Agee, James

A Death in the Family

1020L   320pgs

Beah, Ishmael.

A Long Way Gone:

Memoirs of a Boy Soldier.

video

228 pgs

In English Room.

A gripping story of a child’s journey through hell and back.

There may be as many as 300,000 child soldiers, hopped-up on drugs and wielding AK-47s, in more than fifty conflicts around the world. Ishmael Beah used to be one of them. He is one of the first to tell his story in his own words.

http://www.alongwaygone.com/ 

Bradbury, Ray.

Fahrenheit 451.

890L

In English Room.

Marie, 11th Grade

When I picked this book, I was looking for a short read. I didn’t really care if I liked it or not. By surprise, though I really ended up loving this book. It takes place in the future and life is much different. The main theme was books are bad. Firefighters, who once put out fires, now start them. Anyone caught with books would be in serious trouble. The main character of the book is a firefighter. The twist is he has books. The book tells the story of him realizing books aren’t bad and that they need to be saved.  Overall not a bad book.

Burgess, Anthony.

A Clockwork Orange .

xx pgs

In English Room.

Justin, Junior

 A  young man has taken a wrong path in life. He is involved in a gang and causes all sorts of mischief in his neighborhood and throughout the city. His name is Alex and he eventually finds himself tangled in a big knot of trouble. Alex ends up in jail where he has volunteered to be used in an experiment. This experiment shortens Alex’s sentence allowing him to go home within a few months. This experiment was to find out if videos can really cause a person to change their behaviors. Alex was soon going to turn away from all his mischief and criminal ways. This book interested me in many ways and really showed me a different side of things and from many different perspectives. A Clockwork Orange is a great book and I enjoyed reading it. The way it is written is quite interesting and the story line stays interesting, keeping you on edge. Alex is not an everyday type of character and his personality is unlike anyone would imagine which keeps the reader interested every second and with every word.

Capote,  Truman.

In Cold Blood.

A Classic of journalism

384 pgs, 1040L

In English Room.

Darcy, 11th grade

 Perry Smith and Dick Hickock are two jailbirds who have just been paroled from the Kansas State Penitentiary. Even before the buddies are set free, Perry and Dick have a new scheme that could get them more than $10,000. What they don’t know is that they will be getting much more than they ask for. The characters in this book are very distinct and the reader will know them like they’ve been friends for years. This is a great book because the hunt for Perry and Dick is long and suspenseful. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes murder or mystery novels.

Conrad,  Joseph

Heart of Darkness.

(Apocalypse Now)

A Classic Novel

162 pgs, 1050L

In English Room.

The book that inspired the movie Apocalypse Now.  In the book, however, it is the British in Africa; when they made the movie, they changed to Americans in Vietnam.  You'll find the two remarkably similar nonetheless.  

Conroy, Pat

Lords of Discipline

970

512

In a private military school, a cadet is asked to look after the first African-American student.  

DeFoe, Daniel.

Robinson Crusoe.

Classic novel

1370L

In our school library in fiction

Caleb S., 12^th grade

Robinson Crusoe has been through many hard times ever since he left his house, to travel, against his father’s contempt.  First, the boat he is traveling on gets its mast ripped off in a storm and the boat sinks.  The men barely make it out alive.  Then Robinson goes back to his home and meets a man that travels to New Guinea and trades goods with the natives, making him rich.  Robinson decides to embark with him and comes back a much wealthier man.  Then, Robinson does it again but on his own and he gets captured by a tribe.  He becomes the slave of a harsh king, but manages to escape.  When he escapes he doesn’t make it home but finds a boat and they are on their way to South America .  Robinson goes with them.  Once he is there he becomes a very rich tobacco farmer and decides to get other people to accompany him back to New Guinea to do some more trading.  On the way a storm comes through and they get lost, next there boat gets stuck and all the men are killed, except Mr. Crusoe.  Now he is stranded on a tropic island alone.  He did manage to get some goods from the stuck boat before it sank.  His only companions, his dog and himself.

Recommended by Tyler, tenth grade

Robinson Crusoe had a love of sailing for all his life.  He had always aspired to be a sailor, and he soon got his wish.  He sailed on many ships, and had many adventures, and by the end of his journey, he had gotten himself a prosperous tobacco plantation in Brazil.  Three years have passed.  Robinson has grown restless, and wants more of the glorious and profitable life of a sailor, so he boards a ship bound for Africa.  But this trips goes very differently.  Torrential rains and mountain-like waves crash down upon the little boat.  As the skies clear, Robinson realizes he is stranded on an island.  With a few tools from the ships, and an admirable persistence, Robinson Crusoe is able to forge a life on the island.  I would advise this book to anyone with a reasonably good vocabulary who likes reading about ordinary people in extraordinary situations.  

Doerr, H.

Stones for Ibarra.

1010L, 224pgs 

Richard and Sara Everton, an American couple, leave San Francisco to live in a small, remote Mexican village so they can reopen a copper mine that was abandoned by Richard's grandfather fifty years ago in the Revolution of 1910.

Esquivel

Like Water for Chocolate.

1030L, 256pgs 

Blending realism and the supernatural, Tita who longs her entire life to marry her lover, Pedro, but can never have him because of her mother's upholding of the family tradition of the youngest daughter not marrying but taking care of her mother until the day she dies. Tita is only able to express herself when she cooks.  

Ford, Ford Madox

Good Soldier. 

1040L, 352pgs

John Dowell, a young man with a naive faith in appearances and in the traditional system, takes for granted that the Ashburnhams are "good people" because of their manners and dress.  His entire world is overturned when he realizes that appearances are not as they seem. Ford's novel describes Dowell's struggle to make sense of a world that is disordered and morally chaotic.  

Frazier, Charles

 Cold Mountain.

National Book Award

356 pgs, 1210L

in our library in fiction

A man flees the Civil War to return home to the woman he loves, but he will need to overcome many barriers before he reaches her.  

Golden, Arthur.

Memoirs of a Geisha.  

434 pgs, 1000L

 in English Room.

Guest, Judith.

Ordinary People.

245 pgs, 600L

In English Room.

Two sons - one of them brilliant, the star athlete, the other ignored.  How will the family survive when their favorite son drowns?  

Gunther, John.

Death Be Not Proud

1060L, 224pgs 

He was 17 years old. He would have attended Harvard.  Then he was diagnosed with a brain tumor and began the fight for his life.  

Hal, Steven.

The Raw Shark Texts 

Thought-predators are swimming from mind to mind, on the hunt to devour your ideas...

Hamilton, Jane.

The Book of Ruth.

An Oprah Book Club Selection

950L

in our library in fiction

One seemingly inconsequential moment can alter lives forever. Alice Goodwin, mother of two, school nurse and wife of an aspiring dairy farmer in Wisconsin, is getting ready to take her two daughters and her best friend, Theresa's two little girls to their farm pond to swim. When she goes upstairs to find her bathing suit, Lizzy, Theresa's 2-year-old, slips away to the pond and drowns. It all goes downhill from there. The town tramp, whom Alice reprimanded for constantly bringing her sick son to school, accuses Alice of molesting her child. The entire town turns on the Goodwin family, fairly new to the area, and several other mothers come forward with tales of Alice's "abuse". Imprisonment, trial and loss of the farm ensue and Alice's husband and Theresa become "involved."

Hamilton, Jane

A Map of the World.

740 L    389 pgs

in English Room and

in our library in fiction

Marie, 11th Grade

A Map of the World was a tough read, not level wise but the content. This book tells the story of a family whose life is falling apart. Problems are constantly piling on top of them. The mother of the family was accused of several crimes, friends are disappearing, death occurs, and the list goes on. The story continues with the family trying to sort through their issues.  There are points in this book you will break down and feel for this family. It’s a very emotional read. However, the book is one of my favorites and I would still recommend it for anyone.

Hemingway, Ernest.

The Sun Also Rises.

Classic Novel

251 pgs, 610L

In English Room

drinking and bullfighting in 1930s Spain

Herbert,  Frank

Dune.

Nebula Award,  Hugo Award

488 pgs, 800L

In English Room.

This novel is set in the far future with a complex interstellar society.  The main action takes place on the planet Dune, where a hostile takeover of the government takes place.  

    www.jitterbug.com/origins/dune.html 

Hillenbrand, Laura

Seabiscuit.

990L, 448Pgs

The famous underdog racing horse

Kogawa, Joy.

Obasan.

990L, 320pgs

A Japanese-Canadian recalls the internment during World War II.  

Krakauer, Jon.

Into Thin Air.

nonfiction

378 pgs, 1320L

in our library, 796.52

Brad. 

At an altitude of 29,028 feet, small mistakes can easily multiply into large disasters.  For the 1996 Adventure Consultants expedition led by Rob Hall, disaster struck on a devastating scale.  Mentally altered from extreme altitude illness, not even the experienced climbers stood a chance against nature's wrath.  While descending the summit writer Jon Krakauer and other climbers did not notice the changing winds and commencing storms.  The unexpected disaster makes this epic real life thriller full of surprises and deep personal insights of the deadliest climbing season in Everest history.  This book is recommended by Brad for people with intermediate reading abilities. If you like this book you may want to try Eiger Dreams, another novel by author Jon Krakauer

Kunstler, James Howard.  

The Long Emergency.

and its sequels

A World Made by Hand 

and 

The Witch of Hebron

Malamud, Bernard.

The Magic Barrel.

1050L   214pgs

Malamud, Bernard,

The Natural

1060L   240pgs

baseball and the supernatural - a natural mix?

McCarthy, Cormac.   

All the Pretty Horses. 

National Book Award

Most Honored National Book Award 

301 pgs, 940L

in the English Room

McCourt, Frank.  

Angela's Ashes.  

361 pages

in English Room

Morrison, Toni

Sula

1050

192

Neihardt, John G.,

Black Elk Speaks.

978.004 in our library

1010L, 298pgs

the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux

O'Brien, Tim.

The Things They Carried.

246 pgs, 880L

Finalist for Pulitzer Prize

& National Book Award

In English Room

Andrew, 11^th grade 

The Things They Carried is a collection of short stories relating to the Vietnam war. It tells the myriad of perspectives, feelings and truths behind why a soldier fights. It is a very good book, offering a unique and enthralling insight in to the minds of soldiers.

Fuller, 11th grade 

Tim O’Brien is a veteran of the Vietnam War, and author of The Things They Carried.  Soldiers at war carry a wide variety of different things all depending on their situations.  Tim O’Brien discusses these items and their uses, then goes on to tell about how he interacted with them and struggled to survive the war on his own.  I rated this book with three out of five stars because for the first three chapters it was like an endless list of things people carried at war.  There was no story at all, but shortly after the plot picked up and story starting moving on.  I’d suggest this book to maybe a little younger kids because it’s easy but not to older students or ones who get tired of books fairly easy. 

Plath, Sylvia.

The Bell Jar.

216 pgs

in our library in fiction, even though it's her autobiography.

Esther Greenwood, a young woman from the suburbs of Boston, Massachusetts, gains a summer internship at a prominent magazine in New York City under editor Jay Cee. Esther is neither stimulated nor excited by the big city and glamorous culture and lifestyle that girls her age are expected to idolize and emulate. Instead her experiences frighten and disorient her. She appreciates the witty sarcasm and adventurousness of her friend Doreen, but also identifies with the piety of Betsy (dubbed "Pollyanna Cowgirl") and a "goody-goody" sorority girl who always does the right thing. She has a benefactress in Philomena Guinea, a formerly successful fiction writer (based on Olive Higgins Prouty), who will, later during Esther's hospitalization, pay for some of her treatments.

Stoker, Bram.

Dracula.

380 pgs

In the English Room.

Trumbo,  Dalton.

Johnny Got His Gun.

970L   256pgs 

Joe, a young American soldier, is hit by a mortar shell on the last day of World War I. He lies in a hospital bed in a fate worse than death --- a quadruple amputee who has lost his arms, legs, eyes, ears, mouth and nose. He remains conscious and able to think, thereby reliving his life through strange dreams and memories, unable to distinguish whether he is awake or dreaming. He remains frustrated by his situation, until one day when Joe discovers a unique way to communicate with his caregivers.

Walker, Alice.

Temple of My Familiar.

950L   516pgs

It is an ambitious and multi-narrative novel containing the interleaved stories of Arveyda, a musician in search of his past; Carlotta, his Latin American wife who lives in exile from hers; Suwelo, a black professor of American History who realizes that his generation of men have failed women; Fanny, his ex-wife about to meet her father for the first time; and Lissie, a vibrant creature with a thousand pasts.

Walls, Jeannette.

The Glass Castle.

1010L    304pgs 

Later, when the money ran out, or the romance of the wandering life faded, the Walls retreated to the dismal West Virginia mining town -- and the family -- Rex Walls had done everything he could to escape. He drank. He stole the grocery money and disappeared for days. As the dysfunction of the family escalated...