For more information about summer reading assignments visit the South Plainfield High School Summer Reading List 2021**Once you click on "Check Catalog" for an item below, be sure to limit to items owned by South Plainfield (on the left hand side of the screen). Titles owned by South Plainfield will be shaded in a green background.** English 102--Grade 9
Read one of the following books and one age-appropriate book of your choosing
The Chocolate War
By Cormier, Robert
One of the most controversial YA novels of all time, The Chocolate War is a modern masterpiece that speaks to fans of S. E. Hintons The Outsiders and John Knowless A Separate Peace. After suffering rejection from seven major publishers, The Chocolate War made its debut in 1974, and quickly became a bestsellingand provocativeclassic for young adults. This chilling portrait of an all-boys prep school casts an unflinching eye on the pitfalls of conformity and corruption in our most elite cultural institutions. Masterfully structured and rich in theme; the action is well crafted, well timed, suspenseful.The New York Times Book Review The characterizations of all the boys are superb.School Library Journal, starred review Compellingly immediate. . . . Readers will respect the uncompromising ending.Kirkus Reviews, starred reviewAn ALA Best Book for Young Adults A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year A Kirkus Reviews Editors Choice A New York Times Outstanding Book of the Year
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One of the most controversial YA novels of all time, The Chocolate War is a modern masterpiece that speaks to fans of S. E. Hintons The Outsiders and John Knowless A Separate Peace. After suffering rejection from seven major publishers, The Chocolate War made its debut in 1974, and quickly became a bestsellingand provocativeclassic for young adults. This chilling portrait of an all-boys prep school casts an unflinching eye on the pitfalls of conformity and corruption in our most elite cultural institutions. Masterfully structured and rich in theme; the action is well crafted, well timed, suspenseful.The New York Times Book Review The characterizations of all the boys are superb.School Library Journal, starred review Compellingly immediate. . . . Readers will respect the uncompromising ending.Kirkus Reviews, starred reviewAn ALA Best Book for Young Adults A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year A Kirkus Reviews Editors Choice A New York Times Outstanding Book of the Year
Publisher: n/a
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9780375829871
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Paperback
Elsewhere
By Zevin, Gabrielle
A TIME MAGAZINE BEST YA BOOK OF ALL TIME. Beloved by generations of readers, Elsewhere is an original, moving novel about love, loss, and the meaning of it all from the New York Times-bestselling author of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow and The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry.. Is it possible to grow up while getting younger?. Welcome to Elsewhere. The beaches are marvelous. Its quiet and peaceful. You cant get sick, and youll never turn even a day older . . .. This is where fifteen-year-old Liz Hall ends up, after she has died. It is a place so like Earth yet completely different. Here, Liz will age backward from the day of her death until she becomes a baby and returns to Earth.. But Liz wants to turn sixteen, not fourteen again. She wants to get her drivers license. She wants to graduate from high school and go to college. Now that shes dead, though, Liz is forced to live a life she doesnt want with a grandmother she has never met before. And it isnt going well. How can Liz let go of the only life she has ever known and embrace a new one? Is it possible that a life lived inreverse is no different from a life lived forward?. A book that transcends genre and category, Elsewhere is a modern YA classic.
Publisher: n/a
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9780374320911
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Paperback
The Old Man and The Sea
By Hemingway, Ernest
The Old Man and the Sea is one of Hemingway's most enduring works. Told in language of great simplicity and power, it is the story of an old Cuban fisherman, down on his luck, and his supreme ordeal -- a relentless, agonizing battle with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream. Here Hemingway recasts, in strikingly contemporary style, the classic theme of courage in the face of defeat, of personal triumph won from loss. Written in 1952, this hugely successful novella confirmed his power and presence in the literary world and played a large part in his winning the 1954 Nobel Prize for Literature.
Publisher: n/a
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9780684801223
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Paperback
Speak
By Anderson, Laurie Halse
Freshman year at Merryweather High is not going well for Melinda Sordino. She busted an end-of-summer party by calling the cops, and now her friends - and even strangers - all hate her. So she stops trying, stops talking. She retreats into her head, and all the lies and hypocrisies of high school become magnified, leaving her with no desire to talk to anyone anyway. But its not so comfortable in her head, either - theres something banging around in there that she doesnt want to think about. She cant just go on like this forever. Eventually, shes going to have to confront the thing shes avoiding, the thing that happened at the party, the thing that nobody but her knows. Shes going to have to speak the truth.
Publisher: n/a
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9780312674397
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Paperback
The Other Wes Moore
By Moore, Wes
Two kids with the same name lived in the same decaying city. One went on to be a Rhodes Scholar, decorated combat veteran, White House Fellow, and business leader. The other is serving a life sentence in prison. Here is the story of two boys and the journey of a generation. In December 2000, the Baltimore Sun" "ran a small piece about Wes Moore, a local student who had just received a Rhodes Scholarship. The same paper also ran a series of articles about four young men who had allegedly killed a police officer in a spectacularly botched armed robbery. The police were still hunting for two of the suspects who had gone on the lam, a pair of brothers. One was named Wes Moore. Wes just couldn't shake off the unsettling coincidence, or the inkling that the two shared much more than space in the same newspaper. After following the story of the robbery, the manhunt, and the trial to its conclusion, he wrote a letter to the other Wes, now a convicted murderer serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole. His letter tentatively asked the questions that had been haunting him: Who are you? How did this happen? That letter led to a correspondence and relationship that have lasted for several years. Over dozens of letters and prison visits, Wes discovered that the other Wes had had a life not unlike his own: Both had grown up in similar neighborhoods and had had difficult childhoods, both were fatherless; they'd hung out on similar corners with similar crews, and both had run into trouble with the police. At each stage of their young lives they had come across similar moments of decision, yet their choices would lead them to astonishingly different destinies. Told in alternating dramatic narratives that take readers from heart-wrenching losses to moments of surprising redemption, "The Other Wes Moore" tells the story of a generation of boys trying to find their way in a hostile world. "From the Hardcover edition. "
Publisher: n/a
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9780385528207
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Paperback
They Cage the Animals at Night
By Burch, Jennings Michael
The heartbreaking, iconic true story of an abandoned little boy's horrific journey through the American foster care system.On a misty evening in Brooklyn, Jennings Michael Burch's mother, too sick to care for him, left her eight-year-old son at an orphanage with the words, "I'll be right back." She wasn't.Shuttled through a bleak series of foster homes, orphanages, and institutions, Jennings never remained in any of them long enough to make a friend. Instead, he clung to a tattered stuffed animal named Doggie, his sole source of comfort in a frightening world.Here, in his own words, Jennings Michael Burch reveals the abuse and neglect he experienced during his lost childhood. But while his experiences are both shocking and devastating, his story is ultimately one of hope - the triumphant tale of a forgotten child who somehow found the courage to reach out for love, and found it waiting for him.
Publisher: n/a
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9780451159410
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Mass Market Paperback
Where the Heart Is
By Letts, Billie
Talk about unlucky sevens. An hour ago, seventeen-year-old, seven months pregnant Novalee Nation was heading for California with her boyfriend. Now she finds herself stranded at a Wal-Mart in Sequoyah, Oklahoma, with just $7.77 in change. But Novalee is about to discover hidden treasures in this small Southwest town--a group of down-to-earth, deeply caring people willing to help a homeless, jobless girl living secretly in a Wal-Mart. From Bible-thumping blue-haired Sister Thelma Husband to eccentric librarian Forney Hull who loves Novalee more than she loves herself, they are about to take her--and you, too--on a moving, funny, and unforgettable journey to . . . Where the Heart Is.
Publisher: n/a
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9780446672214
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Paperback
English 122-- Grade 10
Read one of the following books and one age-appropriate book of your choosing
Before I Fall
By Oliver, Lauren
The Before I Fall movie - based on Lauren Oliver's beloved first novel and starring Zoey Deutch, Halston Sage, and Kian Lawley - is opening in theaters in spring 2017.With this stunning debut novel, New York Times bestselling author Lauren Oliver emerged as one of today's foremost authors of young adult fiction. Like Jay Asher's Thirteen Reasons Why and Gayle Forman's If I Stay, Before I Fall raises thought-provoking questions about love, death, and how one person's life can affect so many others.For popular high school senior Samantha Kingston, February 12 - "Cupid Day" - should be one big party, a day of valentines and roses and the privileges that come with being at the top of the social pyramid. And it is ... until she dies in a terrible accident that night.However, she still wakes up the next morning. In fact, Sam lives the last day of her life seven times, until she realizes that by making even the slightest changes, she may hold more power than she ever imagined.Named to numerous state reading lists, this novel was also recognized as a Best Book of the Year by Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, The Daily Beast, NPR, and Publishers Weekly. Supports the Common Core State Standards.
Publisher: n/a
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9780061726804
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Print book
Just Mercy
By Stevenson, Bryan
A powerful true story about the potential for mercy to redeem us, and a clarion call to fix our broken system of justice - from one of the most brilliant and influential lawyers of our time
Bryan Stevenson was a young lawyer when he founded the Equal Justice Initiative, a legal practice dedicated to defending those most desperate and in need: the poor, the wrongly condemned, and women and children trapped in the farthest reaches of our criminal justice system. One of his first cases was that of Walter McMillian, a young man who was sentenced to die for a notorious murder he insisted he didn't commit. The case drew Bryan into a tangle of conspiracy, political machination, and legal brinksmanship - and transformed his understanding of mercy and justice forever.
Just Mercy is at once an unforgettable account of an idealistic, gifted young lawyer's coming of age, a moving window into the lives of those he has defended, and an inspiring argument for compassion in the pursuit of true justice.
Publisher: n/a
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9780812994520
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Paperback
The Pact
By Jenkins, George
All too often we hear about the dangers of male friendships, where peer pressure prevails over common sense. But rarely do we hear about another kind of male bonding, which, in the case of George Jenkins, Sampson Davis, and Rameck Hunt, led three boys to succeed beyond their wildest dreams. Jenkins, Davis, and Hunt grew up in impoverished, broken families in Newark, New Jersey. Both Davis and Hunt served time in juvenile jails. But when Jenkins-who had a dream of becoming a dentist-learned about a program for minority students interested in careers in medicine, he convinced his two friends to apply and they vowed to get each other through. Despite the tremendous distractions and difficulties they faced, today two are doctors and one is a dentist.
Publisher: n/a
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9781573222167
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Hardcover
Unwind
By Shusterman, Neal
In a society where unwanted teens are salvaged for their body parts, three runaways fight the system that would "unwind" them Connor's parents want to be rid of him because he's a troublemaker. Risa has no parents and is being unwound to cut orphanage costs. Lev's unwinding has been planned since his birth, as part of his family's strict religion. Brought together by chance, and kept together by desperation, these three unlikely companions make a harrowing cross-country journey, knowing their lives hang in the balance. If they can survive until their eighteenth birthday, they can't be harmed -- but when every piece of them, from their hands to their hearts, are wanted by a world gone mad, eighteen seems far, far away. In Unwind, Boston Globe/Horn Book Award winner Neal Shusterman challenges readers' ideas about life -- not just where life begins, and where it ends, but what it truly means to be alive.
Publisher: n/a
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9781416912040
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Print book
English 142-- Grade 11
Read one of the following books and one age-appropriate book of your choosing
About a Boy
By Hornby, Nick
Will Freeman may have discovered the key to dating success: If the simple fact that they were single mothers meant that gorgeous women - women who would not ordinarily look twice a Will - might not only be willing, but enthusiastic about dating him, then he was really onto something. Single mothers - bright, attractive, available women - thousands of them, were all over London. He just had to find them. SPAT: Single Parents - Alone Together. It was a brilliant plan. And Will wasn't going to let the fact that he didn't have a child himself hold him back. A fictional two-year-old named Ned wouldn't be the first thing he'd invented. And it seems to go quite well at first, until he meets an actual twelve-year-old named Marcus, who is more than Will bargained for .
Publisher: n/a
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9781573227339
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Paperback
Animal Farm
By Orwell, George
George Orwell’s famous satire of the Soviet Union, in which “all animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.”
Publisher: n/a
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9780151072552
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Hardcover
Brave New World
By Huxley, Aldous
Now more than ever: Aldous Huxley's enduring "masterpiece ... one of the most prophetic dystopian works of the 20th century" (Wall Street Journal) must be read and understood by anyone concerned with preserving the human spirit in the face of our "brave new world"Aldous Huxley's profoundly important classic of world literature, Brave New World is a searching vision of an unequal, technologically-advanced future where humans are genetically bred, socially indoctrinated, and pharmaceutically anesthetized to passively uphold an authoritarian ruling order--all at the cost of our freedom, full humanity, and perhaps also our souls. "A genius [who] who spent his life decrying the onward march of the Machine" (The New Yorker) , Huxley was a man of incomparable talents: equally an artist, a spiritual seeker, and one of history's keenest observers of human nature and civilization. Brave New World, his masterpiece, has enthralled and terrified millions of readers, and retains its urgent relevance to this day as both a warning to be heeded as we head into tomorrow and as thought-provoking, satisfying work of literature. Written in the shadow of the rise of fascism during the 1930s, Brave New World likewise speaks to a 21st-century world dominated by mass-entertainment, technology, medicine and pharmaceuticals, the arts of persuasion, and the hidden influence of elites. "Aldous Huxley is the greatest 20th century writer in English." - Chicago Tribune
Publisher: n/a
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9780060850524
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Paperback
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Other Stories
By Stevenson, Robert Louis
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully cra
Publisher: n/a
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9781566197106
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Dracula
By Bram, Stoker,
Irish author Bram Stoker introduced the character of Count Dracula and provided the basis of modern vampire fiction in his 1897 novel entitled Dracula. Written as a series of letters, newspaper clippings, diary entries, and ships' logs, the story begins with lawyer Jonathan
Publisher: n/a
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9781607105510
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Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus
By Shelley, Mary
n/a
Publisher: n/a
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679409998
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Hardcover
Gulliver's Travels
By Swift, Jonathan
Gulliver's Travels (1726) is one of the most compelling satires ever written, rated by George Orwell among the six most indispensable books in world literature. Lemuel Gulliver's adventures in Lilliput, Brobdingnag, Laputa and in the country of the Houyhnhnms exposes the absurdity and hypocrisy of intellectuals and governments the world over.
Publisher: n/a
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9780192100375
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Hardcover
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
By Adams, Douglas
"Extremely funny . . . inspired lunacy . . . [and] over much too soon." - The Washington Post Book WorldSeconds before the Earth is demolished to make way for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is plucked off the planet by his friend Ford Prefect, a researcher for the revised edition of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy who, for the last fifteen years, has been posing as an out-of-work actor.Together this dynamic pair begin a journey through space aided by quotes from The Hitchhiker's Guide ("A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have") and a galaxy-full of fellow travelers: Zaphod Beeblebrox - the two-headed, three-armed ex-hippie and totally out-to-lunch president of the galaxy; Trillian, Zaphod's girlfriend (formally Tricia McMillan) , whom Arthur tried to pick up at a cocktail party once upon a time zone; Marvin, a paranoid, brilliant, and chronically depressed robot; Veet Voojagig, a former graduate student who is obsessed with the disappearance of all the ballpoint pens he bought over the years. Where are these pens? Why are we born? Why do we die? Why do we spend so much time between wearing digital watches? For all the answers stick your thumb to the stars. And don't forget to bring a towel!Praise for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"A whimsical oddyssey . . . Characters frolic through the galaxy with infectious joy." - Publishers Weekly"Irresistable!" - The Boston Globe
Publisher: n/a
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9780345391803
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Audiobook
English 162-- Grade 12
Read one of the following books and one age-appropriate book of your choosing
The Good Earth
By Buck, Pearl S.
Nobel Laureate Pearl S. Buck's epic Pulitzer Prize-winning novel and Oprah Book Club selection about a vanished China and one family's shifting fortunes.Though more than seventy years have passed since this remarkable novel won the Pulitzer Prize, it has retained its popularity and become one of the great modern classics. In The Good Earth Pearl S. Buck paints an indelible portrait of China in the 1920s, when the last emperor reigned and the vast political and social upheavals of the twentieth century were but distant rumblings. This moving, classic story of the honest farmer Wang Lung and his selfless wife O-Lan is must reading for those who would fully appreciate the sweeping changes that have occurred in the lives of the Chinese people during the last century. Nobel Prize winner Pearl S. Buck traces the whole cycle of life: its terrors, its passions, its ambitions and rewards. Her brilliant novel - beloved by millions of readers - is a universal tale of an ordinary family caught in the tide of history.
Publisher: n/a
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9780743272933
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Paperback
Into the Wild
By Krakauer, Jon
In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. His name was Christopher Johnson McCandless. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself. Four months later, his decomposed body was found by a moose hunter. How McCandless came to die is the unforgettable story of Into the Wild.Immediately after graduating from college in 1991, McCandless had roamed through the West and Southwest on a vision quest like those made by his heroes Jack London and John Muir. In the Mojave Desert he abandoned his car, stripped it of its license plates, and burned all of his cash.
Publisher: n/a
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9780385486804
|
Paperback
The Kite Runner
By Hosseini, Khaled
The New York Times bestseller and international classic loved by millions of readers. The unforgettable, heartbreaking story of the unlikely friendship between a wealthy boy and the son of his father's servant, The Kite Runner is a beautifully crafted novel set in a country that is in the process of being destroyed. It is about the power of reading, the price of betrayal, and the possibility of redemption; and an exploration of the power of fathers over sons - their love, their sacrifices, their lies. A sweeping story of family, love, and friendship told against the devastating backdrop of the history of Afghanistan over the last thirty years, The Kite Runner is an unusual and powerful novel that has become a beloved, one-of-a-kind classic.
Publisher: n/a
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9781594480003
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Paperback
Letters to a Young Poet
By Rilke, Rainer Maria
An Unabridged, Unaltered Edition with All Ten Letters, to include three poems from The Book of Pictures: Kings In Legends, The Knight & The Woman Who Loves -
Publisher: n/a
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9781603864800
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Paperback
Like Water for Chocolate
By Esquivel, Laura
Earthy, magical, and utterly charming, this tale of family life in turn-of-the-century Mexico became a best-selling phenomenon with its winning blend of poignant romance and bittersweet wit. The classic love story takes place on the De la Garza ranch, as the tyrannical owner, Mama Elena, chops onions at the kitchen table in her final days of pregnancy. While still in her mother's womb, her daughter to be weeps so violently she causes an early labor, and little Tita slips out amid the spices and fixings for noodle soup. This early encounter with food soon becomes a way of life, and Tita grows up to be a master chef. She shares special points of her favorite preparations with listeners throughout the story.
Publisher: n/a
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9780385420167
|
Book
The Stranger
By Camus, Albert
Since it was first published in English, in 1946, Albert Camuss extraordinary first novel, The Stranger LEtranger, has had a profound impact on millions of American readers. Through this story of an ordinary man who unwittingly gets drawn into a senseless murder on a sun-drenched Algerian beach, Camus was exploring what he termed the nakedness of man faced with the absurd.Now, in an illuminating new American translation the only English version available for more than forty years was done by a British translator, the original intent of The Stranger is made more immediate, as Matthew Ward captures in exact and lucid language precisely what Camus said and how he said it, thus giving this haunting novel a new life for generations to come.Albert Camus, son of a working-class family, was born in Algeria in 1913.
Publisher: n/a
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9780394533056
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Hardcover
Their Eyes Were Watching God
By Hurston, Zora Neale
Fair and long-legged, independent and articulate, Janie Crawford sets out to be her own person -- no mean feat for a black woman in the '30s. Janie's quest for identity takes her through three marriages and into a journey back to her roots.
Publisher: n/a
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9780060931414
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Paperback
Zen in the Art of Archery
By Herrigel, Eugen
Finally on Audio--a Classic of Zen Buddhist LiteratureIt is almost impossible to understand Zen by studying it as you would other intellectual pursuits. The best way to understand Zen is, simply, to Zen. This is what author Eugen Herrigel allows us to do by sharing his own fascinating journey toward a comprehension of this illuminating philosophy. In Japan, an art such as archery is not practiced solely for utilitarian purposes such as learning to hit targets. Archery is also meant to train the mind and bring it into contact with the ultimate reality. If one really wishes to be master of an art, technical knowledge of it is not enough. One has to trancend technique so that the art becomes an "artless art" growing out of the Unconsciousness. In this way, as the author simply, clearly demonstrates, archery becomes a path to greater understanding and enlightenment.
Publisher: n/a
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9780375705090
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Paperback
English 101-- Grade 9 Honors
Read all of the following books:
Anthem
By Rand, Ayn
In a dark future where love, science, and civilization have become a thing of the past, a daring man resists acclimation into an individual-free society and pursues knowledge and a special woman, acts that mark him for death. Reprint.
Publisher: n/a
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9780451185327
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Mass Market Paperback
Positive
By Rawl, Paige
An astonishing memoir for the untold number of children whose lives have been touched by bullying. Positive is a must-read for teens, their parents, educators, and administrators - a brave, visceral work that will save lives and resonate deeply.Paige Rawl has been HIV positive since birth, but growing up, she never felt like her illness defined her. On an unremarkable day in middle school, she disclosed to a friend her HIV-positive status - and within hours the bullying began. From that moment forward, every day was like walking through a minefield. Paige was never sure when or from where the next text, taunt, or hateful message would come. Then one night, desperate for escape, fifteen-year-old Paige found herself in her bathroom staring at a bottle of sleeping pills.That could have been the end of her story. Instead, it was only the beginning. Paige's memoir calls for readers to choose action over complacency, compassion over cruelty - and above all, to be Positive.Includes twenty-five photos from Paige's personal collection throughout.Supports the Common Core State Standards
Publisher: n/a
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9780062342515
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Book
English 121-- Grade 10 Honors
Everyone must read:
The Scarlet Letter
By Hawthorne, Nathaniel
Hailed by Henry James as "the finest piece of imaginative writing yet put forth in the country," Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter reaches to our nation's historical and moral roots for the material of great tragedy. Set in an early New England colony, the novel shows the terrible impact a single, passionate act has on the lives of three members of the community: the defiant Hester Prynne; the fiery, tortured Reverend Dimmesdale; and the obsessed, vengeful Chillingworth.With The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne became the first American novelist to forge from our Puritan heritage a universal classic, a masterful exploration of humanity's unending struggle with sin, guilt and pride.
Publisher: n/a
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9780553210095
|
Paperback
Choose one of the following to read:
Just Mercy
By Stevenson, Bryan
A powerful true story about the potential for mercy to redeem us, and a clarion call to fix our broken system of justice - from one of the most brilliant and influential lawyers of our time
Bryan Stevenson was a young lawyer when he founded the Equal Justice Initiative, a legal practice dedicated to defending those most desperate and in need: the poor, the wrongly condemned, and women and children trapped in the farthest reaches of our criminal justice system. One of his first cases was that of Walter McMillian, a young man who was sentenced to die for a notorious murder he insisted he didn't commit. The case drew Bryan into a tangle of conspiracy, political machination, and legal brinksmanship - and transformed his understanding of mercy and justice forever.
Just Mercy is at once an unforgettable account of an idealistic, gifted young lawyer's coming of age, a moving window into the lives of those he has defended, and an inspiring argument for compassion in the pursuit of true justice.
Publisher: n/a
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9780812994520
|
Paperback
Stamped
By Reynolds, Jason
A timely, crucial, and empowering exploration of racism--and antiracism--in AmericaThis is NOT a history book.This is a book about the here and now. A book to help us better understand why we are where we are.A book about race. The construct of race has always been used to gain and keep power, to create dynamics that separate and silence. This remarkable reimagining of Dr. Ibram X. Kendi's National Book Award-winning Stamped from the Beginning reveals the history of racist ideas in America, and inspires hope for an antiracist future. It takes you on a race journey from then to now, shows you why we feel how we feel, and why the poison of racism lingers. It also proves that while racist ideas have always been easy to fabricate and distribute, they can also be discredited.
Publisher: n/a
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9780316453691
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Hardcover
I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter
By SÃnchez, Erika L
National Book Award Finalist!
Instant New York Times Bestseller!
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian meets Jane the Virgin in this poignant but often laugh-out-loud funny contemporary YA about losing a sister and finding yourself amid the pressures, expectations, and stereotypes of growing up in a Mexican-American home.
Perfect Mexican daughters do not go away to college. And they do not move out of their parents' house after high school graduation. Perfect Mexican daughters never abandon their family.
But Julia is not your perfect Mexican daughter. That was Olga's role.
Then a tragic accident on the busiest street in Chicago leaves Olga dead and Julia left behind to reassemble the shattered pieces of her family. And no one seems to acknowledge that Julia is broken, too. Instead, her mother seems to channel her grief into pointing out every possible way Julia has failed.
But it's not long before Julia discovers that Olga might not have been as perfect as everyone thought. With the help of her best friend Lorena, and her first love, first everything boyfriend Connor, Julia is determined to find out. Was Olga really what she seemed? Or was there more to her sister's story? And either way, how can Julia even attempt to live up to a seemingly impossible ideal?
"Alive and crackling - a gritty tale wrapped in a page-turner. " - The New York Times
"Unique and fresh." - Entertainment Weekly
"A standout." - NPR
Publisher: n/a
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9781524700485
|
Book
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
By Alexie, Sherman
Bestselling author Sherman Alexie tells the story of Junior, a budding cartoonist growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Determined to take his future into his own hands, Junior leaves his troubled school on the rez to attend an all-white farm town high school where the only other Indian is the school mascot.Heartbreaking, funny, and beautifully written, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, which is based on the author's own experiences, coupled with poignant drawings by Ellen Forney that reflect the character's art, chronicles the contemporary adolescence of one Native American boy as he attempts to break away from the life he was destined to live.With a forward by Markus Zusak, interviews with Sherman Alexie and Ellen Forney, and four-color interior art throughout, this edition is perfect for fans and collectors alike.
Publisher: n/a
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9780316013680
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Hardcover
The 57 Bus
By Slater, Dashka
One teenager in a skirt. One teenager with a lighter.One moment that changes both of their lives forever. If it weren't for the 57 bus, Sasha and Richard never would have met. Both were high school students from Oakland, California, one of the most diverse cities in the country, but they inhabited different worlds. Sasha, a white teen, lived in the middle-class foothills and attended a small private school. Richard, a black teen, lived in the crime-plagued flatlands and attended a large public one. Each day, their paths overlapped for a mere eight minutes. But one afternoon on the bus ride home from school, a single reckless act left Sasha severely burned, and Richard charged with two hate crimes and facing life imprisonment. The case garnered international attention, thrusting both teenagers into the spotlight.Winner of the Stonewall Book Award -- Mike Morgan & Larry Romans Children's & Young Adult Literature AwardYALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults Finalist
Publisher: n/a
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9780374303235
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Hardcover
All American Boys
By Reynolds, Jason
A 2016 Coretta Scott King Author Honor book, and recipient of the Walter Dean Myers Award for Outstanding Children's Literature. In this Coretta Scott King Honor Award-winning novel, two teens - one black, one white - grapple with the repercussions of a single violent act that leaves their school, their community, and, ultimately, the country bitterly divided by racial tension.A bag of chips. That's all sixteen-year-old Rashad is looking for at the corner bodega. What he finds instead is a fist-happy cop, Paul Galluzzo, who mistakes Rashad for a shoplifter, mistakes Rashad's pleadings that he's stolen nothing for belligerence, mistakes Rashad's resistance to leave the bodega as resisting arrest, mistakes Rashad's every flinch at every punch the cop throws as further resistance and refusal to STAY STILL as ordered. But how can you stay still when someone is pounding your face into the concrete pavement? There were witnesses: Quinn Collins - a varsity basketball player and Rashad's classmate who has been raised by Paul since his own father died in Afghanistan - and a video camera. Soon the beating is all over the news and Paul is getting threatened with accusations of prejudice and racial brutality. Quinn refuses to believe that the man who has basically been his savior could possibly be guilty. But then Rashad is absent. And absent again. And again. And the basketball team - half of whom are Rashad's best friends - start to take sides. As does the school. And the town. Simmering tensions threaten to explode as Rashad and Quinn are forced to face decisions and consequences they had never considered before. Written in tandem by two award-winning authors, this four-starred reviews tour de force shares the alternating perspectives of Rashad and Quinn as the complications from that single violent moment, the type taken from the headlines, unfold and reverberate to highlight an unwelcome truth.
Publisher: n/a
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9781481463331
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Hardcover
English 141-- Grade 11 Honors
Read all of the following books:
About a Boy
By Hornby, Nick
Will Freeman may have discovered the key to dating success: If the simple fact that they were single mothers meant that gorgeous women - women who would not ordinarily look twice a Will - might not only be willing, but enthusiastic about dating him, then he was really onto something. Single mothers - bright, attractive, available women - thousands of them, were all over London. He just had to find them. SPAT: Single Parents - Alone Together. It was a brilliant plan. And Will wasn't going to let the fact that he didn't have a child himself hold him back. A fictional two-year-old named Ned wouldn't be the first thing he'd invented. And it seems to go quite well at first, until he meets an actual twelve-year-old named Marcus, who is more than Will bargained for .
Publisher: n/a
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9781573227339
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Paperback
Gulliver's Travels
By Swift, Jonathan
Gulliver's Travels (1726) is one of the most compelling satires ever written, rated by George Orwell among the six most indispensable books in world literature. Lemuel Gulliver's adventures in Lilliput, Brobdingnag, Laputa and in the country of the Houyhnhnms exposes the absurdity and hypocrisy of intellectuals and governments the world over.
Publisher: n/a
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9780192100375
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Hardcover
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
By Adams, Douglas
"Extremely funny . . . inspired lunacy . . . [and] over much too soon." - The Washington Post Book WorldSeconds before the Earth is demolished to make way for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is plucked off the planet by his friend Ford Prefect, a researcher for the revised edition of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy who, for the last fifteen years, has been posing as an out-of-work actor.Together this dynamic pair begin a journey through space aided by quotes from The Hitchhiker's Guide ("A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have") and a galaxy-full of fellow travelers: Zaphod Beeblebrox - the two-headed, three-armed ex-hippie and totally out-to-lunch president of the galaxy; Trillian, Zaphod's girlfriend (formally Tricia McMillan) , whom Arthur tried to pick up at a cocktail party once upon a time zone; Marvin, a paranoid, brilliant, and chronically depressed robot; Veet Voojagig, a former graduate student who is obsessed with the disappearance of all the ballpoint pens he bought over the years. Where are these pens? Why are we born? Why do we die? Why do we spend so much time between wearing digital watches? For all the answers stick your thumb to the stars. And don't forget to bring a towel!Praise for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"A whimsical oddyssey . . . Characters frolic through the galaxy with infectious joy." - Publishers Weekly"Irresistable!" - The Boston Globe
Publisher: n/a
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9780345391803
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Audiobook
English 161-- Grade 12 Honors
Read all of the following books:
The Good Earth
By Buck, Pearl S.
Nobel Laureate Pearl S. Buck's epic Pulitzer Prize-winning novel and Oprah Book Club selection about a vanished China and one family's shifting fortunes.Though more than seventy years have passed since this remarkable novel won the Pulitzer Prize, it has retained its popularity and become one of the great modern classics. In The Good Earth Pearl S. Buck paints an indelible portrait of China in the 1920s, when the last emperor reigned and the vast political and social upheavals of the twentieth century were but distant rumblings. This moving, classic story of the honest farmer Wang Lung and his selfless wife O-Lan is must reading for those who would fully appreciate the sweeping changes that have occurred in the lives of the Chinese people during the last century. Nobel Prize winner Pearl S. Buck traces the whole cycle of life: its terrors, its passions, its ambitions and rewards. Her brilliant novel - beloved by millions of readers - is a universal tale of an ordinary family caught in the tide of history.
Publisher: n/a
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9780743272933
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Paperback
The Oedipus Cycle
By Sophocles,
n/a
Publisher: n/a
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9780812494051
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Please note you only need to read Oedipus Rex from the Oedipus Cycle. Some copies at the South Plainfield Public Library feature all books of the Oedipus Cycle in one book.
1984
By Orwell, George
Written in 1948, 1984 was George Orwell's chilling prophecy about the future. And while 1984 has come and gone, his dystopian vision of a government that will do anything to control the narrative is timelier than ever...* Nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American Read* "The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command."Winston Smith toes the Party line, rewriting history to satisfy the demands of the Ministry of Truth. With each lie he writes, Winston grows to hate the Party that seeks power for its own sake and persecutes those who dare to commit thoughtcrimes. But as he starts to think for himself, Winston can't escape the fact that Big Brother is always watching...A startling and haunting vision of the world, 1984 is so powerful that it is completely convincing from start to finish. No one can deny the influence 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.
Publisher: n/a
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9780451524935
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Mass Market Paperback
English 140-- AP English--Language And Composition-- Grade 11 Please note this only includes the reading portion of your assignment. There is a written portion you need to complete as well.See South Plainfield Summer Reading List 2021 for full assignment. Read:
How to Read Literature Like a Professor
By Foster, Thomas C
A thoroughly revised and updated edition of Thomas C. Foster's classic guide - a lively and entertaining introduction to literature and literary basics, including symbols, themes and contexts, that shows you how to make your everyday reading experience more rewarding and enjoyable.While many books can be enjoyed for their basic stories, there are often deeper literary meanings interwoven in these texts. How to Read Literature Like a Professor helps us to discover those hidden truths by looking at literature with the eyes - and the literary codes-of the ultimate professional reader, the college professor.What does it mean when a literary hero is traveling along a dusty road? When he hands a drink to his companion? When he's drenched in a sudden rain shower?Ranging from major themes to literary models, narrative devices and form, Thomas C. Foster provides us with a broad overview of literature - a world where a road leads to a quest, a shared meal may signify a communion, and rain, whether cleansing or destructive, is never just a shower-and shows us how to make our reading experience more enriching, satisfying, and fun.This revised edition includes new chapters, a new preface and epilogue, and incorporates updated teaching points that Foster has developed over the past decade.
Publisher: n/a
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9780062301673
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Paperback
Read two books from the SPHS Junior Honors Summer Reading List Read two works of nonfiction from the following list:
Alone Together
By Turkle, Sherry
Technology has become the architect of our intimacies. Online, we fall prey to the illusion of companionship, gathering thousands of Twitter and Facebook friends and confusing tweets and wall posts with authentic communication. But, as MIT technology and society specialist Sherry Turkle argues, this relentless connection leads to a new solitude. As technology ramps up, our emotional lives ramp down. Alone Together is the result of Turkle's nearly fifteen-year exploration of our lives on the digital terrain. Based on hundreds of interviews, it describes new unsettling relationships between friends, lovers, parents, and children, and new instabilities in how we understand privacy and community, intimacy, and solitude.
Publisher: n/a
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9780465031467
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Book
Assassination Vacation
By Vowell, Sarah
New York Times bestselling author of The Wordy Shipmates and contributor to NPR's "This American Life" Sarah Vowell embarks on a road trip to sites of political violence, from Washington DC to Alaska, to better understand our nation's ever-evolving political system and history.Sarah Vowell exposes the glorious conundrums of American history and culture with wit, probity, and an irreverent sense of humor. With Assassination Vacation, she takes us on a road trip like no other -- a journey to the pit stops of American political murder and through the myriad ways they have been used for fun and profit, for political and cultural advantage. From Buffalo to Alaska, Washington to the Dry Tortugas, Vowell visits locations immortalized and influenced by the spilling of politically important blood, reporting as she goes with her trademark blend of wisecracking humor, remarkable honesty, and thought-provoking criticism. We learn about the jinx that was Robert Todd Lincoln (present at the assassinations of Presidents Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley) and witness the politicking that went into the making of the Lincoln Memorial. The resulting narrative is much more than an entertaining and informative travelogue -- it is the disturbing and fascinating story of how American death has been manipulated by popular culture, including literature, architecture, sculpture, and -- the author's favorite -- historical tourism. Though the themes of loss and violence are explored and we make detours to see how the Republican Party became the Republican Party, there are all kinds of lighter diversions along the way into the lives of the three presidents and their assassins, including mummies, show tunes, mean-spirited totem poles, and a nineteenth-century biblical sex cult.
Publisher: n/a
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9780743260039
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Hardcover
The Beauty Myth
By Wolf, Naomi
The bestselling classic that redefined our view od the relationship between beauty and female identity. In today's world, women have more power, legal recognition, and professional success than ever before. Alongside the evident progress of the women's movement, however, writer and journalist Naomi Wolf is troubled by a different kind of social control, which, she argues, may prove just as restrictive as the traditional image of homemaker and wife. It's the beauty myth, an obsession with physical perfection that traps the modern woman in an endless spiral of hope, self-consciousness, and self-hatred as she tries to fulfill society's impossible definition of "the flawless beauty."
Publisher: n/a
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9780060512187
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Paperback
Freakonomics
By Levitt, Steven D.
More Than 4 Million Copies Sold WorldwidePublished in 35 LanguagesWhich is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool?What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common?How much do parents really matter?These may not sound like typical questions for an economist to ask. But Steven D. Levitt is not a typical economist. He studies the riddles of everyday life - from cheating and crime to parenting and sports - and reaches conclusions that turn conventional wisdom on its head. Freakonomics is a groundbreaking collaboration between Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, an award-winning author and journalist. They set out to explore the inner workings of a crack gang, the truth about real estate agents, the secrets of the Ku Klux Klan, and much more. Through forceful storytelling and wry insight, they show that economics is, at root, the study of incentives - how people get what they want or need, especially when other people want or need the same thing.
Publisher: n/a
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9780060731335
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Paperback
The Grand Design
By Stephen, Hawking,
When and how did the universe begin? Why are we here? What is the nature of reality? Is the apparent "grand design" of our universe evidence of a benevolent creator who set things in motion - or does science offer another explanation? In this startling and lav
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9780553384666
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This Is Your Brain on Music
By Levitin, Daniel J.
In this groundbreaking union of art and science, rocker-turned-neuroscientist Daniel J. Levitin explores the connection between music - its performance, its composition, how we listen to it, why we enjoy it - and the human brain. . Taking on prominent thinkers who argue that music is nothing more than an evolutionary accident, Levitin poses that music is fundamental to our species, perhaps even more so than language. Drawing on the latest research and on musical examples ranging from Mozart to Duke Ellington to Van Halen, he reveals:. * How composers produce some of the most pleasurable effects of listening to music by exploiting the way our brains make sense of the world* Why we are so emotionally attached to the music we listened to as teenagers, whether it was Fleetwood Mac, U2, or Dr. Dre* That practice, rather than talent, is the driving force behind musical expertise* How those insidious little jingles (called earworms) get stuck in our head. A Los Angeles Times Book Award finalist, This Is Your Brain on Music will attract readers of Oliver Sacks and David Byrne, as it is an unprecedented, eye-opening investigation into an obsession at the heart of human nature.
Publisher: n/a
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9780452288522
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Paperback
AP English Literature and Composition--Grade 12 Please note this only includes the reading portion of your assignment. There is a written portion you need to complete as well.See South Plainfield Summer Reading List 2021 for full assignment. Read all of the following books:
Beloved
By Morrison, Toni
Toni Morrison--author of Song of Solomon and Tar Baby--is a writer of remarkable powers: her novels, brilliantly acclaimed for their passion, their dazzling language and their lyric and emotional force, combine the unassailable truths of experience and emotion with the vision of legend and imagination.It is the story--set in post-Civil War Ohio--of Sethe, an escaped slave who has risked death in order to wrench herself from a living death; who has lost a husband and buried a child; who has borne the unthinkable and not gone mad: a woman of "iron eyes and backbone to match." Sethe lives in a small house on the edge of town with her daughter, Denver, her mother-in-law, Baby Suggs, and a disturbing, mesmerizing intruder who calls herself Beloved.
Publisher: n/a
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9780394535975
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Hardcover
1984
By Orwell, George
Written in 1948, 1984 was George Orwell's chilling prophecy about the future. And while 1984 has come and gone, his dystopian vision of a government that will do anything to control the narrative is timelier than ever...* Nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American Read* "The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command."Winston Smith toes the Party line, rewriting history to satisfy the demands of the Ministry of Truth. With each lie he writes, Winston grows to hate the Party that seeks power for its own sake and persecutes those who dare to commit thoughtcrimes. But as he starts to think for himself, Winston can't escape the fact that Big Brother is always watching...A startling and haunting vision of the world, 1984 is so powerful that it is completely convincing from start to finish. No one can deny the influence 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.
Publisher: n/a
|
9780451524935
|
Mass Market Paperback
The Oedipus Cycle
By Sophocles,
n/a
Publisher: n/a
|
9780812494051
|
Please note you only need to read Oedipus Rex from the Oedipus Cycle. Some copies at the South Plainfield Public Library feature all books of the Oedipus Cycle in one book.
The Joy Luck Club
By Tan, Amy
Amy Tan's beloved, New York Times bestselling tale of mothers and daughters. Nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American Read Four mothers, four daughters, four families whose histories shift with the four winds depending on who's "saying" the stories. In 1949 four Chinese women, recent immigrants to San Francisco, begin meeting to eat dim sum, play mahjong, and talk. United in shared unspeakable loss and hope, they call themselves the Joy Luck Club. Rather than sink into tragedy, they choose to gather to raise their spirits and money. "To despair was to wish back for something already lost. Or to prolong what was already unbearable." Forty years later the stories and history continue.With wit and sensitivity, Amy Tan examines the sometimes painful, often tender, and always deep connection between mothers and daughters. As each woman reveals her secrets, trying to unravel the truth about her life, the strings become more tangled, more entwined. Mothers boast or despair over daughters, and daughters roll their eyes even as they feel the inextricable tightening of their matriarchal ties. Tan is an astute storyteller, enticing readers to immerse themselves into these lives of complexity and mystery.
English 102--Grade 9
Read one of the following books and one age-appropriate book of your choosing
The Chocolate War
By Cormier, Robert
One of the most controversial YA novels of all time, The Chocolate War is a modern masterpiece that speaks to fans of S. E. Hintons The Outsiders and John Knowless A Separate Peace. After suffering rejection from seven major publishers, The Chocolate War made its debut in 1974, and quickly became a bestsellingand provocativeclassic for young adults. This chilling portrait of an all-boys prep school casts an unflinching eye on the pitfalls of conformity and corruption in our most elite cultural institutions. Masterfully structured and rich in theme; the action is well crafted, well timed, suspenseful.The New York Times Book Review The characterizations of all the boys are superb.School Library Journal, starred review Compellingly immediate. . . . Readers will respect the uncompromising ending.Kirkus Reviews, starred reviewAn ALA Best Book for Young Adults A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year A Kirkus Reviews Editors Choice A New York Times Outstanding Book of the Year Show more Show less #outer_postBodyPS { display: none; } #psGradient { display: none; } #psPlaceHolder { display: none; } #psExpand { display: none; } One of the most controversial YA novels of all time, The Chocolate War is a modern masterpiece that speaks to fans of S. E. Hintons The Outsiders and John Knowless A Separate Peace. After suffering rejection from seven major publishers, The Chocolate War made its debut in 1974, and quickly became a bestsellingand provocativeclassic for young adults. This chilling portrait of an all-boys prep school casts an unflinching eye on the pitfalls of conformity and corruption in our most elite cultural institutions. Masterfully structured and rich in theme; the action is well crafted, well timed, suspenseful.The New York Times Book Review The characterizations of all the boys are superb.School Library Journal, starred review Compellingly immediate. . . . Readers will respect the uncompromising ending.Kirkus Reviews, starred reviewAn ALA Best Book for Young Adults A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year A Kirkus Reviews Editors Choice A New York Times Outstanding Book of the Year
Elsewhere
By Zevin, Gabrielle
A TIME MAGAZINE BEST YA BOOK OF ALL TIME. Beloved by generations of readers, Elsewhere is an original, moving novel about love, loss, and the meaning of it all from the New York Times-bestselling author of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow and The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry.. Is it possible to grow up while getting younger?. Welcome to Elsewhere. The beaches are marvelous. Its quiet and peaceful. You cant get sick, and youll never turn even a day older . . .. This is where fifteen-year-old Liz Hall ends up, after she has died. It is a place so like Earth yet completely different. Here, Liz will age backward from the day of her death until she becomes a baby and returns to Earth.. But Liz wants to turn sixteen, not fourteen again. She wants to get her drivers license. She wants to graduate from high school and go to college. Now that shes dead, though, Liz is forced to live a life she doesnt want with a grandmother she has never met before. And it isnt going well. How can Liz let go of the only life she has ever known and embrace a new one? Is it possible that a life lived inreverse is no different from a life lived forward?. A book that transcends genre and category, Elsewhere is a modern YA classic.
The Old Man and The Sea
By Hemingway, Ernest
The Old Man and the Sea is one of Hemingway's most enduring works. Told in language of great simplicity and power, it is the story of an old Cuban fisherman, down on his luck, and his supreme ordeal -- a relentless, agonizing battle with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream. Here Hemingway recasts, in strikingly contemporary style, the classic theme of courage in the face of defeat, of personal triumph won from loss. Written in 1952, this hugely successful novella confirmed his power and presence in the literary world and played a large part in his winning the 1954 Nobel Prize for Literature.
Speak
By Anderson, Laurie Halse
Freshman year at Merryweather High is not going well for Melinda Sordino. She busted an end-of-summer party by calling the cops, and now her friends - and even strangers - all hate her. So she stops trying, stops talking. She retreats into her head, and all the lies and hypocrisies of high school become magnified, leaving her with no desire to talk to anyone anyway. But its not so comfortable in her head, either - theres something banging around in there that she doesnt want to think about. She cant just go on like this forever. Eventually, shes going to have to confront the thing shes avoiding, the thing that happened at the party, the thing that nobody but her knows. Shes going to have to speak the truth.
The Other Wes Moore
By Moore, Wes
Two kids with the same name lived in the same decaying city. One went on to be a Rhodes Scholar, decorated combat veteran, White House Fellow, and business leader. The other is serving a life sentence in prison. Here is the story of two boys and the journey of a generation. In December 2000, the Baltimore Sun" "ran a small piece about Wes Moore, a local student who had just received a Rhodes Scholarship. The same paper also ran a series of articles about four young men who had allegedly killed a police officer in a spectacularly botched armed robbery. The police were still hunting for two of the suspects who had gone on the lam, a pair of brothers. One was named Wes Moore. Wes just couldn't shake off the unsettling coincidence, or the inkling that the two shared much more than space in the same newspaper. After following the story of the robbery, the manhunt, and the trial to its conclusion, he wrote a letter to the other Wes, now a convicted murderer serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole. His letter tentatively asked the questions that had been haunting him: Who are you? How did this happen? That letter led to a correspondence and relationship that have lasted for several years. Over dozens of letters and prison visits, Wes discovered that the other Wes had had a life not unlike his own: Both had grown up in similar neighborhoods and had had difficult childhoods, both were fatherless; they'd hung out on similar corners with similar crews, and both had run into trouble with the police. At each stage of their young lives they had come across similar moments of decision, yet their choices would lead them to astonishingly different destinies. Told in alternating dramatic narratives that take readers from heart-wrenching losses to moments of surprising redemption, "The Other Wes Moore" tells the story of a generation of boys trying to find their way in a hostile world. "From the Hardcover edition. "
They Cage the Animals at Night
By Burch, Jennings Michael
The heartbreaking, iconic true story of an abandoned little boy's horrific journey through the American foster care system.On a misty evening in Brooklyn, Jennings Michael Burch's mother, too sick to care for him, left her eight-year-old son at an orphanage with the words, "I'll be right back." She wasn't.Shuttled through a bleak series of foster homes, orphanages, and institutions, Jennings never remained in any of them long enough to make a friend. Instead, he clung to a tattered stuffed animal named Doggie, his sole source of comfort in a frightening world.Here, in his own words, Jennings Michael Burch reveals the abuse and neglect he experienced during his lost childhood. But while his experiences are both shocking and devastating, his story is ultimately one of hope - the triumphant tale of a forgotten child who somehow found the courage to reach out for love, and found it waiting for him.
Where the Heart Is
By Letts, Billie
Talk about unlucky sevens. An hour ago, seventeen-year-old, seven months pregnant Novalee Nation was heading for California with her boyfriend. Now she finds herself stranded at a Wal-Mart in Sequoyah, Oklahoma, with just $7.77 in change. But Novalee is about to discover hidden treasures in this small Southwest town--a group of down-to-earth, deeply caring people willing to help a homeless, jobless girl living secretly in a Wal-Mart. From Bible-thumping blue-haired Sister Thelma Husband to eccentric librarian Forney Hull who loves Novalee more than she loves herself, they are about to take her--and you, too--on a moving, funny, and unforgettable journey to . . . Where the Heart Is.
Read one of the following books and one age-appropriate book of your choosing
Before I Fall
By Oliver, Lauren
The Before I Fall movie - based on Lauren Oliver's beloved first novel and starring Zoey Deutch, Halston Sage, and Kian Lawley - is opening in theaters in spring 2017.With this stunning debut novel, New York Times bestselling author Lauren Oliver emerged as one of today's foremost authors of young adult fiction. Like Jay Asher's Thirteen Reasons Why and Gayle Forman's If I Stay, Before I Fall raises thought-provoking questions about love, death, and how one person's life can affect so many others.For popular high school senior Samantha Kingston, February 12 - "Cupid Day" - should be one big party, a day of valentines and roses and the privileges that come with being at the top of the social pyramid. And it is ... until she dies in a terrible accident that night.However, she still wakes up the next morning. In fact, Sam lives the last day of her life seven times, until she realizes that by making even the slightest changes, she may hold more power than she ever imagined.Named to numerous state reading lists, this novel was also recognized as a Best Book of the Year by Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, The Daily Beast, NPR, and Publishers Weekly. Supports the Common Core State Standards.
Just Mercy
By Stevenson, Bryan
A powerful true story about the potential for mercy to redeem us, and a clarion call to fix our broken system of justice - from one of the most brilliant and influential lawyers of our time Bryan Stevenson was a young lawyer when he founded the Equal Justice Initiative, a legal practice dedicated to defending those most desperate and in need: the poor, the wrongly condemned, and women and children trapped in the farthest reaches of our criminal justice system. One of his first cases was that of Walter McMillian, a young man who was sentenced to die for a notorious murder he insisted he didn't commit. The case drew Bryan into a tangle of conspiracy, political machination, and legal brinksmanship - and transformed his understanding of mercy and justice forever. Just Mercy is at once an unforgettable account of an idealistic, gifted young lawyer's coming of age, a moving window into the lives of those he has defended, and an inspiring argument for compassion in the pursuit of true justice.
The Pact
By Jenkins, George
All too often we hear about the dangers of male friendships, where peer pressure prevails over common sense. But rarely do we hear about another kind of male bonding, which, in the case of George Jenkins, Sampson Davis, and Rameck Hunt, led three boys to succeed beyond their wildest dreams. Jenkins, Davis, and Hunt grew up in impoverished, broken families in Newark, New Jersey. Both Davis and Hunt served time in juvenile jails. But when Jenkins-who had a dream of becoming a dentist-learned about a program for minority students interested in careers in medicine, he convinced his two friends to apply and they vowed to get each other through. Despite the tremendous distractions and difficulties they faced, today two are doctors and one is a dentist.
Unwind
By Shusterman, Neal
In a society where unwanted teens are salvaged for their body parts, three runaways fight the system that would "unwind" them Connor's parents want to be rid of him because he's a troublemaker. Risa has no parents and is being unwound to cut orphanage costs. Lev's unwinding has been planned since his birth, as part of his family's strict religion. Brought together by chance, and kept together by desperation, these three unlikely companions make a harrowing cross-country journey, knowing their lives hang in the balance. If they can survive until their eighteenth birthday, they can't be harmed -- but when every piece of them, from their hands to their hearts, are wanted by a world gone mad, eighteen seems far, far away. In Unwind, Boston Globe/Horn Book Award winner Neal Shusterman challenges readers' ideas about life -- not just where life begins, and where it ends, but what it truly means to be alive.
Read one of the following books and one age-appropriate book of your choosing
About a Boy
By Hornby, Nick
Will Freeman may have discovered the key to dating success: If the simple fact that they were single mothers meant that gorgeous women - women who would not ordinarily look twice a Will - might not only be willing, but enthusiastic about dating him, then he was really onto something. Single mothers - bright, attractive, available women - thousands of them, were all over London. He just had to find them. SPAT: Single Parents - Alone Together. It was a brilliant plan. And Will wasn't going to let the fact that he didn't have a child himself hold him back. A fictional two-year-old named Ned wouldn't be the first thing he'd invented. And it seems to go quite well at first, until he meets an actual twelve-year-old named Marcus, who is more than Will bargained for .
Animal Farm
By Orwell, George
George Orwell’s famous satire of the Soviet Union, in which “all animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.”
Brave New World
By Huxley, Aldous
Now more than ever: Aldous Huxley's enduring "masterpiece ... one of the most prophetic dystopian works of the 20th century" (Wall Street Journal) must be read and understood by anyone concerned with preserving the human spirit in the face of our "brave new world"Aldous Huxley's profoundly important classic of world literature, Brave New World is a searching vision of an unequal, technologically-advanced future where humans are genetically bred, socially indoctrinated, and pharmaceutically anesthetized to passively uphold an authoritarian ruling order--all at the cost of our freedom, full humanity, and perhaps also our souls. "A genius [who] who spent his life decrying the onward march of the Machine" (The New Yorker) , Huxley was a man of incomparable talents: equally an artist, a spiritual seeker, and one of history's keenest observers of human nature and civilization. Brave New World, his masterpiece, has enthralled and terrified millions of readers, and retains its urgent relevance to this day as both a warning to be heeded as we head into tomorrow and as thought-provoking, satisfying work of literature. Written in the shadow of the rise of fascism during the 1930s, Brave New World likewise speaks to a 21st-century world dominated by mass-entertainment, technology, medicine and pharmaceuticals, the arts of persuasion, and the hidden influence of elites. "Aldous Huxley is the greatest 20th century writer in English." - Chicago Tribune
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Other Stories
By Stevenson, Robert Louis
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully cra
Dracula
By Bram, Stoker,
Irish author Bram Stoker introduced the character of Count Dracula and provided the basis of modern vampire fiction in his 1897 novel entitled Dracula. Written as a series of letters, newspaper clippings, diary entries, and ships' logs, the story begins with lawyer Jonathan
Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus
By Shelley, Mary
n/a
Gulliver's Travels
By Swift, Jonathan
Gulliver's Travels (1726) is one of the most compelling satires ever written, rated by George Orwell among the six most indispensable books in world literature. Lemuel Gulliver's adventures in Lilliput, Brobdingnag, Laputa and in the country of the Houyhnhnms exposes the absurdity and hypocrisy of intellectuals and governments the world over.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
By Adams, Douglas
"Extremely funny . . . inspired lunacy . . . [and] over much too soon." - The Washington Post Book WorldSeconds before the Earth is demolished to make way for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is plucked off the planet by his friend Ford Prefect, a researcher for the revised edition of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy who, for the last fifteen years, has been posing as an out-of-work actor.Together this dynamic pair begin a journey through space aided by quotes from The Hitchhiker's Guide ("A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have") and a galaxy-full of fellow travelers: Zaphod Beeblebrox - the two-headed, three-armed ex-hippie and totally out-to-lunch president of the galaxy; Trillian, Zaphod's girlfriend (formally Tricia McMillan) , whom Arthur tried to pick up at a cocktail party once upon a time zone; Marvin, a paranoid, brilliant, and chronically depressed robot; Veet Voojagig, a former graduate student who is obsessed with the disappearance of all the ballpoint pens he bought over the years. Where are these pens? Why are we born? Why do we die? Why do we spend so much time between wearing digital watches? For all the answers stick your thumb to the stars. And don't forget to bring a towel!Praise for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"A whimsical oddyssey . . . Characters frolic through the galaxy with infectious joy." - Publishers Weekly"Irresistable!" - The Boston Globe
Read one of the following books and one age-appropriate book of your choosing
The Good Earth
By Buck, Pearl S.
Nobel Laureate Pearl S. Buck's epic Pulitzer Prize-winning novel and Oprah Book Club selection about a vanished China and one family's shifting fortunes.Though more than seventy years have passed since this remarkable novel won the Pulitzer Prize, it has retained its popularity and become one of the great modern classics. In The Good Earth Pearl S. Buck paints an indelible portrait of China in the 1920s, when the last emperor reigned and the vast political and social upheavals of the twentieth century were but distant rumblings. This moving, classic story of the honest farmer Wang Lung and his selfless wife O-Lan is must reading for those who would fully appreciate the sweeping changes that have occurred in the lives of the Chinese people during the last century. Nobel Prize winner Pearl S. Buck traces the whole cycle of life: its terrors, its passions, its ambitions and rewards. Her brilliant novel - beloved by millions of readers - is a universal tale of an ordinary family caught in the tide of history.
Into the Wild
By Krakauer, Jon
In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. His name was Christopher Johnson McCandless. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself. Four months later, his decomposed body was found by a moose hunter. How McCandless came to die is the unforgettable story of Into the Wild.Immediately after graduating from college in 1991, McCandless had roamed through the West and Southwest on a vision quest like those made by his heroes Jack London and John Muir. In the Mojave Desert he abandoned his car, stripped it of its license plates, and burned all of his cash.
The Kite Runner
By Hosseini, Khaled
The New York Times bestseller and international classic loved by millions of readers. The unforgettable, heartbreaking story of the unlikely friendship between a wealthy boy and the son of his father's servant, The Kite Runner is a beautifully crafted novel set in a country that is in the process of being destroyed. It is about the power of reading, the price of betrayal, and the possibility of redemption; and an exploration of the power of fathers over sons - their love, their sacrifices, their lies. A sweeping story of family, love, and friendship told against the devastating backdrop of the history of Afghanistan over the last thirty years, The Kite Runner is an unusual and powerful novel that has become a beloved, one-of-a-kind classic.
Letters to a Young Poet
By Rilke, Rainer Maria
An Unabridged, Unaltered Edition with All Ten Letters, to include three poems from The Book of Pictures: Kings In Legends, The Knight & The Woman Who Loves -
Like Water for Chocolate
By Esquivel, Laura
Earthy, magical, and utterly charming, this tale of family life in turn-of-the-century Mexico became a best-selling phenomenon with its winning blend of poignant romance and bittersweet wit. The classic love story takes place on the De la Garza ranch, as the tyrannical owner, Mama Elena, chops onions at the kitchen table in her final days of pregnancy. While still in her mother's womb, her daughter to be weeps so violently she causes an early labor, and little Tita slips out amid the spices and fixings for noodle soup. This early encounter with food soon becomes a way of life, and Tita grows up to be a master chef. She shares special points of her favorite preparations with listeners throughout the story.
The Stranger
By Camus, Albert
Since it was first published in English, in 1946, Albert Camuss extraordinary first novel, The Stranger LEtranger, has had a profound impact on millions of American readers. Through this story of an ordinary man who unwittingly gets drawn into a senseless murder on a sun-drenched Algerian beach, Camus was exploring what he termed the nakedness of man faced with the absurd.Now, in an illuminating new American translation the only English version available for more than forty years was done by a British translator, the original intent of The Stranger is made more immediate, as Matthew Ward captures in exact and lucid language precisely what Camus said and how he said it, thus giving this haunting novel a new life for generations to come.Albert Camus, son of a working-class family, was born in Algeria in 1913.
Their Eyes Were Watching God
By Hurston, Zora Neale
Fair and long-legged, independent and articulate, Janie Crawford sets out to be her own person -- no mean feat for a black woman in the '30s. Janie's quest for identity takes her through three marriages and into a journey back to her roots.
Zen in the Art of Archery
By Herrigel, Eugen
Finally on Audio--a Classic of Zen Buddhist LiteratureIt is almost impossible to understand Zen by studying it as you would other intellectual pursuits. The best way to understand Zen is, simply, to Zen. This is what author Eugen Herrigel allows us to do by sharing his own fascinating journey toward a comprehension of this illuminating philosophy. In Japan, an art such as archery is not practiced solely for utilitarian purposes such as learning to hit targets. Archery is also meant to train the mind and bring it into contact with the ultimate reality. If one really wishes to be master of an art, technical knowledge of it is not enough. One has to trancend technique so that the art becomes an "artless art" growing out of the Unconsciousness. In this way, as the author simply, clearly demonstrates, archery becomes a path to greater understanding and enlightenment.
Read all of the following books:
Anthem
By Rand, Ayn
In a dark future where love, science, and civilization have become a thing of the past, a daring man resists acclimation into an individual-free society and pursues knowledge and a special woman, acts that mark him for death. Reprint.
Positive
By Rawl, Paige
An astonishing memoir for the untold number of children whose lives have been touched by bullying. Positive is a must-read for teens, their parents, educators, and administrators - a brave, visceral work that will save lives and resonate deeply.Paige Rawl has been HIV positive since birth, but growing up, she never felt like her illness defined her. On an unremarkable day in middle school, she disclosed to a friend her HIV-positive status - and within hours the bullying began. From that moment forward, every day was like walking through a minefield. Paige was never sure when or from where the next text, taunt, or hateful message would come. Then one night, desperate for escape, fifteen-year-old Paige found herself in her bathroom staring at a bottle of sleeping pills.That could have been the end of her story. Instead, it was only the beginning. Paige's memoir calls for readers to choose action over complacency, compassion over cruelty - and above all, to be Positive.Includes twenty-five photos from Paige's personal collection throughout.Supports the Common Core State Standards
Everyone must read:
The Scarlet Letter
By Hawthorne, Nathaniel
Hailed by Henry James as "the finest piece of imaginative writing yet put forth in the country," Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter reaches to our nation's historical and moral roots for the material of great tragedy. Set in an early New England colony, the novel shows the terrible impact a single, passionate act has on the lives of three members of the community: the defiant Hester Prynne; the fiery, tortured Reverend Dimmesdale; and the obsessed, vengeful Chillingworth.With The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne became the first American novelist to forge from our Puritan heritage a universal classic, a masterful exploration of humanity's unending struggle with sin, guilt and pride.
Choose one of the following to read:
Just Mercy
By Stevenson, Bryan
A powerful true story about the potential for mercy to redeem us, and a clarion call to fix our broken system of justice - from one of the most brilliant and influential lawyers of our time Bryan Stevenson was a young lawyer when he founded the Equal Justice Initiative, a legal practice dedicated to defending those most desperate and in need: the poor, the wrongly condemned, and women and children trapped in the farthest reaches of our criminal justice system. One of his first cases was that of Walter McMillian, a young man who was sentenced to die for a notorious murder he insisted he didn't commit. The case drew Bryan into a tangle of conspiracy, political machination, and legal brinksmanship - and transformed his understanding of mercy and justice forever. Just Mercy is at once an unforgettable account of an idealistic, gifted young lawyer's coming of age, a moving window into the lives of those he has defended, and an inspiring argument for compassion in the pursuit of true justice.
Stamped
By Reynolds, Jason
A timely, crucial, and empowering exploration of racism--and antiracism--in AmericaThis is NOT a history book.This is a book about the here and now. A book to help us better understand why we are where we are.A book about race. The construct of race has always been used to gain and keep power, to create dynamics that separate and silence. This remarkable reimagining of Dr. Ibram X. Kendi's National Book Award-winning Stamped from the Beginning reveals the history of racist ideas in America, and inspires hope for an antiracist future. It takes you on a race journey from then to now, shows you why we feel how we feel, and why the poison of racism lingers. It also proves that while racist ideas have always been easy to fabricate and distribute, they can also be discredited.
I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter
By SÃnchez, Erika L
National Book Award Finalist!
Instant New York Times Bestseller!
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian meets Jane the Virgin in this poignant but often laugh-out-loud funny contemporary YA about losing a sister and finding yourself amid the pressures, expectations, and stereotypes of growing up in a Mexican-American home.
Perfect Mexican daughters do not go away to college. And they do not move out of their parents' house after high school graduation. Perfect Mexican daughters never abandon their family.
But Julia is not your perfect Mexican daughter. That was Olga's role.
Then a tragic accident on the busiest street in Chicago leaves Olga dead and Julia left behind to reassemble the shattered pieces of her family. And no one seems to acknowledge that Julia is broken, too. Instead, her mother seems to channel her grief into pointing out every possible way Julia has failed.
But it's not long before Julia discovers that Olga might not have been as perfect as everyone thought. With the help of her best friend Lorena, and her first love, first everything boyfriend Connor, Julia is determined to find out. Was Olga really what she seemed? Or was there more to her sister's story? And either way, how can Julia even attempt to live up to a seemingly impossible ideal?
"Alive and crackling - a gritty tale wrapped in a page-turner. " - The New York Times
"Unique and fresh." - Entertainment Weekly
"A standout." - NPR
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
By Alexie, Sherman
Bestselling author Sherman Alexie tells the story of Junior, a budding cartoonist growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Determined to take his future into his own hands, Junior leaves his troubled school on the rez to attend an all-white farm town high school where the only other Indian is the school mascot.Heartbreaking, funny, and beautifully written, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, which is based on the author's own experiences, coupled with poignant drawings by Ellen Forney that reflect the character's art, chronicles the contemporary adolescence of one Native American boy as he attempts to break away from the life he was destined to live.With a forward by Markus Zusak, interviews with Sherman Alexie and Ellen Forney, and four-color interior art throughout, this edition is perfect for fans and collectors alike.
The 57 Bus
By Slater, Dashka
One teenager in a skirt. One teenager with a lighter.One moment that changes both of their lives forever. If it weren't for the 57 bus, Sasha and Richard never would have met. Both were high school students from Oakland, California, one of the most diverse cities in the country, but they inhabited different worlds. Sasha, a white teen, lived in the middle-class foothills and attended a small private school. Richard, a black teen, lived in the crime-plagued flatlands and attended a large public one. Each day, their paths overlapped for a mere eight minutes. But one afternoon on the bus ride home from school, a single reckless act left Sasha severely burned, and Richard charged with two hate crimes and facing life imprisonment. The case garnered international attention, thrusting both teenagers into the spotlight.Winner of the Stonewall Book Award -- Mike Morgan & Larry Romans Children's & Young Adult Literature AwardYALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults Finalist
All American Boys
By Reynolds, Jason
A 2016 Coretta Scott King Author Honor book, and recipient of the Walter Dean Myers Award for Outstanding Children's Literature. In this Coretta Scott King Honor Award-winning novel, two teens - one black, one white - grapple with the repercussions of a single violent act that leaves their school, their community, and, ultimately, the country bitterly divided by racial tension.A bag of chips. That's all sixteen-year-old Rashad is looking for at the corner bodega. What he finds instead is a fist-happy cop, Paul Galluzzo, who mistakes Rashad for a shoplifter, mistakes Rashad's pleadings that he's stolen nothing for belligerence, mistakes Rashad's resistance to leave the bodega as resisting arrest, mistakes Rashad's every flinch at every punch the cop throws as further resistance and refusal to STAY STILL as ordered. But how can you stay still when someone is pounding your face into the concrete pavement? There were witnesses: Quinn Collins - a varsity basketball player and Rashad's classmate who has been raised by Paul since his own father died in Afghanistan - and a video camera. Soon the beating is all over the news and Paul is getting threatened with accusations of prejudice and racial brutality. Quinn refuses to believe that the man who has basically been his savior could possibly be guilty. But then Rashad is absent. And absent again. And again. And the basketball team - half of whom are Rashad's best friends - start to take sides. As does the school. And the town. Simmering tensions threaten to explode as Rashad and Quinn are forced to face decisions and consequences they had never considered before. Written in tandem by two award-winning authors, this four-starred reviews tour de force shares the alternating perspectives of Rashad and Quinn as the complications from that single violent moment, the type taken from the headlines, unfold and reverberate to highlight an unwelcome truth.
Read all of the following books:
About a Boy
By Hornby, Nick
Will Freeman may have discovered the key to dating success: If the simple fact that they were single mothers meant that gorgeous women - women who would not ordinarily look twice a Will - might not only be willing, but enthusiastic about dating him, then he was really onto something. Single mothers - bright, attractive, available women - thousands of them, were all over London. He just had to find them. SPAT: Single Parents - Alone Together. It was a brilliant plan. And Will wasn't going to let the fact that he didn't have a child himself hold him back. A fictional two-year-old named Ned wouldn't be the first thing he'd invented. And it seems to go quite well at first, until he meets an actual twelve-year-old named Marcus, who is more than Will bargained for .
Gulliver's Travels
By Swift, Jonathan
Gulliver's Travels (1726) is one of the most compelling satires ever written, rated by George Orwell among the six most indispensable books in world literature. Lemuel Gulliver's adventures in Lilliput, Brobdingnag, Laputa and in the country of the Houyhnhnms exposes the absurdity and hypocrisy of intellectuals and governments the world over.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
By Adams, Douglas
"Extremely funny . . . inspired lunacy . . . [and] over much too soon." - The Washington Post Book WorldSeconds before the Earth is demolished to make way for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is plucked off the planet by his friend Ford Prefect, a researcher for the revised edition of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy who, for the last fifteen years, has been posing as an out-of-work actor.Together this dynamic pair begin a journey through space aided by quotes from The Hitchhiker's Guide ("A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have") and a galaxy-full of fellow travelers: Zaphod Beeblebrox - the two-headed, three-armed ex-hippie and totally out-to-lunch president of the galaxy; Trillian, Zaphod's girlfriend (formally Tricia McMillan) , whom Arthur tried to pick up at a cocktail party once upon a time zone; Marvin, a paranoid, brilliant, and chronically depressed robot; Veet Voojagig, a former graduate student who is obsessed with the disappearance of all the ballpoint pens he bought over the years. Where are these pens? Why are we born? Why do we die? Why do we spend so much time between wearing digital watches? For all the answers stick your thumb to the stars. And don't forget to bring a towel!Praise for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"A whimsical oddyssey . . . Characters frolic through the galaxy with infectious joy." - Publishers Weekly"Irresistable!" - The Boston Globe
Read all of the following books:
The Good Earth
By Buck, Pearl S.
Nobel Laureate Pearl S. Buck's epic Pulitzer Prize-winning novel and Oprah Book Club selection about a vanished China and one family's shifting fortunes.Though more than seventy years have passed since this remarkable novel won the Pulitzer Prize, it has retained its popularity and become one of the great modern classics. In The Good Earth Pearl S. Buck paints an indelible portrait of China in the 1920s, when the last emperor reigned and the vast political and social upheavals of the twentieth century were but distant rumblings. This moving, classic story of the honest farmer Wang Lung and his selfless wife O-Lan is must reading for those who would fully appreciate the sweeping changes that have occurred in the lives of the Chinese people during the last century. Nobel Prize winner Pearl S. Buck traces the whole cycle of life: its terrors, its passions, its ambitions and rewards. Her brilliant novel - beloved by millions of readers - is a universal tale of an ordinary family caught in the tide of history.
The Oedipus Cycle
By Sophocles,
n/a
Please note you only need to read Oedipus Rex from the Oedipus Cycle. Some copies at the South Plainfield Public Library feature all books of the Oedipus Cycle in one book.
1984
By Orwell, George
Written in 1948, 1984 was George Orwell's chilling prophecy about the future. And while 1984 has come and gone, his dystopian vision of a government that will do anything to control the narrative is timelier than ever...* Nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American Read* "The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command."Winston Smith toes the Party line, rewriting history to satisfy the demands of the Ministry of Truth. With each lie he writes, Winston grows to hate the Party that seeks power for its own sake and persecutes those who dare to commit thoughtcrimes. But as he starts to think for himself, Winston can't escape the fact that Big Brother is always watching...A startling and haunting vision of the world, 1984 is so powerful that it is completely convincing from start to finish. No one can deny the influence 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.
Please note this only includes the reading portion of your assignment. There is a written portion you need to complete as well. See South Plainfield Summer Reading List 2021 for full assignment.
Read:
How to Read Literature Like a Professor
By Foster, Thomas C
A thoroughly revised and updated edition of Thomas C. Foster's classic guide - a lively and entertaining introduction to literature and literary basics, including symbols, themes and contexts, that shows you how to make your everyday reading experience more rewarding and enjoyable.While many books can be enjoyed for their basic stories, there are often deeper literary meanings interwoven in these texts. How to Read Literature Like a Professor helps us to discover those hidden truths by looking at literature with the eyes - and the literary codes-of the ultimate professional reader, the college professor.What does it mean when a literary hero is traveling along a dusty road? When he hands a drink to his companion? When he's drenched in a sudden rain shower?Ranging from major themes to literary models, narrative devices and form, Thomas C. Foster provides us with a broad overview of literature - a world where a road leads to a quest, a shared meal may signify a communion, and rain, whether cleansing or destructive, is never just a shower-and shows us how to make our reading experience more enriching, satisfying, and fun.This revised edition includes new chapters, a new preface and epilogue, and incorporates updated teaching points that Foster has developed over the past decade.
Read two works of nonfiction from the following list:
Alone Together
By Turkle, Sherry
Technology has become the architect of our intimacies. Online, we fall prey to the illusion of companionship, gathering thousands of Twitter and Facebook friends and confusing tweets and wall posts with authentic communication. But, as MIT technology and society specialist Sherry Turkle argues, this relentless connection leads to a new solitude. As technology ramps up, our emotional lives ramp down. Alone Together is the result of Turkle's nearly fifteen-year exploration of our lives on the digital terrain. Based on hundreds of interviews, it describes new unsettling relationships between friends, lovers, parents, and children, and new instabilities in how we understand privacy and community, intimacy, and solitude.
Assassination Vacation
By Vowell, Sarah
New York Times bestselling author of The Wordy Shipmates and contributor to NPR's "This American Life" Sarah Vowell embarks on a road trip to sites of political violence, from Washington DC to Alaska, to better understand our nation's ever-evolving political system and history.Sarah Vowell exposes the glorious conundrums of American history and culture with wit, probity, and an irreverent sense of humor. With Assassination Vacation, she takes us on a road trip like no other -- a journey to the pit stops of American political murder and through the myriad ways they have been used for fun and profit, for political and cultural advantage. From Buffalo to Alaska, Washington to the Dry Tortugas, Vowell visits locations immortalized and influenced by the spilling of politically important blood, reporting as she goes with her trademark blend of wisecracking humor, remarkable honesty, and thought-provoking criticism. We learn about the jinx that was Robert Todd Lincoln (present at the assassinations of Presidents Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley) and witness the politicking that went into the making of the Lincoln Memorial. The resulting narrative is much more than an entertaining and informative travelogue -- it is the disturbing and fascinating story of how American death has been manipulated by popular culture, including literature, architecture, sculpture, and -- the author's favorite -- historical tourism. Though the themes of loss and violence are explored and we make detours to see how the Republican Party became the Republican Party, there are all kinds of lighter diversions along the way into the lives of the three presidents and their assassins, including mummies, show tunes, mean-spirited totem poles, and a nineteenth-century biblical sex cult.
The Beauty Myth
By Wolf, Naomi
The bestselling classic that redefined our view od the relationship between beauty and female identity. In today's world, women have more power, legal recognition, and professional success than ever before. Alongside the evident progress of the women's movement, however, writer and journalist Naomi Wolf is troubled by a different kind of social control, which, she argues, may prove just as restrictive as the traditional image of homemaker and wife. It's the beauty myth, an obsession with physical perfection that traps the modern woman in an endless spiral of hope, self-consciousness, and self-hatred as she tries to fulfill society's impossible definition of "the flawless beauty."
Freakonomics
By Levitt, Steven D.
More Than 4 Million Copies Sold WorldwidePublished in 35 LanguagesWhich is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool?What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common?How much do parents really matter?These may not sound like typical questions for an economist to ask. But Steven D. Levitt is not a typical economist. He studies the riddles of everyday life - from cheating and crime to parenting and sports - and reaches conclusions that turn conventional wisdom on its head. Freakonomics is a groundbreaking collaboration between Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, an award-winning author and journalist. They set out to explore the inner workings of a crack gang, the truth about real estate agents, the secrets of the Ku Klux Klan, and much more. Through forceful storytelling and wry insight, they show that economics is, at root, the study of incentives - how people get what they want or need, especially when other people want or need the same thing.
The Grand Design
By Stephen, Hawking,
When and how did the universe begin? Why are we here? What is the nature of reality? Is the apparent "grand design" of our universe evidence of a benevolent creator who set things in motion - or does science offer another explanation? In this startling and lav
This Is Your Brain on Music
By Levitin, Daniel J.
In this groundbreaking union of art and science, rocker-turned-neuroscientist Daniel J. Levitin explores the connection between music - its performance, its composition, how we listen to it, why we enjoy it - and the human brain. . Taking on prominent thinkers who argue that music is nothing more than an evolutionary accident, Levitin poses that music is fundamental to our species, perhaps even more so than language. Drawing on the latest research and on musical examples ranging from Mozart to Duke Ellington to Van Halen, he reveals:. * How composers produce some of the most pleasurable effects of listening to music by exploiting the way our brains make sense of the world* Why we are so emotionally attached to the music we listened to as teenagers, whether it was Fleetwood Mac, U2, or Dr. Dre* That practice, rather than talent, is the driving force behind musical expertise* How those insidious little jingles (called earworms) get stuck in our head. A Los Angeles Times Book Award finalist, This Is Your Brain on Music will attract readers of Oliver Sacks and David Byrne, as it is an unprecedented, eye-opening investigation into an obsession at the heart of human nature.
Please note this only includes the reading portion of your assignment. There is a written portion you need to complete as well. See South Plainfield Summer Reading List 2021 for full assignment.
Read all of the following books:
Beloved
By Morrison, Toni
Toni Morrison--author of Song of Solomon and Tar Baby--is a writer of remarkable powers: her novels, brilliantly acclaimed for their passion, their dazzling language and their lyric and emotional force, combine the unassailable truths of experience and emotion with the vision of legend and imagination.It is the story--set in post-Civil War Ohio--of Sethe, an escaped slave who has risked death in order to wrench herself from a living death; who has lost a husband and buried a child; who has borne the unthinkable and not gone mad: a woman of "iron eyes and backbone to match." Sethe lives in a small house on the edge of town with her daughter, Denver, her mother-in-law, Baby Suggs, and a disturbing, mesmerizing intruder who calls herself Beloved.
1984
By Orwell, George
Written in 1948, 1984 was George Orwell's chilling prophecy about the future. And while 1984 has come and gone, his dystopian vision of a government that will do anything to control the narrative is timelier than ever...* Nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American Read* "The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command."Winston Smith toes the Party line, rewriting history to satisfy the demands of the Ministry of Truth. With each lie he writes, Winston grows to hate the Party that seeks power for its own sake and persecutes those who dare to commit thoughtcrimes. But as he starts to think for himself, Winston can't escape the fact that Big Brother is always watching...A startling and haunting vision of the world, 1984 is so powerful that it is completely convincing from start to finish. No one can deny the influence 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.
The Oedipus Cycle
By Sophocles,
n/a
Please note you only need to read Oedipus Rex from the Oedipus Cycle. Some copies at the South Plainfield Public Library feature all books of the Oedipus Cycle in one book.
The Joy Luck Club
By Tan, Amy
Amy Tan's beloved, New York Times bestselling tale of mothers and daughters. Nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American Read Four mothers, four daughters, four families whose histories shift with the four winds depending on who's "saying" the stories. In 1949 four Chinese women, recent immigrants to San Francisco, begin meeting to eat dim sum, play mahjong, and talk. United in shared unspeakable loss and hope, they call themselves the Joy Luck Club. Rather than sink into tragedy, they choose to gather to raise their spirits and money. "To despair was to wish back for something already lost. Or to prolong what was already unbearable." Forty years later the stories and history continue.With wit and sensitivity, Amy Tan examines the sometimes painful, often tender, and always deep connection between mothers and daughters. As each woman reveals her secrets, trying to unravel the truth about her life, the strings become more tangled, more entwined. Mothers boast or despair over daughters, and daughters roll their eyes even as they feel the inextricable tightening of their matriarchal ties. Tan is an astute storyteller, enticing readers to immerse themselves into these lives of complexity and mystery.