LIST OF BOOKS BY TEACHER FOR RISING 10TH, 11TH, AND 12TH GRADERS

MS. ACTON (HEALTH/PHYSICAL MR. BAKER (TECH ED) – Running on EDUCATION) – What to Expect: The Empty : How the Democratic and Toddler Years by Arlene Eisenberg, Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Heidi Murkof, & Sandra Hathaway; and Future and What Americans Can Do The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein about It by Peter G. Peterson For students who have children or are Acclaimed by all sides of the political spectrum, expecting, this pair of books ofers, on the one this 2005 work not only traces the deterioration hand, very practical and helpful advice, and on of America’s finances but ofers solutions. This the other an entertaining introduction to the national bestseller is required reading for importance of reading with your children. everyone concerned with America’s long-term economic survival. In clear and concise prose, MR. ADAMS (ED CLUSTER) – Fourth and Peterson ofers America not only a vision but One by Joe Gibbs with Jerry B. Jenkins the practical steps by which to ensure our children’s economic future. The 1991 memoir of beloved Redskins coach, NASCAR owner, and spiritual role model Joe Gibbs, this heartfelt autobiography tells of the DR. BERMAN (COUNSELING SERVICES) – struggles and challenges he faced on his road Animals Make Us Human by Temple to success in varied arenas. Grandin Temple Grandin, an animal scientist, has a MS. ADAMSON (ADMINISTRATION) – unique understanding of how animals think and Women, Food, and God: An Unexpected feel. Animals have feelings, she argues, and Path to Almost Everything by Geneen humans need to stimulate animals’ positive feelings while ensuring that they are free from Roth negative emotions. Anyone with an interest in The way you eat is inseparable from your core animals should find this book fascinating! beliefs about being alive. No matter how sophisticated or wise or enlightened you MR. BERRY (SOCIAL STUDIES) – Hard Times believe you are, how you eat tells all. The world is on your plate. [recommended for Grade 12] by Charles Dickens . . . explores the difculty of livin’ la vida loca in industrial England and what it was like to have MR. AUSTIN (SOCIAL STUDIES) – The Tao of a teacher with the name M’Choakumchild. Personal Leadership: The Ancient Way to Success by Diane Dreher MS. BLUMBERG (ED CLUSTER) – The An insightful handbook for developing Whistling Season by Ivan Doig leadership skills, reflecting on Eastern and The Whistling Season takes place in Montana in Western philosophical and ideological styles of the early 1900s. It is a heart-warming story of leadership. Sophisticated level of reading/ three boys and their widowed father who hires writing. [recommended for Grade 12] a housekeeper to help them out after their mother dies. Rose, the housekeeper, and her MS. AYER (ESOL) – Dreams from My brother changes the boys’ lives in unexpected Father by Barack Obama ways. It is a story that will make you laugh and Fascinating yet easy to read bio of President make you cry and will definitely capture your Obama. He chronicles his life in Kansas with his heart. grandparents, life in Indonesia with his mother and step dad, back to Hawaii, then to Chicago. MS. BOUVÉ (FOREIGN LANGUAGE) – During this journey he searches for his place in Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende black America as a son of a white American mother and a black African father. [You may encounter this book in your English 11 class.] 1 An orphan raised in Chile treks to California dead. It’s payback time as Valdez seeks during the Gold Rush of 1849. Her adventures revenge. —in English! MS. CHIANG (SCIENCE) – The Unthinkable: MS. BOYLE (FAMILY & CONSUMER SCIENCE) Who Survives When Disaster Strikes— – A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson And Why by Amanda Ripley An excellent story about hiking the Appalachian The Unthinkable is a fascinating, in-depth look Trail. Never a dull moment with the two at human behavior under extreme pressure. Its characters who decide to hike the 2,100-mile gut-wrenching stories span the full spectrum of trail! A true story about the need for action under duress, from panic to heroism. conservation of America’s last great wilderness and the laugh-out-loud encounters of these MS. COCKER (CAREER PREP) – The Art of two guys. Great read for anyone interested in adventure, saving the environment, or just Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein learning more about hiking the A.T. Enzo knows he is diferent from other dogs: a philosopher with a nearly human soul (and an obsession with opposable thumbs), he has MS. BOZZO (ENGLISH) – Pillars of the Earth educated himself by watching television by Ken Follett extensively, and by listening very closely to the Historical fiction. International best-seller! In words of his master, Denny Swift, an up-and- twelfth-century England and with the building coming race car driver. Through Denny, Enzo of a Gothic cathedral as a backdrop, this epic has gained tremendous insight into the human tale incorporates intrigue, power, revenge, condition, and he sees that life, like racing, betrayal, and love. If you like history, isn’t simply about going fast. Using the architecture, art, power struggles, and romance techniques needed on the race track, one can in a spellbinding tale — read this. successfully navigate all of life’s ordeals. [recommended for grades 11 and 12] MS. COLEMAN (ADMINISTRATION) – The th DR. BROOKS (SCIENCE) – The 13 Power of One by Bryce Courtenay Element: The Sordid Tale of Murder, See the description by Ms. Simons, who is also Fire and Phosphorus by John Emsley reading this book. Discovered by alchemists, prescribed by apothecaries, exploited by nineteenth-century MS. COMINOS (ED CLUSTER) – The Clan of industrialists, and abused by twentieth-century combatants, phosphorus is one of nature’s the Cave Bear by Jean Auel deadliest- and most fascinating- creations. Have you ever wondered what daily life was like From murders-by-phosphorus where the for the cavemen? Read this book and be truly bodies glowed green, to the match factory fascinated. strike that helped end child labor in England, to the irony of the World War II firebombing of MS. CONSIDINE (SCIENCE) – If I Stay by Hamburg, to even deadlier compounds derived Gayle Forman from phosphorus today, the 13th Element While in a coma following an auto accident that weaves together a rich tableau of brilliant and killed her parents and her brother, 17-year-old oddball characters, social upheavals, and Mia, a gifted cellist, weighs whether to live with curious, bizarre, and horrific events that her grief or join the rest of her family in death. comprise the surprising 300-year history of nature’s most nefarious element. MS. COREN (SCIENCE) – Stones Into Schools by Greg Mortenson MR. CANGELOSI (MATH) – Valdez is Mortenson’s best-seller Three Cups of Tea, Coming by Elmore Leonard introduced his commitment to peace through Classic Western: Bob Valdez is a part-time education and became a book-club constable who is forced into a situation that phenomenon. He now continues the story of leads to the killing of an innocent man. Valdez how the Central Asia Institute (CAI) built tries to get those responsible to pay the man’s schools in northern Afghanistan. Descriptions widow, but Valdez is assaulted and left for of the harsh geography and more than one 2 near-death experience impress readers as new hulking darkness of Thunderclap, the source of faces join Mortenson’s loyal “Dirty Dozen” and a terrible afiction that is slowly stealing the they carefully plot a course of school-building community’s soul. through the Badakshan province and Wakhan corridor. Mortenson writes of nothing less than MS. EDWARDS (MATH) – A Lesson Before saving the future, and his adventure is light years beyond most attempts. Dying by Ernest J. Gaines What happens to us in life is sometimes unfair and painful. But it is our attitude and response MS. CRONE (ED CLUSTER) – Firefly Lane to life’s situations that determines the by Kristin Hannah outcome. What pain are you feeling from life? The book centers on the friendship of two What is your attitude about it? [You may women and the direction their lives take during encounter this book in your English 11 class.] high school, college, and adulthood. While both women are driven by diferent goals and are complete opposites, their friendship persists MR. EISENHOWER (MUSIC) – The Pixar over a lifetime. Touch by David A. Price The making of a company: the rags-to-riches MS. DAVIES (MATH) – Twilight by story of Pixar Animation Studios. Interviews and Stephanie Meyer stories about the people who created Toy Story, Up, Cars, Finding Nemo, and other films. What makes a book so good that students want to read it in math class? Why did MVP devote a whole Friday special to this addiction? Do rainy MR. EVANS (ADMINISTRATION) – Twilight climates afect intellectual development? Ms. by Stephenie Meyer Davies wants to know what she has been See the description by Ms. Davies, who is also missing, and will attempt to finish Twilight this reading this book. summer. Vampires that even Bufy cannot eliminate, high school love drama, severe climate issues, really cute protagonists with red MS. FIALLO (COUNSELING SERVICES) – The eyes ... this has got to be a page-turner. Come Help by Kathryn Stockett enter the vampire world of Forks, WA with us.... Miss Eugenia Phelan (“Skeeter”) is a young woman of privilege who enjoys her fellow Junior Leaguers but sometimes finds their ways at MS. DEAN (HEALTH/PHYSICAL EDUCATION) odds with her own principles. Minny, Miss Celia, – Extreme Measures by Vince Flynn Aibileen, and Yule May are maids employed by In the secretive world where fearless men and Skeeter’s friends. In the wake of the Junior women wage a daily covert war, the CIA has League push to create separate bathrooms for intercepted two terrorist cells — but a third, led the domestic help within private homes, Skeeter by a dangerous mastermind, is feared to be on contacts a New York book editor with an idea. the loose. Counterterrorist agent Mitch Rapp Soon she’s conducting clandestine meetings joins forces with a warrior as dedicated—and with “the help” to capture their stories for lethal—as they come. publication. It is a daring and foolhardy plan, one certain to endanger not only the positions MR. DELL (ART) – The Dark Tower V: but the lives of the very women whose stories Wolves of the Calla by Stephen King she transcribes — as well as her own. Roland Deschain and his ka-tet are bearing southeast through the forests of Mid-World, MS. FOSTER (SPECIAL EDUCATION) – Black the almost timeless landscape that seems to Boy by Richard Wright stretch from the wreckage of civility that This is an autobiography of Richard Wright, defined Roland’s youth to the crimson chaos published in 1945. The book vividly describes that seems the future’s only promise. In this Wright’s boyhood and youth as he grew up in long-awaited fifth novel in the saga, his path the South under conditions of poverty, hunger, takes him to the outskirts of Calla Bryn Sturgis, fear, and hatred. The issue of racism is a tranquil valley community of farmers and explored and is a primary component of the ranchers on Mid-World’s borderlands. Beyond book; however, many other aspects of growing the town the rocky ground rises towards the up are addressed. Hard to put down; this will 3 be a great book to occupy the long hot days of First published in 1973, this work is based on summer! the journals and photography of Richard Proenneke, who, in 1968, retreated to the MS. FRAZIER (FOREIGN LANGUAGE) – The wilderness of Alaska to build a home for Lost Symbol by Dan Brown himself and live alone, self-sufciently, for 31 years until the age of 82. Proenneke says he The highly anticipated follow-up to The Da turned his back on tedious fifty-hour work Vinci Code, one of the most thrilling bestsellers weeks and moved to Alaska “to do a thing to of all time, is finally available. Infused with completion.” history, codes, and intrigue, the book’s narrative takes place in a 12-hour period in which Robert Langdon careens through a MR. GOYNE (HEALTH/PHYSICAL masterful and exhilarating adventure. EDUCATION) – Golf is Not a Game of Perfect by Bob Rotella MS. GALLO (SCIENCE) – Ishmael by Daniel Dr. Bob Rotella is one of the hottest Quinn performance consultants in America today. Ishmael is the winner of the Turner Tomorrow Among his many professional clients are Nick Award—a prize for fiction that ofers solutions Price (last year’s Player of the Year), Tom Kite, to global problems. When a man in search of Davis Love III, Pat Bradley, Brad Faxon, John truth answers an ad in a local newspaper from a Daly, and many others. What Rotella does in teacher looking for serious students, he finds this extraordinary book, and with his clients, is himself alone in an abandoned ofce with a to create an attitude and a mindset about all gorilla named Ishmael. [recommended for aspects of a golfer’s game, from mental grades 11 and 12] preparation to competition. The most wonderful aspect of it all is that it is done in a MR. GAMBLE (SOCIAL STUDIES) – The conversational fashion, in a dynamic blend of Greatest Generation by Tom Brokaw anecdote and lesson. And, as some of the world’s greatest golfers will attest, the results In this superb book of interviews and essays, are spectacular. Golfers will improve their golf newscaster Tom Brokaw goes out into America game and have more fun playing. to tell —through the stories of individual men and women — the story of a generation, American’s citizen heroes and heroines who MS. GRAY (SPECIAL EDUCATION) – The came of age during the Great Depression and House at Sugar Beach: In Search of a the Second World War and went on to build Lost African Childhood by Helene modern America. Cooper On the west coast of Africa, Liberia was MS. GARD (FOREIGN LANGUAGE) – The Lost founded in the 19th century by freed American Girls by Jennifer Baggett et al. slaves, sent across the ocean to their own land New book about the adventures of three of opportunity. A descendant of Liberia’s most women who traveled the world for a year. prominent settlers, Cooper and her family are privileged “Congo people” who, like many others, take in a child of the “Country people” MS. GIDREWICZ (FOREIGN LANGUAGE) – The -- less privileged native Liberians -- as a Life of Pi by Yann Martel companion for Cooper and her younger sister. Yann Martel’s imaginative and unforgettable Cooper’s narrative introduces eccentric Life of Pi concerns sixteen-year-old Pi Patel, relatives and describes family outings and the son of a zookeeper, who finds himself adrift schoolgirl dramas. But disaster strikes, and the in the Pacific Ocean, trapped on a 26-foot Coopers -- forced to leave Eunice behind -- lifeboat with a wounded zebra, a spotted flee the country, landing in the American South. hyena, a seasick orangutan, and a 450-pound Years later, Cooper finds her footing and a Bengal tiger name Richard Parker. calling as a foreign correspondent, yet something is missing in her life: Eunice, and a MR. GIROUX (ED CLUSTER) – One Man’s better understanding of her own history. Wilderness: An Alaskan Odyssey by Sam Decades later, she returns to Liberia, to begin Keith and Richard Proenneke the hunt for both. 4 MR. HARWOOD (HEALTH/PHYSICAL MS. GREENE (ENGLISH) – The Alchemist by EDUCATION) – With the Old Breed by E. B. Paulo Coelho Sledge Follow protagonist Santiago, a young shepherd One of the powerful, personal stories told in from Spain, on a journey to fulfill his personal the recent HBO miniseries “The Pacific,” this legend. Coelho’s novel is allegorical, and New York Times bestseller reveals what it was teaches the reader that we all have personal like to be a Marine in the Pacific theater of legends to pursue. You will become swept up World War II. in Santiago’s story and find that there is a bit of him in all of us. MS. HAYES (MATH) – The Last Exit to Normal by Michael Harmon MS. GREGORY (SCIENCE) – The Secret Life It’s true: After 17-year-old Ben’s father of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd announces he’s gay and the family splits apart, Set in South Carolina in 1964, The Secret Life of Ben does everything he can to tick him of: skip Bees tells the story of Lily Owens, whose life school, smoke pot, skateboard nonstop, get has been shaped around the blurred memory of arrested. But he never thinks he’ll end up the afternoon her mother was killed. When yanked out of his city life and plunked down Lily’s fierce-hearted “stand-in mother,” into a small Montana town with his dad and Rosaleen, insults three of the town’s fiercest Edward, The Boyfriend. As if it’s not painful racists, Lily decides they should both escape to enough living in a hick town with spiked hair, a Tiburon, South Carolina--a town that holds the skateboard habit, and two dads, he soon secret to her mother’s past. There they are realizes something’s not quite right with Billy, taken in by an eccentric trio of black the boy next door. He’s hiding a secret about beekeeping sisters who introduce Lily to a his family, and Ben is determined to uncover it mesmerizing world of bees, honey, and the and set things right. In an authentic, Black Madonna who presides over their unafected, and mordantly funny voice, Michael household. Harmon tells the wrenching story of an uprooted and uncomfortable teenaged guy MS. GUERRERO (ED CLUSTER) – Island trying to fix the lives around him–while figuring Beneath the Sea by Isabel Allende out his own. This is a dramatic story about a young slave woman during the time when the French ruled MR. HEIMBACH (SOCIAL STUDIES) – the island of Saint-Dominique. It relates how Character and Coaching by John Yeager the nation of Haiti came into being through a et al. slave revolt. What is important about sports, and how should society view and handle sports? MS. GURLEY (FAMILY & CONSUMER SCIENCE) – Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen MS. HODGE (FOREIGN LANGUAGE) – In the See the description by Ms. Wheatley, who is Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez also reading this book. Four sisters living in the Dominican Republic during the years of dictator Trujillo try to MR. HANRATTY (FOREIGN LANGUAGE) – No survive a military uprising. Each sister has a Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre distinct view on how to serve her country and This important work of drama from the post- persevere. Students may choose to read this war existentialist philosopher describes three novel in the original Spanish. souls trapped in a simple, sparse waiting room that they soon discover is hell itself. Through MS. HOLGASH (ENGLISH) – The Joy Luck their intense interactions, they face the truth Club by Amy Tan about themselves and face the real Four mothers, four daughters, four families consequences for their actions. whose histories shift with the four winds depending on who’s “saying” the stories. In 1949 four Chinese women, recent immigrants to San Francisco, begin meeting to eat dim

5 sum, play mahjong, and talk. United in shared MS. KENEFICK (MATH) – Coming Home by unspeakable loss and hope, they call Rosamunde Pilcher themselves the Joy Luck Club. With wit and Against the backdrop of an elegant Cornwall sensitivity, Amy Tan examines the sometimes mansion before World War II and a vast painful, often tender, and always deep continent-spanning canvas during the turbulent connection between mothers and daughters. As war years, this involving story tells of an each woman reveals her secrets, trying to extraordinary young woman’s coming of age, unravel the truth about her life, the strings coming to grips with love and sadness, and in become more tangled, more entwined. Mothers every sense of the term, coming home. boast or despair over daughters, and daughters roll their eyes even as they feel the inextricable tightening of their matriarchal ties. MR. KLEIN (ENGLISH) – Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar: Understanding MS. HUDSON (ADMINISTRATION) – The Philosophy through Jokes by Thomas Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins Cathcart & Daniel Klein See the description by Mr. Woodruf, who is People sometimes call philosophy “the study of also reading this book. why things are as they are.” Using jokes and cartoons, this bestseller ofers ideas on some of the big and small questions that all of us MS. JACKSON (ENGLISH) – The Lost City of wonder about: Do I exist for any reason, or Z by David Grann did I just luck out in a cold and random Account of how New Yorker writer David Grann universe? Do other people see the same color set out to solve what happened to British blue that I do? Am “I” anything more than the explorer Percy Fawcett during his quest to find cells, chemicals, and processes of my brain? In El Dorado in 1925. fact, how do I even know that “I” am here and awake right now? [Okay, but that’s what MR. JOHNSON (SOCIAL STUDIES) – Pound Dorothy and Neo thought too]. As you laugh for Pound by F.X. O’Toole and think your way through this book, you’ll Following his remarkable fiction debut, Rope start to see new ways of answering these and Burns, author F. X. Toole’s Pound for Pound is a other interesting questions. [recommended for big, brawny novel of honor, perseverance, grades 11 and 12] family, and forgiveness, set in towns where violence is the norm and success stories take MS. KNOX (MEDIA CENTER) – The Blind on an almost mythic importance. It is the story Side by Michael Lewis of Dan Cooley, an aging, legendary Los Angeles See the description by Mr. Timm, who is also trainer, who takes on Chicky Garza, a troubled reading this book. young fighter hungry for glory in the notoriously corrupt San Antonio boxing circuit. This unforgettable posthumous novel MS. KUECKER (ENGLISH) – Transfer of celebrates a unique and powerful bond, and the Power by Vince Flynn courage that overcomes insurmountable A group of terrorists have gained access to the obstacles in and out of the ring. White House, but they are unable to get to the President because he has been evacuated by MS. JORDAN (SCIENCE) – A Piece of Cake the Secret Service to an underground bunker. A by Cupcake Brown counterterrorism operative works to free the President and the other nearly one hundred A Piece of Cake is unlike any memoir you’ll ever hostages taken. read. Moving and almost transgressive in its frankness, it is a relentlessly gripping tale of a resilient spirit who took on the worst of MR. KUEHNER (SCIENCE) – A contemporary urban life and survived it with a Mathematician Reads the Newspaper by furious wit and unyielding determination. John Allen Paulos Cupcake Brown is a dynamic and utterly original With a user-friendly, quirky, and perceptive storyteller who will guide you on the most approach, John Allen Paulos travels through the satisfying, startlingly funny, and genuinely pages of the daily newspaper showing how afecting tour through hell you’ll ever take. math and numbers are a key element in many 6 of the articles we read every day. From the Senate, SATs, and sex, to crime, celebrities, and MS. MARGOLIES (ENGLISH) – Rockville cults, he takes stories that may not seem to Pike: A Suburban Comedy of Manners involve mathematics at all and demonstrates how a lack of mathematical knowledge can by Susan Coll hinder our understanding of them. This is a funny, ofbeat story of a middle-aged woman whose family left its New York lifestyle to come to Rockville to take over the family’s MS. LAY (FOREIGN LANGUAGE) – The Girl furniture business on Rockville Pike. She with the White Flag by Tomiko Higa struggles to maintain her sanity amid soccer Separated from her family in the confusion and fields, suburban sprawl, and a house full of horror of World War II, seven-year-old Tomiko reject furniture. The author lives in DC, and her Higa struggles to survive on the battlefield of books are all set in the DC area. Okinawa, Japan. There, as some of the fiercest fighting of the war rages around her, she must MR. MCCANN (ED CLUSTER) Their Eyes live alone, with nothing to fall back on but her own wits and daring. Fleeing from encroaching Were Watching God by Zora Neale enemy forces, searching desperately for her Hurston lost sisters, taking scraps of food from the “This American classic is a luminous and knapsacks of dead soldiers, risking death at haunting novel about Janie Crawford, a every turn, Tomiko somehow finds the strength Southern Black woman in the 1930s, whose and courage to survive. journey from a free-spirited girl to a woman of independence and substance has inspired MS. LEE (SCIENCE) – Chromosome 6 by writers and readers for close to 70 years. This Robin Cook poetic, graceful love story, rooted in Black folk traditions and steeped in mythic realism, The ever-popular and prolific Cook sets his celebrates boldly and brilliantly African- latest medical thriller in Equatorial Guinea. Dr. American culture and heritage. And in a Kevin Marshall worries that he has traded his powerful, mesmerizing narrative, it pays quiet ethics for a gleaming futuristic lab. Meanwhile, tribute to a Black woman who, though stateside, Dr. Jack Stapleton, a forensic constricted by the times, still demanded to be pathologist, is deeply troubled by an heard.” [You may encounter this book in unidentified body that is missing various parts. English 11 or 12.] Jack and his colleague Laurie identify the corpse as that of a Mafia kingpin, and their investigation leads them to Africa. MS. MERRIAM (SPECIAL EDUCATION) – The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri MS. MADER (ENGLISH) – A Tale of Two Meet the Ganguki family, new arrivals from Cities by Charles Dickens Calcutta, trying their best to become Americans even as they pine for home. The name they The backdrop: the French Revolution. This is a bestow on their firstborn, Gogol, betrays all the dramatic tale of love, loyalty, and treachery set conflicts of honoring tradition in a new world — in a time of historic upheaval. conflicts that will haunt Gogol on his own winding path through divided loyalties, comic MS. MANNINO (SOCIAL STUDIES) – A detours, and wrenching love afairs. Issues History of the World in Six Glasses by related to family and its importance, the Tom Standage immigrant experience, struggles to extricate Throughout human history, certain drinks have oneself from the past. done more than quench thirst. Six drinks have had a surprisingly pervasive influence on the MS. MIDDENDORF (ENGLISH) – The course of history. This book tells the story of Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie humanity from the Stone Age to the present Society by Mary Ann Shafer & Annie through the lens of beer, wine, spirits, cofee, tea, and cola. Each drink is a kind of Barrows technology, a catalyst for advancing culture by The main character, Juliet Ashton, learns about which the author demonstrates the intricate the “Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society,” interplay of diferent civilizations. a unique book club formed on the spur of the 7 moment as an alibi to protect its members from Alex Cross’s niece is found brutally murdered. arrest by the Germans during WWII. The book is Overcome with grief, Alex vows to take down set up as a series of letters. her killer before he strikes again. But shortly after he begins the investigation, Alex discovers MS. MULHOLLAND (ART) – Sayonara that his niece had gotten mixed up with some Michelangelo: The Sistine Chapel very important, very dangerous people. And she’s not the only one who has disappeared. Restored and Repackaged by Waldemar The hunt for the murderer leads Alex and his Januszcak girlfriend. The killer could be one of their A delightful rumination on the controversial, patrons, one of Washington’s elite who will do Japanese-sponsored restoration of the Sistine anything to keep their secrets buried. Ceiling, Sayonara, Michelangelo brings us face to face with the brilliantly refurbished frescoes MR. PRUITT (FOREIGN LANGUAGE) – Don and reveals a rational, colorful Michelangelo— Quijote de la Mancha by Miguel de not the impulsive, tortured genius characterized by art historians and Hollywood. Cervantes Widely acknowledged as the first modern novel, Don Quijote features two of the most famous MS. NATARO (SOCIAL STUDIES) – Tinkers characters ever created: Don Quixote, the tall, by Paul Harding bewildered, and half-crazy knight, and Sancho Harding’s outstanding debut unfurls the history Panza, his rotund and incorrigibly loyal squire. and final thoughts of a dying grandfather The comic and unforgettable dynamic between surrounded by his family in his New England these two legendary figures has served as the home. George Washington Crosby repairs blueprint for countless novels written since clocks for a living and on his deathbed revisits Cervantes’ time. Read Books 1-8 in English or his turbulent childhood as the oldest son of an Spanish. epileptic smalltime traveling salesman. The real star is Harding’s language, which dazzles MS. RICKERT (SPECIAL EDUCATION) – The whether he’s describing the workings of clocks, Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood sensory images of nature, the many engaging Do you think Odysseus was a big jerk? You side characters who populate the book, or even think he had a rough twenty years? Imagine a short passage on how to build a bird nest. being a single mom, running a country, and This is an especially gorgeous example of living with fifty suitors whose profiles would novelistic craftsmanship. have been rejected from match.com. Get Penelope’s perspective on The Odyssey by DR. NEWMAN (SCIENCE) – Fantastic reading The Penelopiad. Voyage by Isaac Asimov Four men and a woman are reduced to a MS. ROSENMAN (ESOL) – Brother I’m microscopic fraction of their original size, sent Dying by Edwidge Danticat in a miniaturized atomic sub through a dying From the age of four, award-winning writer man’s carotid artery to destroy a blood clot in Danticat came to think of her uncle Joseph as his brain. If they fail, the entire world will be her “second father,” when she was placed in his doomed. care after her parents left Haiti for America. And so she was both elated and saddened MS. PHELPS & MS. STAHLEY (STAFF when, at twelve, she joined her parents and DEVELOPMENT) – The Carrie Diaries by youngest brothers in New York City. As Candace Bushnell Edwidge made a life in a new country, adjusting Ever wondered what Carrie Bradshaw was like in to being far away from so many who she loved, high school? Here’s your chance to find out how she and her family continued to fear for the NYC’s “It” Girl found her writing voice as a high safety of those still in Haiti as the political schooler in Connecticut. [recommended for situation deteriorated. In 2004, they entered grades 11 and 12] into a terrifying tale of good people caught up in events beyond their control. Brother I’m Dying is an astonishing true-life epic, told on MS. PLANCHON (MATH) – I, Alex Cross by an intimate scale by one of our finest writers. James Patterson 8 MS. ROSS (SCIENCE) – He’s Just Not That MS. SHANAHAN (BUSINESS EDUCATION) – Into You by Greg Behrendt Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Based on a popular episode of “Sex and the Thomas Jeferson, and the Opening of City,” this educates otherwise smart women on the American West by Stephen E. how to tell when a guy just doesn’t like them enough, so they can stop wasting time making Ambrose excuses for a dead-end relationship. In 1803 President Thomas Jeferson selected his personal secretary, Captain Meriwether Lewis, to lead a voyage up the Missouri River, across MS. SAILER (ART) – The Help by Kathryn the forbidding Rockies, and — by way of the Stockett Snake and mighty Columbia — down to the See the description by Ms. Fiallo, who is also Pacific Ocean. Lewis and his partner, Captain reading this book. William Clark, endured incredible hardships and witnessed astounding sights. With great MS. SAMUELS (SPECIAL EDUCATION) – The perseverance, they worked their way into an Coldest Winter Ever by Sister Souljah unexplored West and when they returned two Renowned hip-hop artist, writer, and activist years later, they had long since been given up Sister Souljah brings the streets of New York to for dead. life in a powerful and utterly unforgettable first novel. Ghetto-born, Winter is the young, MS. SHPEEN (ENGLISH) – The Laramie wealthy daughter of a prominent Brooklyn Project by Moises Kaufman drug-dealing family. Quick-witted, sexy, and On October 7, 1998, a young gay man was business-minded, she knows and loves the discovered bound to a fence in the hills outside streets like the curves of her own body. But Laramie, Wyoming, savagely beaten and left to when a cold Winter wind blows her life in a die in an act of hate that shocked the nation. direction she doesn’t want to go, her street Matthew Shepard’s death became a national smarts and seductive skills are put to the test symbol of intolerance, but for the people of of a lifetime. Unwilling to lose, this ghetto girl Laramie the event was deeply personal, and it is will do anything to stay on top. they we hear in this stunningly efective theater piece. MR. SARTOPH (CCRD) – Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz MS. SIMONS (ENGLISH) – The Power of Odd Thomas sees dead people and other One by Bryce Courtenay strange things. He solves murders and tries to This inspirational novel has it all — suspense, stop bad things from happening. magic, psychology, action, and drama. It is set in an era when Hitler rises to power and apartheid takes root in South Africa. Learn in a MS. SEIDENBERG-MCLEAN (ART) – highly entertaining way how one person can Beautiful Boy: A Father’s Journey make an enormous diference. Through His Son’s Addiction by David Shef MS. STEPHENS (SCIENCE) Hoop Dreams by Before Nic Shef became addicted to crystal Ben Joravsky/My Dog Skip by Willie meth, he was a charming boy, joyous and Morris/Double Helix by James D. funny, a varsity athlete and honor student adored by his two younger siblings. After meth, Watson he was a trembling wraith who lied, stole, and A series of varied titles corresponding to Ms. lived on the streets. As a journalist, Nic’s father Stephens’ varied interests. Choose only one of David instinctively researched every avenue of the books. treatment that might save his son and refused to give up on Nic. Beautiful Boy is a fiercely MR. SU (SOCIAL STUDIES) – The Lucifer candid memoir that brings immediacy to the Efect by Philip Zimbardo emotional rollercoaster of loving a child who The Lucifer Efect raises a fundamental question seems beyond help. about the nature of human nature: How is it possible for ordinary, average, even good people to become perpetrators of evil? In trying 9 to understand unusual, or aberrant behavior, most highly paid athletes in the NFL. Plucked we often err in focusing exclusively on the inner from the mean streets by a wealthy family, he determinants of genes, personality, and took up football and school, and turned out to character, as we also tend to ignore what may possess the priceless combination of size, be the critical catalyst for behavior change in speed, and agility needed to guard the the external Situation or in the System that quarterback’s greatest vulnerability: his blind creates and maintains such situations. I side. challenge readers to reflect on how well they really know themselves, and how much MS. WATSON (SPECIAL EDUCATION) – confidence they have in what they would or Sahara by Clive Cussler would not ever do when put into new Two men stranded in the Sahara desert uncover behavioral settings. the truth about the fate of a 1930’s aviator, how Lincoln died, and a fortune in gold. MS. TALBERT (HEALTH/PHYSICAL EDUCATION) – Push by Sapphire MR. WATTECAMPS (SOCIAL STUDIES) – The A novel about an illiterate sixteen-year-old girl Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid growing up in Harlem who becomes pregnant with a second child by her father. She meets a by Bill Bryson determined and highly radical teacher who Growing up in Iowa during the 1950s, it was a helps her write about her life and make it her happy time when automobiles, television, and own for the first time. Made into the Academy- nuclear weapons all grew larger and more Award-nominated film Precious. numerous. When DDT, cigarettes, and nuclear testing were considered harmless, or even good for you. MS. TASH (SPECIAL EDUCATION) – Burning Shadows by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro MR. G. WHEATLEY (BUSINESS EDUCATION) – Yarbro looks at the legendary Huns from the perspective of the people who faced the brunt War by Sebastian Junger of their attacks. The vampire Saint-Germain The ambitiousness of Sebastian Junger’s War is seeks sanctuary at an isolated monastery, summed up in its title. It’s a story about war unwilling to abandon the hundreds of terrified that is much more than a war story. As a villagers he has led in flight from the Huns. A correspondent for Vanity Fair magazine, Junger few Roman soldiers and some village Watchmen made five trips to Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley are the monastery’s defense force—and they in 2007 and 2008, embedded with the 2nd are undermined by the religious fervor of some Platoon, Battle Company of the storied 173rd of the monks, who argue that since everyone’s Airborne Brigade. War is the result of those fate is in God’s hands, it is foolish to defend journeys into a world so alien to civilians it themselves. In the hothouse atmosphere of the might as well be a planet in some distant solar high-walled monastery, Saint-Germain must system. [recommended for grades 11 and 12] take special care when slaking his vampire thirst, for discovery of his True Nature will MS. J. WHEATLEY (ENGLISH) – Pride and result in his True Death. Prejudice by Jane Austen Five daughters in a 19th-century English family MS. TAVARES (FOREIGN LANGUAGE) – Three must find husbands if they wish to have a good Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson life after their parents are gone. Talk about this The story of how the author built schools in book on Facebook! Search for “Mrs. Wheatley’s Pakistan and Afghanistan in spite of many Pride and Prejudice Book Group.” difculties. MR. WOODRUFF (ENGLISH) – The Hunger MR. TIMM (ENGLISH) – The Blind Side by Games by Suzanne Collins Michael Lewis Do you like reality TV? Are you a fan of From the #1 New York Times bestselling author “Survivor”? Well, Hunger Games is the ultimate of Moneyball and Liar’s Poker comes the story reality television show, where contestants get of a young man’s rise to football stardom. The to hunt one another down. In Hunger Games young man at the center of this extraordinary you’re not voted out by your fellow contestants; and moving story will one day be among the you’re killed by them. It’s not win or lose; it’s 10 win or die. So what happens when one of the contestants refuses to play by the rules? Get your name on the waiting list at the library now; it’s the young adult novel of the summer.

MR. ZANNI (SOCIAL STUDIES) – The Lucifer Efect by Philip Zimbardo See the description by Mr. Su, who is also reading this book.

MS. ZUMBAR (ENGLISH) – Friday Night Knitting Club by Kate Jacobs This is the story of a woman raising her teenaged daughter by herself in New York City and running a yarn shop at the same time. The knitting club that forms from the regular customers who stay beyond closing hours on Friday develops into a support system and extended family for both the mother and daughter. This is a great read for all ages and can relate to almost anyone.

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