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Summer Reading List

2012

Nonfiction #1

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Dear Bully - Edited by Megan Kelley Hall and Carrie Jones (Lexile Unknown)

“This anthology of personal essays provides empathetic and heartfelt stories from each corner of the schoolyard: the bullied, the bystander and the bully himself are all represented. Their words will be a welcome palliative or a wise pre-emptive defense against the trials of adolescent social dynamics.” - New York Times

“You’ll love it if…You know someone (or are someone) who’s ever been involved in any type of bullying incident. There’s something in it for everyone on all sides of the spectrum. You’ll love it even more if you can find a story that inspires you to help someone else.” –

Nonfiction #2

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The Elephant Scientist – Caitlin O’Connell and Donna M. Jackson (Lexile 1260)

“The Elephant Scientist, with its clear writing, concise explanation of complex concepts, and exceptional photography, is a first-rate addition to the series.” – New York Journal of Books

“This amazing presentation is a must-have for all collections.” –School Library Journal

Nonfiction #3

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The Exultant Ark – Jonathan Balcombe (Lexile Unknown)

“It is rare to find a scientist writing with such delight about, of all things, joy in the animal world! I have rarely experienced such pleasure in reading a book. I recommend it to all animal lovers, and even challenge a few skeptics, whose minds may be changed by this extraordinary work.” – Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, author of When Elephants Weep

“The Exultant Ark bubbles over with joy. Its important words are moving photographs offer powerful proof of what we knew was true all along: the pleasure of animals is vividly real and matters deeply – both to the animals who experience it, and to we humans who are privileged to share their happiness. Rejoice!” – Sy Montgomery, author of The Good Good Pig

Nonfiction #4

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My Losing Season – Pat Conroy (Lexile 1100)

*NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Pat Conroy, one of America’s premier novelists, has penned a deeply affecting coming-of-age memoir about family, love, loss, basketball—and life itself. During one unforgettable season as a Citadel cadet, Conroy becomes part of a basketball team that is ultimately destined to fail. And yet for a military kid who grew up on the move, the Bulldogs provide a sanctuary from the cold, abrasive father who dominates his life—and a crucible for becoming his own man.

With all the drama and incandescence of his bestselling fiction, Conroy re-creates his pivotal senior year as captain of the Citadel Bulldogs. He chronicles the highs and lows of that fateful 1966–67 season, his tough disciplinarian coach, the joys of winning, and the hard-won lessons of losing. Most of all, he recounts how a group of boys came together as a team, playing a sport that would become a metaphor for a man whose spirit could never be defeated.

Nonfiction #5

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Mountains Beyond Mountains – Tracy Kidder (Lexile 1080)

Mountains Beyond Mountains takes us from Harvard to Haiti, Peru, Cuba, and Russia as Farmer changes minds and practices through his dedication to the philosophy that “the only real nation is humanity” – a philosophy that is embodied in the small public charity he founded, Partners in Health. He enlists the help of the Gates Foundation, George Soros, the U.N.’s World Health Organization, and others in his quest to cure the world. At the heart of this book is the example of a life based on hope, and on an understanding of the truth of the Haitian proverb “beyond mountains there are mountains”; as you solve one problem, another problem presents itself, and so you go on and try to solve that one too.

“Is there anything Tracy Kidder can’t do? This is a beautiful book, and a masterful one. Even better, Mountains Beyond Mountains is a page-turner that will crack your conscience open.” –Stacey Schiff, author of Vera

Nonfiction #6

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(Lexile Unknown)

The New Kids: Big Dreams and Brave Journeys at a High School for Immigrant Teens – Brooke Hauser

“Hauser’s writing resonates with the message she forwards, which is epitomized by International and its cohorts: “keep hope breathing.” Hauser provides a clear view into the mindset of immigrant teenagers. In doing so, she succeeds in telling a story about people rather than a school. Highly recommended.” – Library Journal

“Heartbreaking, hopeful, and utterly enthralling. The New Kids is the spellbinding account of what happens when students like Ngawang, who began his journey to America zipped inside a suitcase, meet the kind of teachers willing to confront bootleggers who use kids as slave labor. For real-life drama and a glimpse of America at its best, The New Kids is unbeatable. “ –Christopher McDougall, author of Born to Run.

Nonfiction #7

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Unbroken – Laura Hillenbrand (Lexile 950)

“A master class in narrative storytelling…Extraordinarily moving…A powerfully drawn survival epic.” – The Wall Street Journal

“Unbroken is wonderful twice over, for the tale it tells and for the way it’s told. A better book than Seabiscuit, it manages maximum velocity with no loss of subtlety. [Hillenbrand has] a jeweler’s eye for a detail that makes a story live.” – Newsweek

“A one-in-a-billion story…seems designed to wrench from self-respecting critics all the blurby adjectives we normally try to avoid. It is amazing, unforgettable, gripping, harrowing, chilling, and inspiring. It sucked me in and swept me away. It kept me reading late into the night. I could not…(it really hurts to type this)…put it…(must find the strength to resist)…down.” –New York Magazine

Nonfiction #8

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Emory’s Gift – W. Bruce Cameron (Lexile Unknown)

After 13-year-old Charlie Hall’s mother dies and his father retreats into the silence of grief, Charlie finds himself drifting lost and alone through the brutal halls of junior high school.

But Charlie Hall is not entirely friendless. In the woods behind his house, Charlie is saved from a mountain lion by a grizzly bear, thought to be extinct in northern Idaho.

And this very unusual bear will change Charlie’s life forever.

Deeply moving, and interwoven with hope and joy, Emory’s Gift is not only heartwarming and charming coming of age story, but also a page-turning insightful look at how faith, trust, and unconditional love can heal a broken family and bridge the gaps that divide us.

Nonfiction #9

Outliers – Malcolm Gladwell (Lexile 1080L)

In this stunning new book, Malcolm Gladwell takes us on an intellectual journey through the world of "outliers"--the best and the brightest, the most famous and the most successful. He asks the question: what makes high-achievers different?

His answer is that we pay too much attention to what successful people are like, and too little attention to where they are from: that is, their culture, their family, their generation, and the idiosyncratic experiences of their upbringing. Along the way he explains the secrets of software billionaires, what it takes to be a great soccer player, why Asians are good at math, and what made the Beatles the greatest rock band.

Brilliant and entertaining, Outliers is a landmark work that will simultaneously delight and illuminate.

Nonfiction #10

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Up From Slavery – Booker T. Washington (Lexile 1320)

Born in a Virginia slave hut, Booker T. Washington rose to become the most influential spokesman for African Americans of his day. In this eloquently written book, he describes events in a remarkable life that began in bondage and culminated in worldwide.

Short Stories #1

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Good Scent From a Strange Mountain – Robert Olen Butler (Lexile 1070)

“In a short span of time, many Vietnamese immigrants to the United States have quietly made good in their adopted country. Butler, who served in Vietnam as a translator, now has given this silent community a voice. The first-person narrators in these tales explore both the old country and the new (primarily Louisiana), as well as the realm of the spirits. Each story unfolds like a delicate paper fan, with startling, ghostly images hiding in every crevice. While many writers have finely described the daily grind of the immigrant experience, Butler has gone one step further, evoking the collective unconscious of a displaced population. Recommended for all literary fiction collections and essential for libraries seeking to expand Asian American literature collections.” –Library Journal

Short Stories #2

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One on One – Jon Feinstein (Lexile Unknown) (FOOTBALL RECOMMENDATION)

After numerous beloved and bestselling sports books, John Feinstein returns to the subjects of his first ten books, crafting a narrative of the most revealing encounters he’s had. Feinstein has interviewed some of the most enduring figures in sports – from hallowed coaches such as Bob Knight, Jim Valvano, Mike Krzyzewski, and Dean Smith to beloved athletes including Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, Arnold Palmer, and John McEnroe, and here we have John Feinstein as his very best. He goes behind the scenes of his reporting from The Final Four, Wimbledon, The US Open, the Army/Navy game, the Olympics, and more, opening up sport’s most private, closed-door places and sharing exclusive stories. These are the coaches and athletes who know their games the best, and the legends and legendary moments that gave inherent shape to our favorite pastimes.

Historical Fiction #1

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Between Shades of Gray – Ruta Sepetys (Lexile 490)

“Starred Review”

“Sepetys’ first novel offers a harrowing and horrifying account of the forcible relocation of countless Lithuanians in the wake of the Russian invasion of their country in 1939. In the case of 16-year old Lina, her mother, and her younger brother, this means deportation to a forced labor camp in Siberia, where conditions are all too painfully similar to those of Nazi concentration camps. Lina’s great hope is that somehow her father, who has already been arrested by the Soviet secret police, might find and rescue them. A gifted artist, she begins secretly creating pictures that can—she hopes—be surreptitiously sent to him in his own prison camp. Whether or not this will be possible, it is her art that will be her salvation, helping her to retain her identity, her dignity, and her increasingly tenuous hold on hope for the future. Many others are not so fortunate.” (Booklist)

A harrowing page-turner.” – Publishers Weekly

Historical Fiction #2

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The Heretic’s Daughter – Kathleen Kent (Lexile Unknown)

“Kent’s moving story comes straight from her heart as well as the historical record… Kent tells a heart-wrenching story of family love and sacrifice.” (USA Today)

“An authentically moving story that is as much about a mother and a daughter as the terror of the times.” (NY Daily News)

“The Heretic’s Daughter is haunting; unlike in seventeenth-century Salem, there is real magic at work here.” (Texas Monthly)

Historical Fiction #3

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Sarah’s Key – Tatiana de Rosnay (Lexile 610)

“This is a remarkable historical novel, a book which brings to light a disturbing and deliberately hidden aspect of French behavior towards Jews during World War II. Like Sophie’s Choice, it’s a book that impresses itself upon one’s heart and soul forever.” (Naomi Ragen)

“Sarah’s Key unlocks the star crossed, heart thumping story of an American journalist in Paris and the 60-year-old secret that could destroy her marriage. This book will stay on your mind long after it is back on the shelf.” (Risa Miller)

“Polly Stone’s flawless transitions alternate between English and French and the 1942 and present time setting of two stories.” (The Chapel Hill Herald)

Historical Fiction #4

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The Watch that Ends the Night – Allan Wolf (Lexile Unknown)

“A masterpiece. Wolf leaves no emotion unplumbed, no area of research uninvestigated, and his voices are so authentic they hurt. Everyone should read it.” (Booklist)

“Twenty-four voices of passengers, rats and even the iceberg, evoke the human tragedy of the ill-fated voyage. Wolf brings the history and, more importantly, the human scale of the event to life by giving voice to the players themselves…A lyrical, monumental work of fact and imagination that reads like an oral history revved up by the drama of the event.” (Kirkus Reviews)

“Wolf’s novel in verse gives voice, through first-person accounts, to a cross section of passengers and crew on the Titanic: how they boarded, why they’re there, and how they face the disaster…The themes of natural disaster, technology, social class, survival, and death all play out here.” (The Horn Book)

Cultural Fiction #1

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Inside Out & Back Again – Thanhha Lai (Lexile 800)

Written in accessible, snort tree-verse poems, Ha’s immediate narrative describes her mistakes—both humorous and heartbreaking—with grammar, customs, and dress (she wears a flannel nightgown to school); and readers will be moved by Ha’s sorrow as they recognize the anguish of being the outcast who spends lunchtime hiding in the bathroom. Eventually, Ha does get back at the sneering kids who bully her at school, and she finds help adjusting to her new life from a kind teacher who lost a son in Vietnam. The elemental details of Ha’s struggle dramatize a foreigner’s experience of alienation. And even as she begins to shape a new life, there is no easy comfort: her father is still gone. (Booklist)

Cultural Fiction #2

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A Long Walk to Water – Linda Sue Park (Lexile 720)

“This powerful dual narrative packs suspense and introspection into Park’s spare description of her characters; while there are lots of details offered to the reader, they come not in long, prosaic lines but in simple, detached observations. Both Salva’s and Nya’s stories are told with brutal, simple honesty, and they deliver remarkable perspective on the Sudanese conflict. The novel’s brevity and factual basis makes the reality of life in Sudan very accessible, and readers will find both the story and they style extremely moving.” (The Bulletin)

“A fast, page-turning read…A great book for high school students and an important novel for young adults who enjoy learning about other world cultures.” –VOYA

Cultural Fiction #3

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Money Boy – Paul Yee (Lexile Unknown)

*Stonewall Honor Book Award – 2012

Ray Liu knows he should be happy. He lives in a big suburban house with all the latest electronic gadgets, and even finds plenty of time to indulge in his love of gaming. He needs the escape. It’s tough getting grades that will please his army veteran father, when speaking English is still a struggle. And he can’t quite connect with his gang at high school – immigrants like himself but who seem to have adjusted to North American life more easily. Then comes his father accessing Ray’s internet account, and he discovers Ray has been cruising gay websites. Before Ray knows what has hit him, his belongings have been thrown on the front lawn, and he has been kicked out. Angry, defiant, Ray heads to downtown Toronto. In short order he is robbed, beaten up and seduced, and he learns the hard realities of life on the street. Could he really sell himself for sex? Lots of people use their bodies to make money – athletes, actors, models, pop singers. If no one gets hurt, why should anyone care?

Cultural Fiction #4

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My Name is Not Easy – Debby Dahl Edwardson (Lexile 750)

*National Book Award Finalist

*Top 100 NY Times Bestsellers Best Books

Prior to the Molly Hootch Act of 1976, which required Alaska to build and staff high schools in even the smallest of the rural villages, children who wished to continue their education beyond what was offered in their communities traveled to BIA or church-supported boarding schools in the lower 48 or more populated parts of Alaska. Luke’s Inupiaq experience ofleaving his home near the Arctic Circle in 1960 to journey with his two younger brothers to the Catholic sponsored Sacred Heart School is based in large part of Edwardson’s husband’s memories of boarding school. The author unflinchingly explores both the positive and negative aspects of being away from home at such a young age. Nothing is familiar to Luke and his fellow students; the terrain, the food, the languages are strange, and their struggle with feelings of homesickness and alienation is heart-wrenching. Edwardson is to be applauded for her depth of research and her ability to portray all sides of the equation in a fair and balanced manner while still creating a very enjoyable read.

Cultural Fiction #5

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Now Is The Time For Running – Michael Williams (Lexile 650)

*YALSA 2012 Best Fiction for Young Adults

*Kirkus Reviews – Best Teen Books of 2011

“There is plenty of material to captivate readers: fast-paced soccer matches every bit as tough as the players; the determination of Deo and his fellow refugees to survive unthinkably harsh conditions; and raw depictions of violence…But it’s the tender relationship between Deo and Innocent, along with some heartbreaking twists of fate, that will endure in readers’ minds.” (Publishers’ Weekly)

“A harrowing tale of modern Zimbabwe…gripping, suspenseful and deeply compassionate. Williams, a renowned dramatist, gives readers compelling characters and, in simple language, delivers a complicated story rooted – sadly and upliftingly - in very real events.” (Kirkus Reviews)

Cultural Fiction #6

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Under the Mesquite – Guadalupe Garcia McCall (Lexile 990)

*Belpre Author Award Winner – 2012

A resilient Mexican-American girl copes with familial obligation and loss in this free-verse novel. Drawing from her own teen years for inspiration, McCall highlights life in the borderlands. Lupita’s first person tale captures pivotal moments of her high-school years in the border town of Eagle Pass, Texas, with glimpses back at her first six years in Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico. During her freshman year, Lupita discovers that her mother has cancer. While her mother fights the disease and her father struggles to support the family financially, Lupita sometimes becomes the de facto parental unit for her seven younger siblings. As she worries about food and money, Lupita experiences the typical troubles and triumphs of a teenage girl; her drama teacher, Mr. Cortex, helps her find an outlet for her talent and her pain. With poignant imagery and well-placed Spanish, the author effectively captures the complex lives of teenagers in many Latino and/or immigrant families. (Kirkus Reviews)

Cultural Fiction #7

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Everybody Sees the Ants – A.S. King (Lexile 710)

*FEATURED AUTHOR AT THIS YEAR’S COLLINGSWOOD BOOK FESTIVAL*

*YALSA 2012 Top Ten Best Fiction for Young Adult*

*2012 Captiol Choices Noteworthy Book for Teens

Lucky Linderman didn't ask for his life. He didn't ask his grandfather not to come home from the Vietnam War. He didn't ask for a father who never got over it. He didn't ask for a mother who keeps pretending their dysfunctional family is fine. And he didn't ask to be the target of Nader McMillan's relentless bullying, which has finally gone too far.

But Lucky has a secret--one that helps him wade through the daily mundane torture of his life. In his dreams, Lucky escapes to the war-ridden jungles of Laos--the prison his grandfather couldn't escape--where Lucky can be a real man, an adventurer, and a hero. It's dangerous and wild, and it's a place where his life just might be worth living. But how long can Lucky keep hiding in his dreams before reality forces its way inside?

Michael L. Printz Honor recipient A.S. King's smart, funny and boldly original writing shines in this powerful novel about learning to cope with the shrapnel life throws at you and taking a stand against it.

Suspense/Mystery #1

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Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick – Joe Shreiber (Lexile 800)

“What follows are captures, tortures, machine guns, a helicopter rescue, and a kiss that is, like this addictive first novel for teens, a ‘long, intoxicating dive through a sea of Red Bull.” (Booklist)

“Fast paced, smart, exciting…It’s like your favorite summer action thriller and John Hughes movie rolled into one.” (Josh Schwartz, executive producer of Gossip Girl and The O.C.)

Suspense/Mystery #2

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Blindness – Jose Saramago (Lexile Unknown)

*Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature

Jose Saramago delivers a profound parable of loss and disorientation in Blindness. When a city is overcome by an epidemic of “white blindness,” only one woman is spared. She becomes a guide for a group of seven strangers and serves as the eyes and ears for the reader in this powerful portrayal of man’s worst appetites and weaknesses – and man’s ultimately exhilarating spirt.

“Saramago is the most tender of writers…with a clear-eyed and compassionate acknowledgement of things as they are and a quality that can only be termed wisdom. We should be grateful when it is handed to us in such generous measures.” – NYT Book Review

Suspense/Mystery #3

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Gentlemen – Michael Northrop (Lexile 860) (FOOTBALL RECOMMENDATION)

“One dark ride…the brutal narration, friendships put through the wringer and the sense of dread that permeates the novel will keep readers hooked.” (Publishers Weekly)

“Northrop’s first novel is creepy, yet it has what can pass for a happy – or at least satisfying – ending.” (NYT Book Review)

“A riveting thriller…this is a rare sort of book that may work just as well for reluctant readers as it will for avid ones.” (Booklist)

Problem Novel #1

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The Road – Cormac McCarthy (Lexile 670)

*Winner of the Pulitzer Prize

Cormac McCarthy sets his new novel, The Road, in a post-apocalyptic blight of gray skies that drizzle ash, a world in which all matter of wildlife is extinct, starvation is not only prevalent but nearly all-encompassing, and marauding bands of cannibals roam the environment with pieces of human flesh stuck between their teeth. If this sounds oppressive and dispiriting, it is. McCarthy may have just set to paper the definitive vision of the world after nuclear war, and in this recent age of relentless saber-rattling by the global powers, it's not much of a leap to feel his vision could be not far off the mark nor, sadly, right around the corner. Stealing across this horrific (and that's the only word for it) landscape are an unnamed man and his emaciated son, a boy probably around the age of ten. It is the love the father feels for his son, a love as deep and acute as his grief that could surprise readers of McCarthy's previous work. McCarthy's Gnostic impressions of mankind have left very little place for love. In fact that greatest love affair in any of his novels, I would argue, occurs between the Billy Parham and the wolf in The Crossing. But here the love of a desperate father for his sickly son transcends all else. McCarthy has always written about the battle between light and darkness; the darkness usually comprises 99.9% of the world, while any illumination is the weak shaft thrown by a penlight running low on batteries. In The Road, those batteries are almost out--the entire world is, quite literally, dying--so the final affirmation of hope in the novel's closing pages is all the more shocking and maybe all the more enduring as the boy takes all of his father's (and McCarthy's) rage at the hopeless folly of man and lays it down, lifting up, in its place, the oddest of all things: faith.

Problem Novel #2

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Last Night I Sang to the Monster – Benjamin Alire Saenz (Lexile 490)

For Grades 9 and Up – At 18, Zach finds himself in a therapeutic residential program as both an alcoholic and a post-traumatic-stress patient. In evocative and compelling language, Saenz allows an at-first barely articulate, almost amnesiac Zach to show his progress toward remembering and integrating his past into a present with which he can cope. He is guided along the way by a sympathetic and wise therapist, a middle-aged roommate whose own recovery is on an arc ahead of the youth’s and several credible and interesting minor characters. The techniques and realities of such a facility are realistic and fully drawn: addicts who gather for cigarettes, nightmares, group sessions, breathing therapy. Saenz weaves together Zach’s past, present, and changing disposition toward his future with stylistic grace and emotional insight. This is a powerful and edifying look into both a tortured psyche and the methods by which it can be healed. (Francisco Goldsmith – Halifax Public Libraries)

Problem Novel #3

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Lockdown – Walter Dean Myers (Lexile 730) (FOOTBALL RECOMMENDATION)

Myers takes readers insides the walls of a juvenile corrections facility in this gritty novel. Fourteen-year-old Reese is in the second year of his sentence for stealing prescription pads and selling them to a neighborhood dealer. He fears that his life is headed in a direction that will inevitably lead him “upstate,” to the kid of prison you don’t leave. Myers’ storytelling skills ensure that the messages he offers are never heavy-handed. The question of how to escape the cycle of violence and crime plaguing inner-city youth is treated with a resolution that suggests hope, but doesn’t guarantee it. A thoughtful book that could resonate with teens on a dangerous path. (Ian Chipmman)

“Masterful.” (Kirkus Reviews)

Problem Novel #4

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Marcelo in the Real World – Francisco X. Stork (Lexile 700)

*Publisher’s Weekly Best Books of 2009

*YALSA Top 10 Best Books for Young Adults

*2010 IRA Notable Books for a Global Society

Marcelo Sandoval, a 17-year-old with an Asperger’s-like condition, has arranged a job caring for ponies at his special school’s therapeutic-riding stables. But he is forced to exit his comfort zone when his high-powered father steers Marcelo to work in his law firm’s mailroom (in return, Marcelo can decide whether to stay in special education, as he prefers, or be mainstreamed for his senior year). Stork introduces ethical dilemmas, the possibility of love, and other real world conflicts, all the while preserving the integrity of his characterizations and intensifying the novel’s psychological and emotional stakes. Not to be missed. (Publisher’s Weekly)

Problem Novel #5

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Salvage the Bones – Jesmyn Ward (Lexile Unknown)

*National Book Award Winner – 2011

Ward uses fearless, toughly lyrical language to convey this family’s close-knit tenderness, the sheer bloody-minded difficulty of rural African American life, and what it’s like when those hurricane winds sledge-hammer you and the water rises faster than you can stand up. It’s an eye-opening heartbreaker that ends in hope. Highly recommended; you owe it to yourself to read this book. (Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal)

Problem Novel #7

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Something Like Hope – Shawn Goodman (Lexile 670)

*Delacorte Press Prize – 2009

Smart, angry, and desperate, Shaonne, 17, is in juvenile detention again, and in her present-tense, first-person narrative, she describes the heartbreaking brutality that she suffered before she was locked up, as well as the harsh treatment, and sometimes the kindness she encounters in juvie. With a mother who is a crack-addicted prostitute, and a father she never knew who died in prison, she was sent into the foster-care system as a young child. One foster mother needed money for drugs, so she forced Shavonne, 11 at the time, to go with a man who raped her. While she was locked up, Shavonne gave birth, and she is glad that her daughter is now in a kind foster home. As the title suggests, the story leaves room for something like hope. (Booklist)

Problem Novel #8

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Split – Swati Avasthi (Lexile 610)

Sixteen-Year-Old Jace Witherspoon arrives at the doorstep of his estranged brother Christian with a re-landscaped face (courtesy of his father’s fist), $3.84, and a secret.

He tries to move on, going for new friends, a new school, and a new job, but all his changes can’t make him forget what he left behind—his mother, who is still trapped with his dad, and his ex-girlfriend, who is keeping his secret.

At least so far.

Worst of all, Jace realizes that if he really wants to move forward, he may first have to do what scares him most: He may have to go back. First-time novelist Swati Avasthi has created a riveting and remarkably nuanced portrait of what happens after. After you’ve said enough, after you’ve run, after you’ve made the split—how do you begin to live again? Readers won’t be able to put this intense page-turner down.

Problem Novel #9

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We Were Here – Matt de la Pena (Lexile 770)

The story of one boy and his journey to find himself.

When it happened, Miguel was sent to Juvi. The judge gave him a year in a group home—said he had to write in a journal so some counselor could try to figure out how he thinks. The judge had no idea that he actually did Miguel a favor. Ever since it happened, his mom can’t even look at him in the face. Any home besides his would be a better place to live.

But Miguel didn’t bet on meeting Rondell or Mong or on any of what happened after they broke out. He only thought about Mexico and getting to the border to where he could start over. Forget his mom. Forget his brother. Forget himself.

Life usually doesn’t work out how you think it will, though. And most of the time, running away is the quickest path right back to what you’re running from.

Problem Novel #10

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How to Save a Life – Sara Zarr (Lexile 710)

Jill MacSweeny just wishes everything could go back to normal. But ever since her dad died, she's been isolating herself from her boyfriend, her best friends--everyone who wants to support her. And when her mom decides to adopt a baby, it feels like she's somehow trying to replace a lost family member with a new one.

Mandy Kalinowski understands what it's like to grow up unwanted--to be raised by a mother who never intended to have a child. So when Mandy becomes pregnant, one thing she's sure of is that she wants a better life for her baby. It's harder to be sure of herself. Will she ever find someone to care for her, too?

As their worlds change around them, Jill and Mandy must learn to both let go and hold on, and that nothing is as easy--or as difficult--as it seems.

Critically acclaimed author and National Book Award finalist Sara Zarr delivers a heart-wrenching story, told from dual perspectives, about the many roads that can lead us home.

Problem Novel #11

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The Adoration of Jenna Fox – Mary E. Pearson (Lexile 570)

*Bank Street – Best Children’s Book of 2009

Who is Jenna Fox? Seventeen-year-old Jenna has been told that is her name. She has just awoken from a coma, they tell her, and she is still recovering from a terrible accident in which she was involved a year ago. But what happened before that? Jenna doesn't remember her life. Or does she? And are the memories really hers?

This fascinating novel represents a stunning new direction for acclaimed author Mary Pearson. Set in a near future America, it takes readers on an unforgettable journey through questions of bio-medical ethics and the nature of humanity. Mary Pearson's vividly drawn characters and masterful writing soar to a new level of sophistication.

Classics #1

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Fahrenheit 451 – Ray Bradbury (Lexile 890)

*National Book Award Winner

*Common Core Exemplar Text

A totalitarian regime has ordered all books to be destroyed, but one of the book burners suddenly realizes their merit, in a chilling novel of a frightening near-future world.

“This book is amazing. Everyone should read it because of its message. Some classics become outdated but this book is so relevant today. “ (Amazon Review)

“At first it seemed like a stretch, but the more I read, the more I realized that this book is telling the truth about society. People dictate the way we think using the media. In the past, everything reflected truth and reality. Now, everything goes deeper and deeper into nonsense to the point that the truth is not a value at all. This book helped me to realize that.” (Amazon Review)

Classics #2

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1984 – George Orwell (Lexile 1090)

*Common Core Exemplar Text

Written in 1948, 1984 was George Orwell’s chilling prophecy about the future. And while 1984 has come and gone, Orwell’s narrative is timelier than ever. 1984 presents a startling and haunting vision of the world, so powerful that it is completely convincing from start to finish. No one can deny the power of this novel, its hold on the imaginations of multiple generations of readers, or the resiliency of its admonitions—a legacy that seems only to grow with the passage of time.

Classics #3

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*Common Core Exemplar Text

A Farewell to Arms – Ernest Hemingway (Lexile 730)

In 1918 Ernest Hemingway went to war, to the 'war to end all wars'. He volunteered for ambulance service in Italy, was wounded and twice decorated. Out of his experience came A Farewell to Arms. Hemingway's description of war is unforgettable. He recreates the fear, the comradeship, the courage of his young American volunteer, and the men and women he meets in Italy, with total conviction. But A Farewell to Arms is not only a novel of war. In it Hemingway has also created a love story of immense drama and uncompromising passion.

Classics #4

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A Prayer for Owen Meany – John Irving (Lexile 1050)

I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice—not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother's death, but because he is the reason I believe in God; I am a Christian because of Owen Meany.

In the summer of 1953, two eleven-year-old boys—best friends—are playing in a Little League baseball game in Gravesend, New Hampshire. One of the boys hits a foul ball that kills the other boy's mother. The boy who hits the ball doesn't believe in accidents; Owen Meany believes he is God's instrument. What happens to Owen after that 1953 foul ball is extraordinary.

“Where to begin? The opening sentence of this book is the best I've ever read. This is the only book I read over and over again. Irving's incredible writing style is an absolute pleasure to read. I often find myself reading his gorgeous sentences out loud because they are just too beautiful to read silently. You will have Owen in your thoughts for the rest of your life. He will become part of you!” (Amazon Reviewer)

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