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Books we own:
Reading level key:
D: difficult A: average for grade level E: easy Some
descriptions from
Amazon.com |
A Day
No Pigs Would Die, Peck (1972, 150 pages, A)
A young Shaker boy learns about life in situations that are sometimes
humorous and sometimes brutal. |
A Member
of the Wedding, McCullers (1946, 153 pages, A)
This book is about a young girl whose older sister is getting married
and she feels left out and alone. |
A Thief
of Time, Hillerman (1988, 334 pages, A)
This mystery is set in the west
with Native American themes. |
Bless
the Beasts and the Children, Swarthout (19??, xx pages, A)
The neglected
attendees of the Box Canyon Boys Camp find their lives turned around
by Cotton, who, in a hot-wired pickup, challenges them to join efforts
to save a herd of buffalo and rediscover themselves in the process.
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The Chocolate
War, Cormier (19??. xx pages, A)
Does Jerry Renault
dare to disturb the universe? You wouldn't think that his refusal to
sell chocolates during his school's fundraiser would create such a stir,
but it does; it's as if the whole school comes apart at the seams. To
some, Jerry is a hero, but to others, he becomes a scapegoat--a target
for their pent-up hatred. And Jerry? He's just trying to stand up for
what he believes, but perhaps there is no way for him to escape becoming
a pawn in this game of control; students are pitted against other students,
fighting for honor--or are they fighting for their lives? In 1974, author
Robert Cormier dared to disturb our universe when this book was first
published. And now, with a new introduction by the celebrated author,
The Chocolate War stands ready to shock a new group of teen readers.
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The Chosen,
Potok (1967. 271 pages, A)
In 1940s Brooklyn,
New York, an accident throws Reuven Malther and Danny Saunders together.
Despite their differences (Reuven is a Modern Orthodox Jew with an intellectual,
Zionist father; Danny is the brilliant son and rightful heir to a Hasidic
rebbe), the young men form a deep, if unlikely, friendship. Together
they negotiate adolescence, family conflicts, the crisis of faith engendered
when Holocaust stories begin to emerge in the U.S., loss, love, and
the journey to adulthood. The intellectual and spiritual clashes between
fathers, between each son and his own father, and between the two young
men, provide a unique backdrop for this exploration of fathers, sons,
faith, loyalty, and, ultimately, the power of love.
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Cold Sassy
Tree, Burns (1984. 391 pages, A)
Cold Sassy
Tree, a novel full of warm humor
and honesty, is told by Willy Tweedy, a fourteen-year-old boy living
in a small, turn-of-the-century Georgia town. Will's hero is his Grandpa
Rucker, who runs the town's general store, carrying all the power and
privilege thereof. When Grandpa Rucker suddenly marries his store's
young milliner barely three weeks after his wife's death, the town is
set on its ear. Will Tweedy matures as he watches his family's reaction
and adjustment to the news. |
The Contender,
Robert Lipsyte (1967 136 pages, A)
Alfred's life
is going nowhere fast. He's a high-school dropout working at a grocery
store. His best friend is drifting behind a haze of drugs and violence,
and now some street punks are harassing him for something he didn't
do. Feeling powerless and afraid, Alfred gathers up the courage to visit
Donatelli's Gym, the neighborhood's boxing club. He wants to be a champion--on
the streets and in his own life. Alfred doesn't quite understand when
Mr. Donatelli tells him, "It's the climbing that makes the man.
Getting to the top is an extra reward." In the end, he learns that
a winner isn't necessarily the one standing when the fight is over.
Teens and adults alike will be knocked out by this powerful story of
how a frightened boy becomes a man. |
| Dicey's
Song, Voight (1982. 211 pages, A)
sequel to Homecoming
The four Tillerman children finally have
a home at their grandmother's rundown farm on the Maryland shore.
It's what Dicey has dreamed of for her three younger siblings, but
after watching over the others for so long, it's hard to let go. Who
is Dicey, if she's no longer the caretaker for her family? Dicey finds
herself in new friends, in a growing relationship with her grandmother,
and in the satisfaction of refinishing the old boat she found in the
barn. Then, as Dicey experiences the trials and pleasures of making
a new life, the past comes back with devastating force, and Dicey
learns just how necessary -- and painful -- letting go can be.
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Ender's
Game, Card (1985. 324 pages, E)
In a world decimated by alien attacks, the government trains young geniuses
like Ender Wiggin in military strategy with increasingly complex computer
games.
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Fried
Green Tomatoes, Fanny Flagg (1988. 395 pages, A)
Set in a small
Alabama train stop town in the 1930s, this gem of a book almost could
have been shelved as just another light romantic comedy. Various women's
voices tell anecdotes of Whistle Stop, as the chapters jump back and
forth through time. We hear from Mrs. Threadgoode, reminiscing fondly
from her nursing home in the 1980s, and the chatty Dot Weems, editor
of the gossipy town newsletter (1929-1969), and then listen in on spirited
dialogue set in the town of Whistle Stop itself. The storytellers never
find use for the label "lesbian," nor do they see fit to take
us behind closed doors, but this is nevertheless the irresistible story
of a fierce and true love between two women, Idgie and Ruth. After Idgie
saves Ruth from an abusive marriage, these two friends become partners
in running the Whistle Stop Cafe, where no one, "not even hobos
and colored," is turned away for inability to pay. Readers are
set down in the corner booth to eavesdrop on the comings and goings
of an array of eccentric, ragtag characters who drop in for buttermilk
biscuits, Big George's barbecue, and, eventually, news about their own
hometown murder mystery. Among revelations big and small, Fannie Flagg
mixes direct and empowering confrontations with racism, sexism, and
ageism with the colorful and endearing language of the depression-era
South and the cafe's recipes for grits, collard greens, and, of course,
fried green tomatoes.
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The Giver,
Lowry (1993. 180 pages, A)
In a world with
no poverty, no crime, no sickness and no unemployment, and where every
family is happy, 12-year-old Jonas is chosen to be the community's Receiver
of Memories. Under the tutelage of the Elders and an old man known as
the Giver, he discovers the disturbing truth about his utopian world
and struggles against the weight of its hypocrisy. With echoes of Brave
New World, in this 1994 Newberry Medal winner, Lowry examines the
idea that people might freely choose to give up their humanity in order
to create a more stable society. Gradually Jonas learns just how costly
this ordered and pain-free society can be, and boldly decides he cannot
pay the price.
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Great
Expectations, Dickens (1867. 521 pages, D)
A young orphan boy benefits from
the generosity of a stranger, but his life path does not meet without
trouble.
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Homecoming,
Voigt (1981. 318 pages, A)
The Tillerman
kids' mother just left them one day in a car in a mall parking lot.
Their father, too, had left them a long time ago. So, as usual, it was
up to thirteen-year-old Dicey, the eldest of four, to take care of everything,
make all the decisions, feed them, find places to sleep. But above all,
Dicey would have to make sure to avoid the authorities who would split
them up and place them in foster homes. Deep down, she hoped they could
find an adult they could trust, someone who would take them in and love
them. But she was afraid it was too much to hope for....
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House
on Mango Street, Cisneros (1984. 110 pages, E)
In short, poetic stories, Esperanza describes life in a low-income,
predominantly Hispanic neighborhood in Chicago.
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Hobbit,
The, Tolkien (1937. 304 pages, D)
The hobbit Bilbo Baggins is forced
on an adventure by a group of unruly dwarves to regain riches stolen
from them by Smaug the dragon, and in the process, he finds that he
has qualities he never knew he had.
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I Am the
Cheese, Cormier (1977. 221 pages, A)
Imagine discovering
that your whole life has been a fiction, your identity altered, and
a new family history created. Suddenly nothing is as it once seemed;
you can trust no one, maybe not even yourself. It is exactly this revelation
that turns 14-year-old Adam Farmer's life upside down. As he tries to
ascertain who he really is, Adam encounters a past, present, and future
too horrible to contemplate. Suspense builds as the fragments of the
story are assembled--a missing father, government corruption, espionage--until
the shocking conclusion shatters the fragile mosaic. Young adult readers
will easily relate to the shy and confused Adam, whose desperate searching
for self resembles a disturbingly exaggerated version of the identity
crisis common to the teenage years.
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My Darling,
My Hamburger, Haggard (1969. 123 pages, E)
As senior year
rolls around, two unlikely couples find themselves caught between desire
and the fear of intimacy. Liz and Sean, misunderstood by their parents,
confused but certain they are in love, have an affair that ends shatteringly.
Maggie and Dennis, just as confused, take their first steps toward understanding
the demands life makes on everyone. Faced with real-life dilemmas that
have no easy answers, Maggie, Dennis, Liz, and Sean must make choices
that will affect the rest of their lives.
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Nobody
Waved Goodbye, Haggard (1971. 186 pages, A)
For some boys, the voyage out begins too soon. Peter was like that.
He couldn't keep his mind on his school work; his girl Julie was nice
but she was a grind. Resenting discipline and wanting to be free, Peter
engaged in a thousand meaningless outbursts of rebellion, only to find
that they added up to one irrevocable act of defiance. For Peter, there
was no turning back. . .
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Oliver
Twist, Dickens (183?. 335 pages, D)
This story about orphans in Victorian London points out the inhumane
conditions children often suffered through. |
Paper
Moon, Brown (1971. 240 pages, E)
Brown's 1971
novel was the basis for the hit film by director Peter Bogdanovich,
who provides a new introduction to this reprint. Narrated by 11-year-old
Addie Loggins, the story follows her adventures with Long Boy, who may
or may not be her father, as they con suckers out of their money in
the Depression-era South. Both kids and adults can have great fun with
this book.
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The Pearl,
Steinbeck (1947. 118 pages, E)
In intimate,
whispery tones Elizondo relates the tragic tale of how a priceless pearl
brings greed, treachery and loss to a poor Mexican pearl diver, his
wife and their infant son. Although Elizando's breathy, dramatic reading
won't be to everyone's taste, younger readers, in particular, should
respond to this interpretation. The narrator's tone lends weight and
urgency to the telling and underscores the mythic quality of Steinbeck's
classic novella.
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Pigs in
Heaven, Kingsolver (1993. 343 pages, A)
A young woman finds a small child who has been abandoned and takes care
of her until the Cherokee tribe discovers the little girl is one of
their own. A custody battle over the child brings up questions of family
and belonging.
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The Red
Badge of Courage, Crane (18??. 134 pages, D)
A young man fights in the civil war and learns that war is not all glory
and victorious honor.
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Shoeless
Joe, Kinsella (1982. 224 pages, D)
This book is about a son who learns to love his father through a mystical
connection with baseball players from the past.
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Tex,
Hinton (1982. 191 pages, A)
Easy going, thoughtless,
and direct, Tex at 15 likes everyone and everything. Life with his 17-year-old
brother, Mason, would be just about perfect if only Mason would stop
complaining about Pop, who hasn't been home in five months. Mason just
wants to leave Oklahoma for good. Can Tex keep it all together?
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Waiting
for the Rain, Sheila Gordon (1987. 214 pages, E)
This book is about two teenage boys in South Africa, one white, one
black. Even though they are divided by Apartheid, these two boys are
friends.
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| Ask
your friends what books they enjoyed and why
for more ideas about what to read. |
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