and interactions
with others, and this title is primarily focused on the back-and-forth
in their relationship over the course of a year. Family issues take
center stage, as well as issues of Mexican identity, but the heart of
the novel is Dante’s openness about his homosexuality and Ari’s
suppression of his. Sáenz (Sammy and Juliana in Hollywood, 2004)
writes toward the end of the novel that “to be careful with people
and words was a rare and beautiful thing.” And that’s exactly what
Sáenz does—he treats his characters carefully, giving them space
and time to find their place in the world, and to find each other.
This moves at a slower pace than many YA novels, but patient
readers, and those struggling with their own sexuality, may find it to
be a thought-provoking read.
•
Sáenez writes toward the end of the novel that “to be careful with
people and words was a rare and beautiful thing.” And that’s exactly
what Sáenez does—he treats his characters carefully, giving them
space and time to find their place in the world, and to find each
other...those struggling with their own sexuality may find it to be a
thought-provoking read.--Booklist
Fiction #2
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Now Is The Time For Running – Michael Williams
(Lexile 650)
*YALSA 2012 Best Fiction for Young Adults
*Kirkus Reviews – Best Teen Books of 2011
•
“There is plenty of material to captivate readers:
fast-paced soccer matches every bit as tough as
the players; the determination of Deo and his
fellow refugees to survive unthinkably harsh
conditions; and raw depictions of violence…But
it’s the tender relationship between Deo and
Innocent, along with some heartbreaking twists
of fate, that will endure in readers’ minds.”
(Publishers’ Weekly)
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“A harrowing tale of modern
Zimbabwe…gripping, suspenseful and deeply
compassionate. Williams, a renowned dramatist,
gives readers compelling characters and, in
simple language, delivers a complicated story
rooted – sadly and upliftingly - in very real
events.” (Kirkus Reviews)
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Unwind – Neal Shusterman
(Lexile 740)
•
In America after the Second Civil War, the Pro-Choice and Pro-Life armies came
to an agreement: The Bill of Life states that human life may not be touched
from the moment of conception until a child reaches the age of thirteen.
Between the ages of thirteen and eighteen, however, a parent may choose to
retroactively get rid of a child through a process called "unwinding." Unwinding
ensures that the child's life doesn’t “technically” end by transplanting all the
organs in the child's body to various recipients. Now a common and accepted
practice in society, troublesome or unwanted teens are able to easily be
unwound.
•
With breath-taking suspense, this book follows three teens who all become
runaway Unwinds: Connor, a rebel whose parents have ordered his unwinding;
Risa, a ward of the state who is to be unwound due to cost-cutting; and Lev, his
parents' tenth child whose unwinding has been planned since birth as a
religious tithing. As their paths intersect and lives hang in the balance,
Shusterman examines serious moral issues in a way that will keep readers
turning the pages to see if Connor, Risa, and Lev avoid meeting their untimely
ends.
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"Gripping, brilliantly imagined futuristic thriller...The issues raised could not be
more provocative--the sanctity of life, the meaning of being human--while the
delivery could hardly be more engrossing or better aimed to teens."--Publishers
Weekly, starred review
•
"A thought-provoking, well-paced read that will appeal widely."--School Library
Journal, starred review
•
"Well-written, this draws the readers into a world that is both familiar and
strangely foreign, and generates feelings of horror, disturbance, disgust and
fear. As with classics such as 1984 and Fahrenheit 451, one can only hope that
this vision of the future never becomes reality."--Kirkus Reviews
Fiction #3
Fiction #4
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Perry’s Killer Playlist – Joe Schreiber
(Lexile 850)
Sequel to Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick
•
Just as the Bourne franchise gets better with each movie,
so does this action/spy-thriller series. Things seem to be
looking up for 18-year-old Perry Stormaire. He has been
accepted to Columbia, and his new girlfriend works in the
music industry and has convinced her boss to send Perry
and his band on a European music tour. The only downside
is that his family insists on tagging along. During the band's
first stop in Italy, Perry is nearly killed. The beautiful
assassin, Gobi, arrives just in time to save him, but not
without dragging Perry on a dangerous adventure that
spans several European cities. Gobi's new mission is to kill
several targets. This time, she's not out for revenge, but
rather working on behalf of someone else, and she's not
doing it for the money, either. Gunshots, explosions, and
bloody fights rev up the action, but it's Gobi's motivations
that move the story. Perry may be the narrator, but her
conflicted and painful past makes her a complex and
sympathetic character. This sequel to Au Revoir Crazy
European Chick (Houghton Harcourt, 2011) will feel
somewhat familiar. Just like in Manhattan, Perry is
unwilling to accompany Gobi as she tracks down her
targets. When the lives of his family members are at stake,
he has to put his faith in the hands of a dangerous woman.
Except this time, his feelings for her are deeper and more
complicated. --Kimberly Garnick Giarratano, Rockaway
Township Public Library
• Red Glass – Laura Resau
• (Lexile Unknown)
Fiction #5
•
One night Sophie and her parents are called to a
hospital where Pedro, a six-year-old Mexican boy, is
recovering from dehydration. Crossing the border into
Arizona with a group of Mexicans and a coyote, or
guide, Pedro and his parents faced such harsh
conditions that the boy is the only survivor. Pedro
comes to live with Sophie, her parents, and Sophie's
Aunt Dika, a refugee of the war in Bosnia. Sophie loves
Pedro—her Principito, or Little Prince. But after a year,
Pedro’s surviving family in Mexico makes contact, and
Sophie, Dika, Dika’s new boyfriend, and his son must
travel with Pedro to his hometown so that he can make
a heartwrenching decision.
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An IRA Award Winner
An Américas Award Honor Book
An ALA-YALSA Best Book for Young Adults
A Colorado Book Award Winner
A Cybil Award Finalist
A School Library Journal Best Book
A Richie’s Pick
Suspense/Mystery #1
• Blindness – Jose Saramago
• (Lexile Unknown)
• *Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature
• Jose Saramago delivers a profound parable
of loss and disorientation in Blindness.
When a city is overcome by an epidemic of
“white blindness,” only one woman is
spared. She becomes a guide for a group of
seven strangers and serves as the eyes and
ears for the reader in this powerful
portrayal of man’s worst appetites and
weaknesses – and man’s ultimately
exhilarating spirt.
• “Saramago is the most tender of
writers…with a clear-eyed and
compassionate acknowledgement of things
as they are and a quality that can only be
termed wisdom. We should be grateful
when it is handed to us in such generous
measures.” – NYT Book Review
Problems Book #1
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Last Night I Sang to the Monster – Benjamin Alire Saenz
(Lexile 490)
•
For Grades 9 and Up – At 18, Zach finds himself
in a therapeutic residential program as both an
alcoholic and a post-traumatic-stress patient. In
evocative and compelling language, Saenz allows
an at-first barely articulate, almost amnesiac
Zach to show his progress toward remembering
and integrating his past into a present with which
he can cope. He is guided along the way by a
sympathetic and wise therapist, a middle-aged
roommate whose own recovery is on an arc
ahead of the youth’s and several credible and
interesting minor characters. The techniques
and realities of such a facility are realistic and
fully drawn: addicts who gather for cigarettes,
nightmares, group sessions, breathing therapy.
Saenz weaves together Zach’s past, present, and
changing disposition toward his future with
stylistic grace and emotional insight. This is a
powerful and edifying look into both a tortured
psyche and the methods by which it can be
healed. (Francisco Goldsmith – Halifax Public
Libraries)
Problems Book #2
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Marcelo in the Real World – Francisco X. Stork
(Lexile 700)
*Publisher’s Weekly Best Books of 2009
*YALSA Top 10 Best Books for Young Adults
*2010 IRA Notable Books for a Global Society
•
Marcelo Sandoval, a 17-year-old with an
Asperger’s-like condition, has arranged a job
caring for ponies at his special school’s
therapeutic-riding stables. But he is forced to
exit his comfort zone when his high-powered
father steers Marcelo to work in his law firm’s
mailroom (in return, Marcelo can decide
whether to stay in special education, as he
prefers, or be mainstreamed for his senior year).
Stork introduces ethical dilemmas, the possibility
of love, and other real world conflicts, all the
while preserving the integrity of his
characterizations and intensifying the novel’s
psychological and emotional stakes. Not to be
missed. (Publisher’s Weekly)
Problems Book #3
• Something Like Hope – Shawn Goodman
• (Lexile 670)
• *Delacorte Press Prize – 2009
• Smart, angry, and desperate, Shaonne, 17, is
in juvenile detention again, and in her
present-tense, first-person narrative, she
describes the heartbreaking brutality that
she suffered before she was locked up, as
well as the harsh treatment, and sometimes
the kindness she encounters in juvie. With
a mother who is a crack-addicted prostitute,
and a father she never knew who died in
prison, she was sent into the foster-care
system as a young child. One foster mother
needed money for drugs, so she forced
Shavonne, 11 at the time, to go with a man
who raped her. While she was locked up,
Shavonne gave birth, and she is glad that
her daughter is now in a kind foster home.
As the title suggests, the story leaves room
for something like hope. (Booklist)
Problems Novel #4
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Split – Swati Avasthi
(Lexile 610)
•
Sixteen-Year-Old Jace Witherspoon arrives at the
doorstep of his estranged brother Christian with a relandscaped face (courtesy of his father’s fist), $3.84,
and a secret.
•
He tries to move on, going for new friends, a new
school, and a new job, but all his changes can’t make
him forget what he left behind—his mother, who is still
trapped with his dad, and his ex-girlfriend, who is
keeping his secret.
•
At least so far.
•
Worst of all, Jace realizes that if he really wants to
move forward, he may first have to do what scares him
most: He may have to go back. First-time novelist Swati
Avasthi has created a riveting and remarkably nuanced
portrait of what happens after. After you’ve said
enough, after you’ve run, after you’ve made the split—
how do you begin to live again? Readers won’t be able
to put this intense page-turner down.
Problems Book #5
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We Were Here – Matt de la Pena
(Lexile 770)
•
The story of one boy and his journey to find himself.
•
When it happened, Miguel was sent to Juvi. The judge
gave him a year in a group home—said he had to write
in a journal so some counselor could try to figure out
how he thinks. The judge had no idea that he actually
did Miguel a favor. Ever since it happened, his mom
can’t even look at him in the face. Any home besides
his would be a better place to live.
•
But Miguel didn’t bet on meeting Rondell or Mong or
on any of what happened after they broke out. He only
thought about Mexico and getting to the border to
where he could start over. Forget his mom. Forget his
brother. Forget himself.
•
Life usually doesn’t work out how you think it will,
though. And most of the time, running away is the
quickest path right back to what you’re running from.
Problems Book #6
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How to Save a Life – Sara Zarr
(Lexile 710)
•
Jill MacSweeny 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.
•
Critically acclaimed author and National Book Award
finalist Sara Zarr delivers a heart-wrenching story, told from
dual perspectives, about the many roads that can lead us
home.
Problems Book #7
• The Adoration of Jenna Fox – Mary E.
Pearson
• (Lexile 570)
• *Bank Street – Best Children’s Book of 2009
• Who is Jenna Fox? Seventeen-year-old
Jenna has been told that is her name. She
has just awoken from a coma, they tell her,
and she is still recovering from a terrible
accident in which she was involved a year
ago. But what happened before that? Jenna
doesn't remember her life. Or does she?
And are the memories really hers?
• This fascinating novel represents a stunning
new direction for acclaimed author Mary
Pearson. Set in a near future America, it
takes readers on an unforgettable journey
through questions of bio-medical ethics and
the nature of humanity. Mary Pearson's
vividly drawn characters and masterful
writing soar to a new level of sophistication.
Classics #1
• 1984 – George Orwell
• (Lexile 1090)
• *Common Core Exemplar Text
• Written in 1948, 1984 was George
Orwell’s chilling prophecy about the
future. And while 1984 has come and
gone, Orwell’s narrative is timelier than
ever. 1984 presents a startling and
haunting vision of the world, so
powerful that it is completely
convincing from start to finish. No one
can deny the power of this novel, its
hold on the imaginations of multiple
generations of readers, or the resiliency
of its admonitions—a legacy that seems
only to grow with the passage of time.
Classics #2
• The Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre
Dumas
• (Lexile 930)
• Imprisoned for a crime he didn’t
commit, Edmond Dantès spends 14
bitter years in a dungeon. When his
daring escape plan works he uses all he
has learned during his incarceration to
mastermind an elaborate plan of
revenge that will bring punishment to
those he holds responsible for his fate.
No longer the naïve sailor who
disappeared into the dark fortress all
those years ago, he reinvents himself as
the charming, mysterious, and powerful
Count of Monte Cristo.