Vermont Commons School Summer Reading List 2011

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2011Common Texts:

7th and 8th Grades: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th Grades: A Stranger in the Kingdom by Howard Frank Mosher

Dear Parents, Students, and Friends,

The Language Arts Department is excited to share this year’s Common Text selections, the Summer Reading Lists, and assignments. Our Common Texts this year are To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, for 7th and 8th grades and A Stranger in the Kingdom by Howard Frank Mosher, for 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th grades. Vermont Commons wants to join with the Vermont Council on the Humanities to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Harper Lee’s class novel of innocence, prejudice, and the moral awakening of a young girl. Mosher’s novel is a perfect partner book to Lee’s as it depicts similar themes and targets an older audience. Students will read about diversity in each text and will be involved in activities surrounding this theme throughout the year.

Once again, we’ve divided the reading list into three categories:

(1) Classics and Prize Winners (2) Books that Speak to the VCS Mission Statement (3) Other Books for Summer.

We are asking students to choose a book from two of the categories, as well as the Common Text, for a total of three books to be read this summer.

Finally, some students have asked for quick summaries of the books on our list, so we have provided some short descriptions at the end of the lists. For more summaries, we encourage students to browse the bookstore or an online bookseller such as Barnes & Noble.com. There are many choices on the list, and we’re confident that each student will find at least two books that spark their interests. We’ve put asterisks next to the texts that may be more appropriate for 7th and 8th graders, and the abbreviation (NF) for nonfiction.

When students return in the fall, they will complete one assignment for each of their summer reading books. The assignments will include the following:

1. A poster focusing on literary themes. (Due the first week.) 2. A creative author imitation and reflection. (Due the second week.) 3. A quiz on the Common Text.

Details about these assignments are below. They will also be posted on our website.

Enjoy your summer reading!

Cara M. Simone Jennifer B. Cohen Christie K. Beveridge

Poster

Requirements and Grading:

1. An attractive display of the title and author: You may do a creative drawing on the poster that represents something significant about the book. (25 points) 2. A paragraph that describes the protagonist, the main conflict, and a little about the plot, but that does not reveal the ending. (25 points) 3. A paragraph that relates an important image, scene, or character that you connect with and that explains why you find this part significant. (25 points) 4. A paragraph that recommends or does not recommend this book to others – be specific. Who would like this book and why this book is or is not worth our time? (25 points)

The paragraphs should be 8-10 sentences long and should be printed out and placed on the poster. Each paragraph should have a topic sentence and adequate evidence to support this topic sentence. The paragraphs should conclude with commentary, but this does not mean you need to use the pronoun “I”. You may say, “This book is not worth reading.” You need not say, “I think this book is not worth reading.”

Author Imitation and Reflection

Requirements and Grading:

In this assignment, students should try to approximate the voice and style of the author of one book from the Summer Reading List. This assignment lends itself to fiction, but some nonfiction could work. Write an alternate scene or a scene that occurs after the ending. Or, you could try rewriting a scene from another character’s perspective. After writing the imitation, a reflection should follow, which identifies which literary devices were used.

Author Imitation (75 points) The length of the imitation should be 1-2 pages. Consider some of the literary devices in the list below before you begin.

• Point of view(1st person or 3rd person). From what perspective is this story being told? • Tense (past or present). Is the action unfolding in the moment, or is the story being told after the fact, perhaps many years later? • The length of your author’s sentences, as well as his or her word choice. Does this author write long sentences with lots of adjectives? Short, clipped sentences? Both? • Does your author use dialogue? Internal monologue? Letters? • Description. Does your author use ornate descriptions? Was there concrete detail that allows the reader to conjure an image of a scene? Reflection (25 points) In a follow-up, please discuss how the author’s choices affected the meaning of the text. In addition, identify which literary devices you chose to imitate and why. (1-2 pages)

Classics and Prize Winners

Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice (Cara’s Choice) Bronte, Emily. Wuthering Heights Chekhov, Anton. The Seagull. Defoe, Daniel. Robinson Crusoe.* Desai, Kirin The Inheritance of Loss. Dickens, Charles. A Tale of Two Cities. Doctorow, E.L. Ragtime. Doig, Ivan. The Whistling Season. Dostoevsky, Fyodor. Idiot, The Brothers Karamosov, Crime and Punishment. Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan The Hound of the Baskervilles. Dumas, Alexander. The Count of Monte Cristo. Eliot, George. Middlemarch. Ellison, Ralph. Invisible Man. Farmer, Nancy. House of the Scorpion.* Faulkner,William. The Unvanquished. Fitzgerald, F. Scott. This Side of Paradise. Fowles, John. The French Lieutenant’s Woman. Hardy, Thomas. Tess of the D’Urbervilles. Heller, Joseph. Catch-22. Hemmingway, Ernest. For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Sun Also Rises, The Old Man and the Sea*. Hesse, Herman. Siddhartha. Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God. Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. Ishiguro, Kazuo. Remains of the Day. Keller, Helen. The Story of My Life* L’Engle, Madeline. A Wrinkle in Time* Marquez, Gabriel Garcia Love in the Time of Cholera. Melville, Herman. Moby Dick. Mitchell, Margaret. Gone With the Wind. Morrison, Toni. Beloved. O’Neil, Eugene. Long Days Journey Into Night. Penn Warren, Robert. All the King’s Men. Roth, Phillip. Goodbye Columbus. Sewell, Anna. Black Beauty. * Shakespeare, William. Hamlet and King Lear Stevenson, Robert Louis. Treasure Island.* Stoker, Bram. Dracula. Stoppard, Tom. Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead. Tolstoy, Leo. Anna Karenina, War and Peace. Twain, Mark. Tom Sawyer.* Twain, Mark. Huckleberry Finn. Verne, Jules. Journey to the Center of the Earth. * Vonnegut, Kurt. Slaughterhouse Five. Walker, Alice. The Color Purple. Wells,H. G. War of the Worlds. Wharton, Edith. Ethan Frome, House of Mirth. White, T.H. The Once and Future King. Woolf, Virginia. To the Lighthouse. Wright, Richard. Native Son.

Books that Speak to the VCS Mission

Abbey, Edward. Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness. (NF) Ali, Saleem. Treasures of the Earth: Need Greed and a Sustainable Future. Barr, Nevada. Track of the Cat. Brown, Tom. The Tracker.* Buck, Pearl S. The Good Earth. Callenbach, Ernest. Ecotopia. Carson, Rachel. Silent Spring. Cartright, Paul Russell. Lewis and Clark: Pioneering Naturalists. (NF) Craighead George, Jean. Missing 'Gator of Gumbo Limbo: An Ecological Mystery. DeRosnay, Tatiana. Sarah’s Key.* Duncan, David James. The River Why. Gould, Steven J. The Panda’s Thumb. (Goff’s and Peter Gilmore’s Choice) Eggers, Dave. What is the What? Eiseley, Loren. The Night Country. Hall, Ron and Denver Moore. Same Kind of Different As Me. (Sarah’s Choice) Heiligman, Deborah. Charles and Emma : The Darwins' Leap of Faith.* Heinrich, Berndt. Winter World. Hestler, Peter. Country Driving. (recommended for students who take Chinese) Hestler, Peter. River Town. (recommended for students who take Chinese) Hiaasen, Carl. Flush.* Hiaasen, Carl. Hoot.* Holmes, Hannah. Suburban Safari. Kingsolver, Barbara. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. (NF) Kingsolver, Barbara.. The Poisonwood Bible. (Liz’s Choice) Kingsolver, Barbara. Animal Dreams. Lawrence, Gale. The Beginning. Lear, Linda. Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature.* (NF) Leopold, Aldo. Sand County Almanac. London, Jack. The Call of the Wild.* MacLean, Norman. A River Runs Through It. McKibben, Bill. End of Nature.. *(NF) McPhee, John. Encounters with the Archdruid. Pfeffer, Susan. The Dead and the Gone.* Pollan, Michael. The Botany of Desire. (NF) Pollan, Michael. Omnivore’s Dilemma. (Ruth’s Choice) Quammen, David. Song of the Dodo: Island Biogeography in an Age of Extinctions. Quammen, David. Wild Thoughts from Wild Places. Quinn, Daniel. Ishmael. (Mark’s Choice) Ransome, Arthur. Swallows and Amazons. Roberts, Paul. The End of Oil. (NF) Schlosser, Eric. Fast Food Nation. (NF) Sobel, Dava. Longitude. Stephenson, Neal. Zodiac. Storm, Heymeyohsts. Seven Arrows.* Tempest Williams, Terry. Red: Passion and Patience in the Desert. (NF) Theroux, Paul. The Mosquito Coast. Thoreau, Henry David. Walden.* Tolan, Sandy. Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East. (NF) Van Matre, Steve. The Earth Speaks. Weisman, Alan. Gaviotas.

Other Books for Summer

Abbey, Edward. The Monkey Wrench Gang. Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. Adams, Douglas. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Adams, Richard. Watership Down. Allende, Isabel. The House of the Spirits. Alvarez, Julia. Return to Sender. Amado, Jorge. Gabriela, Cloves, and Cinnamon. Angelou, Maya. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Asimov, Isaac. Foundation.* Atwood, Margaret. A Handmaid's Tale. Atwood, Margaret. Oryx and Crake. Baldwin, James. Go Tell it on the Mountain. Barry, Lynda. The Greatest of Marlys. Beah, Ishmael. A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier. Boyle, T.C. The Tortilla Curtain. Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. Butler, Octavia. Bloodchild and Other Stories.* Card, Orsen Scott. Ender’s Game. Card, Orsen Scott. Ender’s Shadow.* Carr, Nicholas. The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains. (NF) Cashore, Kristin. Graceling.* Chabon, Michael. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay Christie, Agatha. Murder on the Orient Express. * (Jess’s Choice) Creech, Sharon. Walk Two Moons.* Gladwell, Malcolm. Outliers: The Study of Success. (NF) Graves, Robert. Goodbye to All That. (NF) Cisneros, Sandra. House on Mango Street. * (Jenn’s Choice) Cooper, James Fenimore. The Last of the Mohicans. Cunningham, Michael. The Hours. Defoe, Daniel. Robinson Crusoe. * Delany, Sarah L. et al. Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years. Diamant, Anita. The Red Tent. Diaz, Junot. The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Doyle, Arthur Conan. The Hound of the Baskervilles. Duncan, David James. The River Why. Eggers, David. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. Ellison, Ralph. Invisible Man. Farmer, Nancy. The House of the Scorpion. * Farmer, Nancy. The House of the Scorpion. * Forster, E.M. A Passage to India. Fusco, Kimberly. Tending to Grace.* Gaiman, Neil. American Gods. Gaines, Ernest. A Lesson Before Dying. Gold, Glen. Carter Beats the Devil. Graves, Robert. Goodbye to All That.(NF) Gruen, Sara. Water for Elephants. Haddon, Mark. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.* Harris, Lynn E. And This Too Shall Pass. Hazzard, Shirley. The Transit of Venus. Hesse, Herman. Siddhartha.* Holmes, Hannah. Suburban Safari. Jewett, Sarah Orne. The Country of the Pointed Firs. Kesey, Ken. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Kidd, Ronald. Monkey Town.* Kingsolver, Barbara. The Bean Trees. Kingston, Maxine Hong. Woman Warrior. Konigsburg, E.L. Silent to the Bone.* Krakauer, John. Into Thin Air. L’Engle, Madeleine. A Wrinkle in Time.* Lamott, Anne. Bird by Bird. Lahiri, Jhumpa. Interpreter of Maladies. Larsson, Stieg. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Millennium Trilogy Series #1). LeGuin, Ursula K. The Wizard of Earthsea. * Levitt, Steven. Freakonomics. (NF) Martel, Yann. Life of Pi* Matthiessen, Peter. At Play in the Fields of the Lord. Michaelis, Antonia. Tiger Moon.* Mosley, Walter. Devil in a Blue Dress. O’Neill, Eugene. Long Day’s Journey into Night. Oe, Kenzaburo. Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness. Orwell, George. 1984. Orwell, George. Down and Out in Paris and London. Pausch, Randy. The Last Lecture (NF) Pratchett, Terry. Nation.* Peck, Robert Newton. The Day No Pigs Would Die. Quinn, Daniel. Ishmael. Remarque, Erich Maria. All Quiet on the Western Front. Roth, Phillip. Goodbye Columbus. Roy, Arundhati. God of Small Things. Rushdie, Salman. East-West. Rylant, Cynthia. Beautiful Stories of Life: Six Greek Myths Retold. * Safran Foer, Jonathan. Everything is Illuminated. Satrapi, Marjane. The Complete Persepolis. Sobel, Dava. Galileo’s Daughter. Soto, Gary. A Summer Life. * Soto, Gary. Accidental Love. * Spinelli, Jerry. Stargirl.* Staples, Suzanne. Under the Persimmon Tree.* Stegner, Wallace. All the Little Things. Stockett, Kathryn. The Help. (Jasmine’s Choice) Tan, Amy. The Kitchen God’s Wife. Thiongo, Ngugi wa. A Grain of Wheat. Thurber, James. My Life and Hard Times.*

Quick Summaries of Some of the Classics (*books are listed first)

*Ender’s Shadow by Orson Scott Card The story of brilliant children who are being trained in the orbiting Battle School to lead humanity’s fleets in the final war against alien invaders known as the Buggers.

*Graceling by Kristin Cashore In a world where some people are born with extreme and often-feared skills called Graces, Katsa struggles for redemption from her own horrifying Grace of killing and teams up with another young fighter to save their land from a corrupt king.

*Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe During one of his several adventurous voyages in the 1600s, an Englishman becomes the sole survivor of a shipwreck and lives for nearly thirty years on a deserted island.

*Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Doyle presents the classic mystery novel in which legendary detective Sherlock Holmes and his assistant Dr. Watson are called to investigate the case of a family in Devonshire living under the curse of a spectral hound.

*A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’Engle This is the story of a sister and brother who rescue their father from captivity on the planet of Camazotz—and in the process save the universe from the clutches of an evil power called IT. They are aided in their struggles by Calvin O'Keefe, a friend who travels with them across the universe.

*Tending to Grace by Kimberly Fusco When Cornelia’s mother runs off with a boyfriend, leaving her with an eccentric aunt, Cornelia must finally confront the truth about herself and her mother.

*Monkey Town by Ronald Kidd When his father hatches a plan to bring publicity to their small Tennessee town by arresting a local high school teacher for teaching about evolutionk the resulting 1925 Scopes trial prompts fifteen-year-old Frances to rethink many of her beliefs about religion and truth, as well as her relationship with her father.

*Silent to the Bone by E.L. Konigsburg When he is wrongly accused of injuring his baby half-sister, thirteen-year-old Branwell loses his power of speech and his only friend Connor is able to reach him and uncover the truth about what really happened.

*Tiger Moon by Antonia Michaelis Sold to be the eighth wife of a rich and cruel merchant, Safia, also called Raka, tries to escape her fate by telling stories of Farhad the thief, his companion Nitish the white tiger, and their travels across India to retrieve a famous jewel that will save a kidnapped princess from becoming the bride of a demon king.

*The Dead and the Gone by Susan Pfeffer After a meteor hits the moon and sets off a series of horrific climate changes, seventeen- year-old Alex Morales must take care of his sisters alone in the chaos of New York City.

*Nation by Terry Pratchett After a tsunami destroys everything, Mau, an island boy, Daphne, an aristocratic English girl, and a small group of refugees are responsible for rebuilding their village and their lives.

*Black Beauty by Anna Sewell This is an 1877 novel by English author Anna Sewell. It was composed in the last years of her life, during which she was confined to her house as an invalid. The novel became an immediate bestseller, with Sewell living just long enough (five months) to see her first and only novel become a success. Although not originally intended as a children's novel, but for people who work with horses, it soon became a classic. While outwardly teaching animal welfare, it also contains allegorical lessons about how to treat people with kindness, sympathy and respect.

*Under the Persimmon Tree by Suzanne Staples A young Afghan girl, Najmah, befriends an American woman, Nusrat, in Pakistan. After Najmah flees her native Afghanistan during the 2001 war, Najmah and Nusrat begin a long journey to locate their missing loved ones.

*The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain This is a popular 1876 novel about a young boy growing up in the antebellum South on the Mississippi River in the fictional town of St. Petersburg, Missouri.

*The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain This is commonly regarded as one of the Great American Novel, and is one of the first major American novels written in the vernacular, characterized by local color regionalism. It is told in the first person by “Huck’s” best friend of Tom Sawyer and narrator of two other Twain novels. The book is noted for its colorful description of people and places along the Mississippi River. By satirizing a Southern antebellum society that was already anachronistic at the time, the book is an often scathing look at entrenched attitudes, particularly racism. The drifting journey of Huck and his friend Jim, a runaway slave, down the Mississippi River on their raft may be one of the most enduring images of escape and freedom in all of American literature.

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte When Mr. Lockwood has an encounter with the spirit of Catherine Linton at the home of the unsociable Heathcliff, he hears the story of the tempestuous love affair between Catherine and Heathcliff.

Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens 1859 historical novel set in Paris and London during the French Revolution, in which a French nobleman, Charles Darnay, renounces his position and leaves his country, then returns during the Terror to save the life of a servant, putting himself in grave danger.

Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky Four sons of Fyodor Karamazov, a man of immoral character, must contend with a criminal investigation and with their own inner questions about justice and the existence of God after they are involved in their father’s murder.

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky This famous novel focuses on the mental anguish and moral dilemmas of Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov, an impoverished St. Petersburg ex-student who formulates and executes a plan to kill a hated, unscrupulous pawnbroker for her money, thereby solving his financial problems and at the same time, he argues, ridding the world of an evil, worthless parasite. Raskolnikov also strives to be an extraordinary being, similar to Napoleon, believing that murder is permissible in pursuit of a higher purpose.

Middlemarch by George Eliot Dorothea Brooke, a young woman of impeccable character, marries the embittered Mr. Casaubon, who almost immediately dies. Eliot takes the reader through a labyrinth of nineteenth-century morals and conventions as Dorothea searches for fulfillment and happiness.

This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald The coming of age story of Amory Blaine, a young college man in his twenties, including his years in prep school and his times at Princeton.

Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves This is the autobiography of Robert Graves. First published in 1929, the work is a landmark anti-war memoir of life in the trenches during World War I. (NF)

The Panda's Thumb by Stephen J. Gould This is the second volume of collected essays by the Harvard paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould. The essays were culled from his monthly column "This View of Life" in Natural History magazine, to which Gould contributed for 27 years. The book deals, in typically discursive fashion, with themes familiar to Gould's writing: evolution and its teaching, science biography, probabilities and common sense.

Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy The son in the family for which Tess Durbeyfield works assaults her, and she has a child who dies in infancy, but her husband is unforgiving. Set in 19th century England.

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway The novel explores the life and values of Jake Barnes and several acquaintances on their pilgrimage to Pamplona for the annual fiesta and bull fights, known more commonly as the Running of the Bulls. After serving in WWI Jake is unable to continue his relationship with Brett Ashley because of either psychological or physical damage that leaves him impotent. However, he is still attracted to and in love with her. The story follows Jake and his various companions across France and Spain.

Moby Dick by Herman Melville Mad Captain Ahab's quest for the White Whale is a timeless epic--a stirring tragedy of vengeance and obsession, a searing parable about humanity lost in a universe of moral ambiguity. It is the greatest sea story ever told. Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell Published in 1933, this is the first full-length work by the English author George Orwell. It is a story in two parts on the theme of poverty in the two cities. The first part is a picaresque account of living on the breadline in Paris and the experience of casual labour in restaurant kitchens. The second part is a travelogue of life on the road in and around London from the tramp's perspective, with descriptions of the types of hostel accommodation available and some of the characters to be found living on the margins. Orwell gives it an autobiographical feel by interposing chapters presenting his personal opinions.

Hamlet by William Shakespeare Hamlet is a tragedy believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601. The play, set in Denmark, recounts how Prince Hamlet exacts revenge on his uncle Claudius who has murdered Hamlet's father, the King, and then taken the throne and married Hamlet's mother. The play vividly charts the course of real and feigned madness—from overwhelming grief to seething rage—and explores themes of treachery, revenge, incest, and moral corruption.

King Lear by William Shakespeare Lear, who is old, wants to retire from power. He decides to divide his realm among his three daughters, and offers the largest share to the one who loves him best.

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck Published in 1939, Steinbeck was awarded the Pulitzer Prize and the Nobel Prize for Literature for this novel. Set during the Great Depression, it focuses on a poor family of sharecroppers, the Joads, driven from their home by drought, economic hardship, and changes in the agriculture industry. In a nearly hopeless situation, they set out for California's Central Valley along with thousands of other "Okies” in search of land, jobs, and dignity.

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy In nineteenth-century Russia, the wife of an important government official loses her family and social status when she chooses the love of Count Vronsky over a passionless marriage.

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy Epic novel about the lives of five aristocratic families in Moscow and St. Petersburg against the backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars of 1805-14.

House of Mirth by Edith Wharton Lily Bart, an orphaned child of a New York merchant, calmly prepares a campaign to marry for the power and luxury that money brings.

The Once and Future King by T.H. White Tells the story of the youth and reign of King Arthur, the establishment of the Round Table, and the search for the Holy Grail.

Native Son by Richard Wright The novel tells the story of 20-year old Bigger Thomas, an African American living in utter poverty. Bigger lived in Chicago’s South Side ghetto in the 1930s. Bigger was always getting into trouble as a youth, but upon receiving a job at the home of the Daltons, a rich, white family, he experienced a realization of his identity. He accidentally kills a white woman, runs from the police, kills his girlfriend and is then caught and tried.

Additional Summaries (of books that may or may not be considered classics)

*Foundation by Isaac Asimov As the Galactic Empire declines, psychohistorian Hari Seldon and his band of psychobiologists form the Foundation, designed to be the nucleus of an eventual ideal universal ruling corporation.

*The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams Douglas Adams's hapless hero Arthur Dent travels the galaxy with his intrepid pal Ford Prefect, getting into horrible messes and generally wreaking hilarious havoc. Dent is grabbed from Earth moments before a cosmic construction team obliterates the planet to build a freeway.

*Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie On a three day journey through the snowbound Balkan hills, Hercule Poirot tracks down a murderer among a colorful and unusual assortment of passengers aboard the Orient Express in one of Christie's best known works.

*Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech Salamanca is taking a trip with her grandparents from Euclid, Ohio to Lewiston, Idaho, to visit her mother's final resting place. Along the way, Salamanca, or Sal, tells her grandparents the story of her best friend, Phoebe Winterbottom, whose mother, like Sal's, unexpectedly decides to leave home.

*Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank This book is based on the writings from a diary written by Anne Frank while she was in hiding for two years with her family during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. The family was apprehended in 1944 and Anne Frank ultimately died of typhus in the Bergen- Belsen concentration camp. After the war, the diary was retrieved by Anne's father.

*A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest Gaines This book tells the story of a young African-American man sentenced to death for a murder he did not commit, and a teacher who tries to impart to him his learning and pride before the execution.

*The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon Despite his overwhelming fear of interacting with people, Christopher, a mathematically- gifted, autistic fifteen-year-old boy, decides to investigate the murder of a neighbor's dog and uncovers secret information about his mother.

*The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway This novella was written in Cuba in 1951 and published in 1952. It was the last major work of fiction to be produced by Hemingway and published in his lifetime. One of his most famous works, it centers upon Santiago, an aging Cuban fisherman who struggles with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream.

*The Story of My Life by Helen Keller After providing brief descriptions of her home in Alabama and her family members, Keller explains how she became disabled—and her first memories of being disabled, recounting her early attempts to communicate. Keller reviews her parents’ efforts to find her medical treatment and educational assistance, as well as her early experiences with her first teacher, Anne Sullivan.

*The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver Taylor, a poor Kentuckian, makes her way west with an abandoned baby girl and stops in Tucson where she finds friends and discovers resources in seemingly empty places.

*Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri A collection of short stories imbued with Indian culture and sensibilities set in both India and America. 2000 Pulitzer Prize.

*The Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula LeGuin A boy grows to manhood while attempting to subdue the evil he unleashed on the world as an apprentice to the master wizard.

*The Call of the Wild by Jack London The classic adventure tale of an unusual dog, part St. Bernard, part Scotch Shepherd, that was kidnapped and shipped off to Alaska to work on the Klondike Gold Rush. Buck the dog quickly learns how to survive in the wild and also learns the call of the wolf.

*A Tree Grows In Brooklyn by Betty Smith This book relates the coming of age story of its main character, Francie Nolan, and her Austrian/Irish – American family struggling against poverty in Brooklyn. The novel is set in the first and second decades of the 20th century. The book was an immense success, a nationwide best-seller that was distributed to servicemen overseas. It was also adapted into a popular motion picture, the first feature film directed by Elia Kazan.

*The Pearl by John Steinbeck The legend tells of an Indian pearl diver who cannot afford a doctor for his son's scorpion sting. In this anxious state, he finds The Pearl of the World and is able to get medical help for his boy. Calculating the profit from the gem, the diver dreams of a better life—a grand wedding, clothes, guns, and an education for the boy. But his dream of leaving his socio-economic station leads to ruin.

*My Life and Hard Times by James Thurber Widely hailed as one of the finest humorist of the twentieth century, James Thurber looks back at his own life growing up in Columbus, Ohio, with the same humor and sharp wit that defined his famous sketches and writings. In My Life and Hard Times, first published in 1933, he recounts the delightful chaos and frustrations of family, boyhood, youth, odd dogs, recalcitrant machinery, etc.

*Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne Three men dare to adventure into a subterranean world full of danger and beauty. They discover many unusual things on their trip to the Earth's mysterious core.

House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende The story details the life of the Trueba family, spanning four generations, and tracing the post-colonial social and political upheavals of the Latin American country they live in. The story is told mainly from the perspective of two protagonists (Esteban and Alba) and incorporates elements of magical realism.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings – Maya Angelou This is the 1969 autobiographical account of the early years of African-American writer and poet Maya Angelou. It is a coming of age story that illustrates how strength of character and a love of literature can help overcome racism and trauma. The book begins when three-year-old Maya and her older brother are sent to Stamps, Arkansas, to live with their grandmother and ends when Maya becomes a mother at the age of 17. In the course of Caged Bird, Maya transforms from a victim of racism with an inferiority complex into a self-possessed, dignified young woman capable of responding to prejudice.

A Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood Set in the near future, America has become a puritanical theocracy and Offred tells her story as a handmaid under the new social order.

Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared M. Diamond Pulitzer Diamond traces the development of primitive societies showing why some groups advanced more rapidly than others and how this progression explains why various populations stabilize at specific phases of development while others continue to evolve.

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison National Book Award In the course of his wanderings from a Southern college to New York's Harlem, an African-American man becomes involved in a series of adventures.

Transit of Venus – Shirley Hazzard –This tells the story of two orphan sisters, Caroline and Grace Bell, as they leave Australia to start a new life in post-war England. What happens to these young women—seduction and abandonment, marriage and widowhood, love and betrayal—becomes as moving and wonderful and yet as predestined as the transits of the planets themselves. Gorgeously written and intricately constructed, Hazzard's novel is a story of place: Sydney, London, New York, Stockholm; of time: from the fifties to the eighties; and above all, of women and men in their passage through the displacements and absurdities of modern life.

The Poisonwood Bible -Barbara Kingsolver This is a story told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They carry with them everything they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it—from garden seeds to Scripture—is calamitously transformed on African soil. What follows is a suspenseful epic of one family's tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction over the course of three decades in postcolonial Africa.

Into Thin Air – John Krakauer This book documents the 1996 climbing season -- the deadliest ever on Mt. Everest. The author is sent by Outside magazine to evaluate the growing business of guide companies offering inexperienced climbers the opportunity to climb Mt. Everest for about $70,000 each. Krakauer is an experienced climber, though by his own admission he was probably not fully prepared for Everest. (NF)

100 Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez This novel chronicles a family's struggle and the history of their fictional town, Macondo. Although the title implies that the story spans one hundred years, it is unclear exactly how much time the narrative covers. This ambiguity contributes to the novel's treatment of time, as there is a notion that time lapses, repeats, changes speeds, or stops altogether at different parts of the story, and that all the events in some sense happen simultaneously. Like many other novels by Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude crosses genres, combining elements of romance, history, and fantasy. The narrative style of the novel was especially praised and extensively studied—ostensibly objective but often manifestly ridiculous, it combined García Márquez's experience as a journalist with the literary style of magical realizm and extensive uses of metaphors.

Life of Pi by Yann Martel Booker Prize Possessing encyclopedia-like intelligence, unusual zookeeper's son Pi Patel sets sail for America, but when the ship sinks, he escapes on a life boat and is lost at sea with a dwindling number of animals until only he and a hungry Bengal tiger remain.

Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell After the Civil War sweeps away the genteel life to which she has been accustomed, Scarlett O'Hara sets about to salvage her plantation home.

The Bluest Eye or Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison Morrison is a Nobel Prize-winning American author, editor, and professor. Her novels are known for their epic themes, vivid dialogue, and richly detailed African American characters.

Long Days Journey Into Night – Eugene O’Neil The action of this play covers a fateful, heart-rending day from around 8:30 am to midnight, in August 1912 at the seaside Connecticut home of the Tyrones - the autobiographical representations of O'Neill himself, his older brother, and their parents at their home. One theme of the play is addiction and the resulting dysfunction of the family. All three males are alcoholics and Mary is addicted to morphine. They all constantly conceal, blame, resent, regret, accuse and deny in an escalating cycle of conflict with occasional desperate and half- sincere attempts at affection, encouragement and consolation.

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett PEN-Faulkner Award A group of international guests, taken hostage by terrorists while attending a birthday party at the home of the vice president of a small South American country, form bonds with their captors and enter into an almost idyllic lifestyle, united by the music of Roxanne Coss, opera's most revered soprano.

Fiasco – Thomas E. Ricks This book alleges that the planning of the Iraq war was mismanaged by both the Bush administration as well as the U. S. Army. Ricks then goes on to outline the infighting between the senior policy advisers such as Colin Powell, Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld, and the Army. Ricks includes quotes from former generals of the Iraq war, former Army generals, and several top level officials, both working for the Bush administration and Douglas Feith’s planning contingent. Moving into the war, Ricks alleges various miscommunication and mismanagement of the Army's combat tactics as well as criticizing the overall strategy.

Goodbye Columbus – Phillip Roth In addition to its title novella set in New Jersey, Goodbye, Columbus contains the five short stories "The Conversion of the Jews," "Defender of the Faith," "Epstein," "You Can't Tell a Man by the Song He Sings," and "Eli, the Fanatic." Each story deals with the problems and concerns of second and third-generation assimilated American Jews as they leave the ethnic ghettos of their parents and grandparents and go on to college, the white- collar professions, and life in the suburbs.