Introduction and Expectations for Students

Summer Reading Summer is a time to relax and read. The Farmington High School Summer Reading List provides you with a wide range of titles that have been recommended by students, teachers and staff. These titles are organized by genre, and generally the more challenging texts are listed toward the end of each category. You are expected to read at least three books during the summer and record titles and authors on a list that you bring with you to school in the fall. Your selections may come from this list, but you are also encouraged to make other selections. A list of websites is provided to help you search for reading that interests you. Your parents may also help you make good choices and even read along with you to provide an opportunity for some good discussion.

When you return in the fall, you should be prepared to show written evidence of your reading. A reading guide is provided in this packet to describe the ways in which you might structure your thoughts about the books you read. In general, English teachers will use this reading assignment as a way to get to know their new students as readers.

Required Reading Select courses have required reading and writing assignments. These courses are A.P. Literature, World Literature, British Literature and A.P. Language. The required reading for each of these courses is listed below. The writing assignments are available from the English department or online at http://www.fpsct.org. Choose FHS from the drop down menu at the top, then library on the left. Once at the library website, select the link to the “Reading Room” on the left. This link brings you to the larger reading list as well as the specific writing assignments for the courses listed above.

Special Event The FHS library will be holding an in-store book fair at Barnes and Noble in Canton on Thursday, June 5th. A percentage of the cost of any books purchased between 6 & 10 p.m. will be donated to the library to increase its pleasure reading collection. Be sure to identify yourself as a FHS supporter when you purchase your books. FHS student art work will be on display and performances by student musicians will be given between 6 & 10 p.m. on that date.

Have a wonderful summer and please stop in the library next fall to share your favorite book selections with us to help build the list for next year!

Required Reading for Select Courses

A.P. Literature (Grade 12) Metamorphosis Franz Kafka Going After Cacciato Tim Obrien Animal Dreams Barbara Kingsolver :

World Literature H (Grade 12) The Kite Runner Khaled Hosseini

In addition, please choose on of the following as a companion piece to The Kite Runner: The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency Alexander McCall Smith The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time Mark Haddon A Thousand Splendid Suns Khaled Hosseini

British Literature H (Grade 12) Brave New World Aldous Huxley 1984 George Orwell

A.P. Language (Grade 11) The Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne The Catcher in the Rye J. D. Salinger

Websites for searching lists of recommended books

• Best Books for Young Adults What you’ll find: Lists of award winning books selected for young adults by librarians around the country. http://www.ala.org/yalsa/booklists/bbya

• Outstanding Books for the College Bound What you’ll find: Lists of books by subject area recommended for students planning to attend college. http://www.ala.org/yalsa/booklists/obcb

• BookPage: America’s book review What you’ll find: Interviews with authors, “BookPage Archives,” Advice for Writers, Book reviews http://www.bookpage.com

• BookSense.com What you’ll find: “Book sense Picks” and “Bestseller List.” http://www.booksense.com

Reading Guide

As teachers, we are hoping that all of our students will compose a life in which reading matters. Reading can help you solve problems, make good decisions, create new ideas and expand your understanding of the many dimensions of the human experience. We expect you to show us that your reading experiences this summer have made an impact on your life in some way. Consider these ideas for providing written evidence.

1. Annotate your text. If you own the book that you are reading, highlight or underline important passages. Write ideas and questions (annotate) in the margins or on post-it notes. Review your notes before you return to school in the fall to be ready to summarize your response to this text.

2. Keep a journal. Journals are used by many readers to assist in taking notes or recording responses as they read. Use your journal to record personal reactions, thoughts, feelings and connections to the reading. This is an opportunity to think on paper without worrying about the mechanics of writing. It’s also good practice for the types of writing assignments you will do in your high school classes.

3. Document a course of action. Reading nonfiction texts can lead to an action plan that helps you accomplish a goal. What did you learn from your reading and how did you use that knowledge? Create some sort of written artifact that documents your learning.

Questions to consider as you read:

Who are the important characters or people? What are their prominent qualities? Do they remind you of other characters from books, film, or your life?

Which events are most significant? Why? How do they help us understand theme/main ideas?

What conflicts are developed in this book? How do they represent universal human struggles? Are the conflicts relevant to life today?

From whose point of view is the story told? Why did the author make this decision?

What is the author’s purpose in writing the book? What argument or message was he/she trying to express? What problem or issue was he/she trying to tackle?

What do you notice about the author’s writing style?

How does this new information integrate with what I already know? Have I changed my thinking? What questions come to mind?

Are the author’s values and beliefs apparent in the text? Do I agree? Is there another perspective not told?

FHS SUMMER READING LIST

JUST PLAIN GOOD STORIES - GENERAL FICTION Breathing Underwater (Alex Flinn) Told in the form of a journal, Nick recounts his violent relationship with Caitlin, while The Perks of Being a Wallflower (Stephen Chbosky) spending time in a violence class for boys. Charlie, a freshman in high school, explores the dilemmas of growing up through a collection of letters he sends to an The Truth About Forever (Sarah Dessen) Macy plans to work unknown receiver. at the library and wait for her brainy boyfriend to return from camp, but instead she goes to work at a catering business where A Room on Lorelei Street (Mary Pearson) To escape a she makes new friends and finally faces her grief. miserable existence taking care of her alcoholic mother, 17-year- old Zoe rents a room from an eccentric woman, but her earnings 13 Little Blue Envelopes (Maureen Johnson) When 17-year- as a waitress after school are minimal, and she must go to old Ginny receives a packet of mysterious envelopes from her extremes to cover expenses. favorite aunt, she leaves New Jersey to criss-cross Europe on a sort of scavenger hunt that transforms her life. Rainbow Boys (Alex Sanchez) Three high school seniors - a jock with a girlfriend and an alcoholic father, a closeted gay, and Blind Faith (Ellen Wittlinger) a flamboyant gay rights advocate - struggle with family issues, While coping with her grandmother's sudden death and her gay bashers, first sex, and conflicting feelings about each other. mother's resulting depression and fascination with a spiritualist church, whose ministers claim to communicate with the dead, Diva (Alex Flinn) Despite her mother's objections, 16-year-old fifteen-year-old Liz finds herself falling for a new neighbor Caitlin determines to pursue her dream of becoming an opera whose mother is dying of cancer. singer by attending a performing arts school in Miami. Slam (Nick Hornby) The First Part Last (Angela Johnson) Bobby's carefree teenage Sam is a disarmingly ordinary 15-year-old kid who loves to skate life changes forever when he becomes a father and must care for But then he is blindsided: his girlfriend gets pregnant, and Sam his adored baby daughter. talks about it with his sort-of-imaginary friend: the world's greatest skater, Tony Hawk, whose poster Sam talks to when he Cuba 15 (Nancy Osa) Violet Paz, a Chicago high school has problems. student, reluctantly prepares for her upcoming "quince," a Spanish nickname for the celebration of an Hispanic girl's Schooled (Gordon Korman) fifteenth birthday. Leo, a high school senior and Mr. Republican, has received a scholarship to Harvard. However, after being accused of helping The New Rules of High School (Blake Nelson) Seventeen- another student during a test, he loses the financial assistance year-old Max Caldwell has been the perfect high school student - which he must have to enroll. Although he was talking, he was on the honor roll, captain of the debate team, and soon-to-be not giving answers to the other student and stands up for himself. editor of the school newspaper - but during his senior year, he At about the same time, he learns that his biological father is begins questioning his approach to life and things start to change. really King Maggot, the leader of a popular punk rock band. Leo manages to get a job as a roadie with the band hoping to get King Who Am I Without Him?: Short Stories About Girls and the to pay his college tuition. That summer, he learns who his real Boys in Their Lives (Sharon Flake) Hilarious and anguished, friends are and much more about himself. these 10 short stories about growing up black today speak with rare truth about family, friends, school, and especially about Acceptance (Susan Coll) While following the senior year of finding a boyfriend. several students agonizing over college acceptance, the novel is a thinly disguised attack at the U.S. News and World Report Bottled Up (Jay Murray) A high school boy comes to terms college ranking system. Will AP Harry fulfill his lifelong dream with his drug addiction, life with an alcoholic father, and a of getting into Harvard? Oh no, 30 of his classmates are applying younger brother who looks up to him. there too!

Cruise Control (Terry Trueman) A talented basketball player Waiting For Normal (Leslie Conner) struggles to deal with the helplessness and anger that come with Addie is used to her mom’s inconsistencies and while she having a brother rendered completely dysfunctional by severe disappears for days at a time, Addie keeps busy in their trailer cerebral palsy and a father who deserted the family. home. Addie concentrates on the things she can control, like her music, her friends and getting to see her half sister whenever she Thirteen Reasons Why (Jay Asher) can. But as her half sister’s lives get increasingly better Addie When Clay Jenson plays the cassette tapes he received in a must learn to deal with her not so great life. mysterious package, he's surprised to hear the voice of dead classmate Hannah Baker. He's one of 13 people who receive Change of Heart (Jodi Picoult) June Nealon's life is shattered Hannah's story, which details the circumstances that led to her when Shay Bourne murders her husband and daughter, but when suicide. Clay spends the rest of the day and long into the night her eleven-year-old daughter, Claire, needs a heart transplant, listening to Hannah's voice and going to the locations she wants Bourne decides that his only chance at redemption is to give him to visit. Claire his heart after he is put to death, leaving June to decide if she wants to let the man who destroyed her life save her daughter's.

Ragtime (E.L. Doctorow) Presents life in the early 20th Century Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac (Gabrielle Zevin) when immigration and race were affecting society. This book is 16 year old Naomi conks her head after school one day and she the source of the hit musical by the same name. can't remember anything that happened since sixth grade. As she is introduced to her present life, she is surprised by everything Zorro (Isabel Allende) A fictionalized account of the life of from the birth-control pills in her bedside table to her parents' Zorro. Tells the story of how a young boy in Spanish California, astonishing, rancorous split. Eventually, the memories return, through his adventures and escapades, became the legendary hero leaving Naomi questioning the basis of a new romance, and we’ve come to know through television and movies. wondering which of her two lives, present or former, represents her most authentic self. Prep (Curtis Sittenfeld) Midwesterner Lee Fiora is sent by her father to a prestigious boarding school in Massachusetts where she manages to survive in spite of the social differences between her and her classmates. GET OUT OF THAT CHAIR! - ACTION/ADVENTURE

The Namesake (Jhumpa Lahiri) Beautifully written story of a Downriver (Will Hobbs) 15-year-old Jessie and the other young man born of Indian parents in America who struggles with rebellious teenage members of a wilderness survival school team issues of identity from his teens to his thirties. abandon their adult leader, hijack his boats, and try to run the dangerous white water at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. The Life of Pi (Yann Martel) The compelling story of one young man’s journey in a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger for Stormbreaker (Anthony Horowitz) After the death of the uncle company. who had been his guardian, 14-year-old Alex Rider is coerced to continue his uncle's dangerous work for Britain's intelligence Snow in August (Pete Hamill) Eleven-year-old Irish Catholic agency, MI6. Michael Devlin and Rabbi Judah Hirsch form a wonderful, if unlikely, friendship in Brooklyn in 1947, but the actions of a Shadow Divers: The True Adventure of Two Americans Who group of anti-Semitic thugs soon have them trapped in a spiral of Risked Everything to Solve One of the Last Mysteries of World hate and hoping for a miracle. War II (Robert Kurson) Two rival divers discover a treasure that is said not to exist – a sunken Nazi submarine! This story Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden) Nitta Sayuri, a young tells how the men eventually become allies in order to find the Japanese woman who was taken from her home at the age of nine downed sub. and sold into slavery as a geisha, discovers a rare opportunity for freedom when the outbreak of World War II forces an end to the Between a Rock and a Hard Place (Aron Ralston) The true only life she has ever known. story of the avid rock-climber and outdoorsman who became trapped in a Utah mountain canyon when an 800-pound boulder The Darling (Russell Banks) The story of Hannah Musgrave, a pinned his right arm. political radical, who flees America for Liberia where she marries a Liberian man and encounters terrorism, political violence and Protect and Defend: a thriller (Vince Flynn) the clash of cultures. American counterterrorism operative Mitch Rapp rushes to pull the world back from the brink of nuclear war when Iran blames A Million Little Pieces (James Frey) Frey drew controversy with the U.S. and Israel for an attack that has left a radioactive bomb this dramatic and partially fictionalized tale of his recovery from and environmental disaster in the middle of Iran's second largest drug and alcohol addiction, beginning with his enrollment in a city. Minnesota rehabilitation center. Maiden Voyage (Tania Aebi) The story of Tania Aebi, the Bel Canto (Anne Patchett) A group of international guests, taken youngest person to sail around the world by herself. hostage by terrorists while attending a birthday party at the home of the vice president of a small South American country, form Flash Fire (Caroline Cooney) As fire sweeps through a bonds with their captors and enter into an almost idyllic lifestyle, canyon near Los Angeles, a group of children must work together united by the music of Roxanne Coss, opera's most revered to save themselves. soprano. The Hungry Ocean: A Swordboat Captain’s Journey (Linda Empire Falls (Richard Russo) Miles Roby, called back from Greenlaw) The story of a grueling 30-day, sword-fishing college to the small town of Empire Falls in Dexter County, voyage during which the fishermen face savage weather, Maine, to take care of his ailing mother, falls into a rut that keeps equipment failure, and sharks. him trapped until years later when a series of revelations and tragedies jolts him back into an awareness of his life. The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea (Sebastian Junger) The incredible true account of the most A Thousand Splendid Suns (Khaled Hosseini) extraordinary storm of the 20th Century. This is the story of a Afghan women Mariam and Laila grow close despite their nearly rare combination of factors deemed "perfect" and of the doomed twenty-year age difference and initial rivalry, as they suffer at the fishing boat with her crew of six that was helpless in the midst of hands of a common enemy--their abusive, much-older husband, a force beyond comprehension. Rasheed.

Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Falling Leaves: The True Story Of An Unwanted Chinese Disaster (Jon Krakauer) The true account of the disastrous Daughter (Adeline Yen Mah) After Mah’s mother’s death, 1996 ascent of Mt. Everest. The author was one of the climbers. Mah’s father remarries and moves the family to Shanghai to A heart-wrenching, breathtaking adventure about people, glory evade the Japanese during WWII, but Mah and her siblings are and tragedy. relegated to second-class status by their stepmother.

Doublebind (Chris Bohjalian) Hole in My Life (Jack Gantos) In this autobiographical sketch After surviving an attack while biking, Vermont college student of his restless final years of high school, the popular young adult Laurel Estabrook decides to volunteer at a homeless shelter novelist Gantos reveals his short-lived career as a drug smuggler where she meets Bobbie Cocker, a mentally ill man who claims and his harrowing time in prison. to have been an established photographer and whose life she becomes infatuated with. Death Be Not Proud (John Gunther) This deeply moving book is a father’s memoir of his brave, intelligent, and spirited son who Alive (Paul Read Piers) was 17-years-old when he died of a brain tumor. In 1972 an airplane crashed in the Andes wilderness. This is the true story of those who survived. Gripping! In the Company of Men: A Woman at the Citadel (Nancy Mace) Nancy Mace chronicles the experiences she had as one All the Pretty Horses (Cormac McCarthy) John Grady Cole is of the first women allowed to attend The Citadel and discusses too young to be given charge of the family ranch and is cut off how the male students reacted to her presence. from the only life he has ever imagined wanting. Geeks: How Two Lost Boys Rode The Internet Out of Idaho (Jon Katz) Tells the true story of Jesse and Eric, 19-year-old TELLING OUR STORIES – roommates in the small town in Idaho, who changed their lives MEMOIR/AUTOBIOGRAPHY/BIOGRAPHY and built a new future for themselves with the power of the Internet. Born on a Blue Day: Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant (Daniel Tammet) Daniel Tammet, an autistic The Glass Castle: A Memoir (Jeannette Walls) Walls savant, describes how his rare condition, which gives him chronicles her upbringing at the hands of eccentric, nomadic incredible mental powers and a compulsive need for order and parents. She describes in fascinating detail what it was to be a routine, has influenced every aspect of his life and what child in this family. challenges he has faced while trying to be independent. I Have Lived a Thousand Years (Livia E. Bitton-Jackson) The Burn Journals (Brent Runyon) When Brent Runyon was A memoir of Elli Friedmann who tells about her experiences at 14 years old, he set himself on fire in a suicide attempt. This is Auschwitz, a concentration camp where she was taken in 1944 the story of his recovery and his re-entry into his old life. when the Nazis invaded her native Hungary.

Three Cups of Tea (Greg Mortenson) The Radioactive Boy Scout: The True Story of a Boy and His Greg Mortenson recounts the experiences he had while trying to Backyard Nuclear Reactor (Ken Silverstein) The story of help impoverished villages in Pakistan's Karakoram Himalaya David Hahn who built a nuclear breeder reactor in his backyard, build schools for their children. endangering the residents of his Michigan hometown and raising the ire of the federal government. Devil in the Details: Scenes from an Obsessive Girlhood (Jennifer Traig) Autobiography of Malcolm X The Black Muslim leader, In this 1970s memoir, Traig describes how, from the age of 12 firebrand, and anti-integrationist, tells his life story to veteran until her freshman year at Brandeis, she suffered from various writer and journalist, Alex Haley. Powerful! forms of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), including anorexia and a rarer, "hyper-religious form" of OCD called Thura's Diary: My Life in Wartime Iraq (Thura al-Windawi) scrupulosity, in which sanctified rituals such as hand washing and The author, now a scholarship student at an American university, daily prayer are repeated in endless loops. The daughter of a writes of her daily life in war-besieged Baghdad. Jewish father and a Catholic mother, Traig becomes obsessed with Jewish ritual, inventing her own prayers since her Jewish Jarhead: A Marine’s Chronicle of the Gulf War and other education is limited. Initially, Traig's family is amused; Battles (Anthony Swofford) eventually, they try to help. In 1990, Swofford, a young Marine sniper, went to Saudi Arabia with dreams of vaporizing Iraqi skulls into clouds of "pink mist." Zlata's Diary: A Child's Life in Wartime Sarajevo (Zlata As he recounts in this aggressively uninspiring Gulf War memoir, Filipovic) Zlata, a 13-year-old girl living in Sarajevo, kept a his youthful bloodlust was never satisfied. After spending months diary during the war which devastated so many lives. The diary cleaning sand out of his rifle—so feverish with murderous begins just before her eleventh birthday when there was still anticipation that he almost blows a buddy's head off after an peace in her homeland and traces the devastation through Zlata’s argument—Swofford ends up merely a spectator of a lopsided own words. battle waged with bombs, not bullets.

My Forbidden Face: Growing Up Under the Taliban: A Young Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (Robert Pirsig) Woman’s Story (Latifa) Latifa was a 16-year-old aspiring A father and his eleven-year-old son take a motorcycle trip across journalist when the Taliban took over Afghanistan. Suddenly, the country, and together, the two learn about life, love, and she was confined to her apartment, unable to venture out identity. uncovered by the hated burka.

King of the World: Muhammad Ali and the rise of an American Laika (Nick Abadzis) hero (David Remnick) Biography of heavyweight boxing Classic dog-story themes such as loyalty serve as a backdrop for champion Muhammad Ali. this fictionalized account of Laika, the first living creature launched into outer space. A charming and scruffy little dog, Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt) The author chronicles his Laika survives an uncaring master and life as a stray before impoverished childhood in Limerick, Ireland, in the 1930s and becoming part of the Russian space program circa 1956, just as 1940s, describing his father's alcoholism and talent for the Soviet Union had achieved a huge victory over American storytelling and his early experiences in the Catholic church; he competition. balances painful memories with humor. The Plain Janes (Cecil Castelluci) A Long Way Gone (Ishmael Beah) Jane's parents relocate to the suburbs when she's caught in a Ishmael Beah describes his experiences after he was driven from bomb attack in Metro City. Bored and lonely in her new town his home by war in Sierra Leone and picked up by the and school, the teen is thrilled when she meets three other girls government army at the age of thirteen, serving as a soldier for named Jane, all of them as out of place as she is. They form a three years before being removed from fighting by UNICEF and secret club, the Plain Janes, and decide to liven up the town with eventually moving to the United States. art. Some people like their work, but most are frightened, and the local police call the Plain Janes' work "art attacks." Running With Scissors (Augusten Burroughs) The author chronicles his life from age twelve to sixteen, living Notes for a War Story (Gipi) in the bizarre home of his mother's psychiatrist, where he was A bleak tale of three young drifters making their way across the sexually abused by the doctor's thirty-three-year-old adopted son. war-torn landscape of an unnamed Balkan country is told from the point of view of protagonist Giuliano. The narrative traces his path as he is forced to go through the peripheral results of war GRAPHICALLY SPEAKING – GRAPHIC NOVELS & as a deadening day-to-day struggle to find food and shelter while MANGAS avoiding the occasional stray bullet.

Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E., Vol. 1: This Is What They Want Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (Frank Miller) Ten years (Warren Ellis) The Highest Anti-Terrorism Effort, or H.A.T.E. (a after his retirement, a troubled Batman returns to the streets subsidiary of the Beyond Corporation) put Nextwave together to evening the score with criminals in an increasingly violent fight Bizarre Weapons of Mass Destruction. When Nextwave manner, which brings trouble from the police and a gang called discovers that H.A.T.E. and Beyond are terrorist cells the Mutants and a conflict with Superman. themselves, and that the BWMDs were intended to kill them, they are less than pleased. In fact, they are rather angry. So they Firestorm: Nuclear Man (Stuart Moore) Jason Rusch is an make things explode. Lots of things. ordinary college student. Lorraine Kelly is a respected United States Senator. Merged together, they wield the atomic forces of Sloth (Gilbert Hernandez) the universe as Firestorm, the Nuclear Man. Firestorm must stop “The story is of young people too creative, too smart and too a deadly nuclear accident and a threat to his very existence. passionate for the constraints of suburbia. Miguel Serra wakes up from a yearlong coma, slower physically but not mentally. He is Girl Stories (Lauren Weinstein) The author recounts her early literally out of step with the rest of the world, a perfectly teen years in which she was obsessively concerned with her disaffected youth” (Publisher’s Weekly). social standing and weight, annoyed by being Jewish at Christmas, tormented by a navel piercing gone awry and Castle Waiting (Linda Medley) perplexed by the mystery of boys and why they like her or don't. A long time ago in the happy kingdom of Putney, a king and a queen accidentally snub the local wicked witch. The result is the American Born Chinese (Gene Luen Yang) “As alienated kids standard curse: a 100-year sleep brought on, you guessed it, when go, Jin Wang is fairly run-of-the-mill: he eats lunch by himself in the princess pricks her finger on a needle. But what happens after a corner of the schoolyard, gets picked on by bullies and jocks the princess awakes and goes off with her charming prince? and develops a sweat-inducing crush on a pretty classmate. And, There's nothing left for a castle full of characters to do except to oh, yes, his parents are from Taiwan.” (Publishers Weekly) wait. Thus the stage is set for a surprising, quite wonderful story.

True Believers: Runaways (Brian K. Vaughn) A group of six LOVES ME, LOVES ME NOT – ROMANCE young friends, having discovered their parents are all secretly super-powered villains, run away from home and embark on a The Boy Next Door (Meg Cabot) Melissa Fuller, celebrity- series of adventures, fueled by their desire to thwart their legacy gossip columnist, lives a relatively shallow existence until her of evil. elderly neighbor is attacked and sent to the hospital in a coma, leaving behind her Great Dane and two cats. A funny story told Death Note (Tsugumi Ohba ) Light Yagami comes across a entirely in emails. death note dropped by a Shinigami death god and vows to use this power to rid the world of evil; but when criminals start Just Listen (Sarah Dessen) Isolated from friends who believe dropping dead, the great detective is sent to track down the killer. the worst because she has not been truthful with them, 16-year- old Annabel finds an ally in classmate Owen, whose honesty and passion for music help her to face and share what really happened at the end-of-the-year party that changed her life.

Romiette and Julio (Sharon M. Draper) Romiette, an African- Teen Ink: What Matters (Stephanie H. Meyer, ed.) A American girl, and Julio, a Hispanic boy, discover that they collection of stories and poems by teenage writers about what's attend the same high school after falling in love on the Internet really important to today's teens. In "Locked Up," a young man but are harassed by a gang whose members object to their incarcerated for murder writes about turning his life around. interracial dating.

How To Ruin a Summer Vacation (Simone Elkeles) When 16- We Beat the Street: How a Friendship Pact Led to Success year-old Amy, a spoiled American, goes to Israel for a three- (Sampson Davis; George Jenkins; Rameck Hunt) “What month summer vacation with a father she barely knows, she is started out as three boys skipping class turned out to be the most not prepared for his Jewish family and the changes they bring significant experience of our lives,” says George Jenkins, who, about in her life. together with Sampson Davis and Rameck Hunt, made a teenage pact to leave their impoverished New Jersey neighborhood, Veil of Roses (Laura Fitzgerald) Tamila Saroush, a 27-year-old attend medical school, and become doctors. Iranian woman, is in the U.S. courtesy of a 90-day visa. If she doesn’t find a husband with American citizenship in that time, The Everything College Survival Book: From Social Life To she’ll be forced back under the veil of repression. Study Skills - All You Need To Fit Right In (Michael S. Malone) What to bring with you, how to manage money, social The Earth, My Butt and Other Big Round Things (Carolyn life, classes, friends. Mackler) Feeling like she does not fit in with the other members of her family who are all thin, brilliant, and good- Chew on This: Everything You Don’t Want to Know About Fast looking, 15-year-old Virginia tries to deal with her self-image, Food (Eric Schlosser) From the best-selling author of Fast her first physical relationship, and her disillusionment with some Food Nation, a more teen-friendly look at the fast food industry’s of the people closest to her. growth, practices and effect on public health. According to School Library Journal, the author lays out the gruesome details Wait for Me (An Na) As her senior year in high school behind the tasty burgers and sandwiches. approaches, Mina yearns to find her own path in life but working at the family business, taking care of her little sister, and dealing 10,000 Days of Thunder: A History of the Vietnam War (Philip with her Korean mother's impossible expectations are as stifling Caputo) A look at the Vietnam War by a prize-winning as the southern California heat until she falls in love with a man journalist. Photographs and personal anecdotes of soldiers and who offers a way out. civilians bring to life what is perhaps the most unpopular war in American history to date. *** Also read other titles by this Crazy in Love (Dandi Mackay) author.***** High school senior Mary Jane Ettermeyer has always been the good girl, but when she falls hard for Jackson, the cutest guy in Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America (Barbara school, she finds herself questioning her desire to stay pure until Ehrenreich) Writer and cultural critic Ehrenreich hides her real marriage and wondering if she even ha a chance with Jackson. identity and attempts to make a life on a salary of just over $300 per week after taxes. She is often forced to work at two jobs, If You Come Softly (Jacqueline Woodson) After meeting at leaving her time and energy for little else than sleeping and their private school in New York, 15-year-old Jeremiah, who is working. black and whose parents are separated, and Ellie, who is white and whose mother has twice abandoned her, fall in love and then Freedom Writers: How a Teacher and 150 Teens Used Writing to try to cope with people's reactions. Change Themselves and the World Around Them (Freedom Writers/Erin Gruwell) This collective journal brings together the Rebecca (Daphne Du Maurier) This riveting tale of fear, work of a group of students, the Freedom Writers, from an English suspicion, and love opens as the unnamed narrator reminisces class at an "at risk" public high school. Compare it to the movie! about her former home, the grand English estate, Manderley. She had been young and shy, a lady's companion, when she met the Marley and Me: Life and Love With The World’s Worst Dog wealthy recent widow, Maxim de Winter, fell in love with him, (John Grogan) The story of a family in the making and the and married him in a matter of weeks. They return to his home, wondrously neurotic dog who taught them what really matters in but her new husband is strangely distant until a horrible secret is life. Is it possible for humans to discover the key to happiness revealed that changes their lives. through a bigger-than-life, bad-boy dog? Just ask the Grogans.

Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen) In early nineteenth-century Hurricane Katrina: The Storm That Changed America (Time England, a spirited young woman copes with the courtship of a Magazine) An account of the devastation that was Hurricane snobbish gentleman as well as the romantic entanglements of her Katrina, complete with dozens of amazing photographs. four sisters. Being Digital (Nicholas Negreponte) The founder of the media lab at MIT makes predictions about the technological future of THIS IS FOR REAL! – NON-FICTION the world. Wearable computers? The end of the nation state?

Close to Shore: The Terrifying Shark Attacks of 1916 (Mike Capuzzo) Details the first documented cases in American history of sharks attacking swimmers which occurred along the Atlantic coast of New Jersey in 1916.

PLAY BALL! (AND OTHER SPORTS) Damage (A.M. Jenkins) Seventeen-year-old football hero Dairy Queen, A Novel (Catherine Murdock) After spending Austin, trying to understand the inexplicable depression that has her summer running the family farm and training the quarterback drained his interest in life, thinks that he has found relief in a girl for her school's rival football team, 16-year-old D.J. decides to go who seems very special. out for the sport herself, not anticipating the reactions of those around her. In These Girls, Hope is a Muscle (Madeline Blais) Chronicles one basketball season of a girls' high school team in Amherst, Massachusetts.

Rash (Pete Hautman) In a future society that has decided it Wrestling Sturbridge (Rich Wallace) Stuck in a small town would "rather be safe than free," 16-year-old Bo's anger where no one ever leaves and relegated by his wrestling coach to management problems land him in a tundra jail where he survives sit on the bench while his best friend becomes state champion, with the help of his running skills and an artificial intelligence Ben decides he can't let his last high school wrestling season slip program named Bork. by without challenging his friend and the future.

Bad Girls, Bad Girls, Whatcha Gonna Do? (Cynthia Voight) Offsides (Erik Esckilsen) Tom Gray, a Mohawk Indian and As new ninth-graders eager only to survive high school, Mikey star soccer player, moves to a new high school and refuses to and Margalo must deal creatively with stolen money and cheating play for the Warriors with their insulting mascot. on the tennis courts. Beckham: Both Feet on The Ground: An Autobiography (David Beckham) British soccer legend David Beckham on his Raiders Night (Robert Lipsyte) Matt Rydeck, co-captain of his life as an internationally famous soccer star. He talks candidly high school football team, endures a traumatic season as he about the perils of life as a superstar and the difficulties juggling witnesses the rape of a rookie player by teammates and grapples his family life and travel. with his own use of performance-enhancing drugs. Roberto Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball’s Last How I Fell In Love and Learned to Shoot Free Throws (Jon Hero (Jeff Manariss) A great sports biography about one of the Ripslinger) Seventeen-year-old Danny Henderson, an most charitable figures in sports history. indifferent basketball player, has his eye on Angel McPherson, star of the girls' team in their Iowa high school. But Angel is a Also try books by these authors: Chris Crutcher, Carl Deuker, loner and she’s hiding a secret about her unconventional family. Thomas Dygard, Robert Lipsyte, John Feinstein.

Swimming to Antarctica: Tales of a Long Distance Swimmer I COULD USE A GOOD LAUGH! (Lynne Cox) Distance swimmer Lynne Cox describes her emotional and spiritual need to swim and chronicles some of her Dunk (David Lubar) Chad, hoping to work out his frustrations more memorable swims. and his anger by taking a summer job as a dunk tank Bozo on the boardwalk at the New Jersey shore, comes to a better Black and White (Paul Volponi) Two star high school understanding of himself and the uses of humor as he undergoes basketball players, one black and one white, experience the training in the fine art of insults. justice system differently after committing a crime together and getting caught. Absolutely, Positively Not (David LaRochelle) A teenage boy's humorous attempts to fit in at his Minnesota high school by Soul Surfer: A True Story of Faith, Family, and Fighting to becoming a macho, girl-loving heterosexual. Get Back on the Board (Bethany Hamilton) Bethany Hamilton shares the story of her lifelong love of surfing, and tells how she All American Girl (Meg Cabot) Sophomore Samantha Madison was able to recover and return to competition with the help of her stops a presidential assassination attempt, is appointed teen family, friends, and faith, after losing her arm in a shark attack at ambassador to the United Nations, and catches the eye of the very the age of thirteen. cute First Son. Laugh out loud narration.

Crackback (John Coy) Miles barely recalls when football was Angus, Thongs and Full-frontal Snogging: Confessions of fun after being sidelined by a new coach, constantly criticized by Georgia Nicolson (Louise Rennison) The humorous journal of his father, and pressured by his best friend to take performance- a year in the life of a 14-year-old British girl who tries to reduce enhancing drugs. the size of her nose, stop her mad cat from terrorizing the neighborhood animals, and win the love of handsome hunk Baseball: The Perfect Game: An All-Star Anthology Robbie. Celebrating The Game’s Greatest Players, Teams, and Moments (Josh Leventhal, ed.) Baseball is the ultimate Talk to the Hand: The Utter Bloody Rudeness of the World American game. This anthology brings together the greatest Today Or Six Good Reasons to Stay Home and Bolt the Door writing and images chronicling the game’s heroes and heroics - (Lynne Truss) Hilarious rant on the abysmal state of manners in from its earliest moments to present day. the world today.

Boomsday (Christopher Buckley) Lord of the Rings* (J.R.R. Tolkien) Epic story of Middle- Angry after hearing her father paid for her brother to attend Yale Earth and the battle to save mankind. A great read for those who University, an opportunity she missed because he made a bad enjoy interesting characters and fantasy fiction adventure! investment at the same time she was applying, Washington spin doctor Cassandra Devine suggests baby boomers euthanize A Wizard of Earthsea* (Ursula K. Le Guin) A boy grows to themselves by the age of seventy-five for an incentive, an idea manhood while attempting to subdue the evil he unleashed on the that catches the nation's attention. world as an apprentice to the master wizard.

The Absolutely True Story of a Part Time Indian (Sherman Fairest (Gail Carson Levine) In the Kingdom of Ayortha, Alexie) Aza, an unattractive woman with a magical voice, learns to Budding cartoonist Junior leaves his troubled school on the balance her appearance with her talent. Meanwhile, her singing Spokane Indian Reservation to attend an all-white farm town attracts both Prince Ijori, who cannot resist it, and Queen Ivi, who school where the only other Native American is the school plots to use it to benefit herself. mascot. Eragon* (Christopher Paolini) In Aagaesia, a 15-year-old boy Rat Boys: a Dating Experiment (Thom Eberhardt) Marci and of unknown lineage called Eragon finds a mysterious stone that Summer, two somewhat geeky ninth graders, have to come up weaves his life into an intricate tapestry of destiny, magic, and with the dates they boasted about for the end-of-school dance. A power, peopled with dragons, elves, and monsters. magic ring at a junk shop and a pair of pet rats do the job, but the girls have to keep the rat boys from gnawing everything in sight. Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment* (James Patterson) After the mutant Erasers abduct the youngest member of their Three Clams and an Oyster (Randy Powell) During their group, the "birdkids," who are the result of genetic humorous search to find a fourth player for their flag football experimentation, take off in pursuit and find themselves team, three high school juniors are forced to examine their long struggling to understand their own origins and purpose. friendship, their individual flaws, and their inability to try new experiences. Life As We Knew It (Susan Beth Pfeffer) Through journal entries 16-year-old Miranda describes her family's struggle to A Fate Totally Worse than Death (Paul Fleischman) survive after a meteor hits the moon, causing worldwide This takeoff on teen-horror novels is funny, mocking, and a tsunamis, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions. surefire hit. Cliffs, murder, ghosts, and revenge form the core of the plot as three teen girls at Cliffside High draw a bead on Book of a Thousand Days (Shannon Hale) Helga, the ravishing Norwegian exchange student who has When Dashti, a maid, and Lady Saren, her mistress, are shut in a captivated Drew, a boy whose father is a millionaire. tower for seven years for Saren’s refusal to marry a man she despises, the two prepare for a very long and dark imprisonment. Blood Sucking Fiends (Christopher Moore) As food runs low and the days go from broiling hot to freezing Office worker, Jodi, wakes up one morning under a dumpster and cold, it is all Dashti can do to keep them fed and comfortable. But the sun burns her and she has super human strength. She has the arrival outside the tower of Saren’s two suitors—one never watched vampire movies or read the books, so she doesn't welcome, and the other decidedly less so—brings both hope and know what to do or how to do it. great danger, and Dashti must make the desperate choices of a girl whose life is worth more than she knows. Born to Rock (Gordon Korman) Leo Caraway thinks he has his life planned out until he gets falsely accused of cheating on an Endymion Spring* (Matthew Skelton) Having reluctantly exam, loses his scholarship to Harvard and discovers his bio-dad accompanied his academic mother and pesky younger sister to is a legendary punk rocker, King Maggot of Purge. Oxford, 12-year-old Blake Winters is at loose ends until he stumbles across an ancient and magical book and which now I’m a Stranger Here Myself (Bill Bryson) Bryson’s hilarious and draws Blake into a dangerous and life-threatening quest. poignant account of his return to America after twenty years in England. The Thief* (Megan Whalen Turner) Gen flaunts his ingenuity as a thief and relishes the adventure which takes him to a remote Me Talk Pretty One Day (David Sedaris) Another uproarious temple of the gods where he will attempt to steal a precious collection of essays on life’s weirdness from a man who seems to stone. have lived more of that weirdness than most. Uglies* (Scott Westerfeld) Tally is faced with a difficult OUT OF THIS WORLD – SCIENCE FICTION FANTASY choice when her new friend Shay decides to risk life on the outside rather than submit to the forced operation that turns 16- Flight (Sherman Alexie) year-old girls into gorgeous beauties. Follows the life of a troubled teen as he is transported back and forth in time in a search for his true identity. Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley) The “King Arthur” story from the point of view of the women, especially Morgan le Ender’s Game* (Orson Scott Card) Ender, who is the result of Fey. genetic experimentation, may be the military genius Earth needs in its war against an alien enemy. Wicked (Gregory Maguire) Elphaba, born with emerald green skin, comes of age in the land of Oz, rooms with debutante Glinda at the university, and follows a path in life that earns her the label of Wicked.

On a Pale Horse (Piers Anthony) The Rag and Bone Shop (Robert Cormier) Trent, an ace Zane belongs to a world in which the scientific revolution has interrogator from Vermont, works to procure a confession from been followed by the revolution of magic, and he is thrust into an introverted 12-year-old accused of murdering his 7-year-old the role of Death. friend in Monument, Massachusetts.

The Hitcherhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams) The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime (Mark The story of a young man who is rescued by an alien friend Haddon) Despite his overwhelming fear of interacting with seconds before Earth is demolished to make room for a galactic people, Christopher, a mathematically-gifted, autistic 15-year-old freeway. boy, decides to investigate the murder of a neighbor's dog and uncovers secret information about his mother. Other authors to look for: Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Heinlein, Frank Herbert, Gary Paulsen, Lemony Snicket, Dance Hall of the Dead (Tony Hillerman) No one is seriously and Sheri S. Tepper alarmed by the disappearance of two Native American boys until Lt. Joe Leaphorn finds the splattered trail of blood which leads to *Indicates this book is part of a series a ritually slaughtered victim.

Angels and Demons (Dan Brown) World-renowned Harvard IT’S A MYSTERY TO ME symbologist Robert Langdon is summoned to a Swiss research facility to analyze a mysterious symbol seared into the chest of a The Body of Christopher Creed (Carol Plum-Ucci) When murder victim. Here he discovers evidence of the resurgence of class misfit Chris Creed suddenly disappears, his fellow students an ancient brotherhood with a vendetta against the Catholic are not so much worried but abuzz with speculation: Is he a Church. runaway, a suicide, or a crime victim? Where are the Children? (Mary Higgins Clark) Nancy The Killer’s Cousin (Nancy Werlin) After being acquitted of Harmon, freed when the main witness in her trial for the murder murder, 17-year-old David goes to stay with relatives in of her children flees the country, changes her identity and moves Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he finds himself forced to face to the East coast where she remarries and has two more children, his past as he learns more about his strange young cousin, Lily. but her nightmare begins again when she looks out the window one day to find that Mike and Missy have disappeared. Acceleration (Graham McNamee) Stuck working in the Lost and Found of the Toronto Transit Authority for the summer, 17- Step on a Crack (James Patterson) year-old Duncan finds the diary of a serial killer and sets out to New York detective Michael Bennett faces raising his ten stop him. children alone after the death of his wife when he is called upon to help rescue thirty-four high-profile hostages. Missing Persons: The Rose Queen ( M.E. Rabb) After their father dies, Sam, 17, and Sophie, 15, are forced to Also read books by Agatha Christie and P.D. James. leave their home in Queens, NY, and begin a new life on the lam. Afraid that their evil stepmother will separate them and force Sophie to attend a boarding school in Canada, they take their VISITING THE PAST – HISTORY & HISTORICAL father's funds and make a run for it. With the help of a FICTION schoolmate with criminal connections, the sisters establish new identities as Sam and Fiona Scott and take up residence in the Private Peaceful (Michael Morpurgo) When Thomas small town of Venice, IN. There, they meet many new people, Peaceful's older brother is forced to join the British Army, including Noelle McBride, the 16-year-old Rose Queen of Thomas decides to sign up as well, although he is only 14 years Venice and a stuck-up snob. When she disappears after Sam and old, to prove himself to his country, his family, his childhood Sophie drop her off one evening, they become the prime suspects love and himself. because they were the last people to see her. With the police on their trail, the sisters become amateur sleuths to crack the case The Two Hearts of Kwasi Boachi (Arthur Japin) Fascinating and clear their own names story of the African slave trade and Dutch colonialism as seen through the eyes of two young African princes. Shattering Glass (Gail Giles) When Rob, the charismatic leader of the senior class, turns the school nerd into Prince Sky: A Novel in Three Sets and an Encore (Rod Townley) In Charming, his actions lead to unexpected violence. New York City in 1959, 15-year-old Alec Schuyler, at odds with his widowed father over his love of music, finds a mentor and The Grounding of Group 6 (Julian F. Thompson) Arriving at friend in a blind, black jazz musician. what they believe is an exclusive school, five 16-year olds are unaware that they have been sent there to be exterminated and Dance of the Assassins (Herve Jubert) A sorceress and a police that their teacher is a murderer for hire. detective track a reborn Jack the Ripper through historically recreated cities, from Victorian London to Montezuma's Mexico As Simple As Snow (Gregory Gallaway) An unnamed teenage City. boy is struggling through a lonely adolescence until a new girl in his school's Goth crowd, Anna, becomes interested in him The Thief Lord (Cornelia Funke) Two brothers, having run romantically. When she suddenly goes missing and is presumed away from the aunt who plans to adopt the younger one, are dead, her heartsick boyfriend ponders her fate. An accident, sought by a detective hired by their aunt, but they have found surely – or was it? shelter with - and protection from - Venice's "Thief Lord.”

The Luxe by Anna Godberson Fallen Angels (Walter Dean Myers) Seventeen-year-old Richie The story opens in 1899 with the funeral of Elizabeth Holland, a Perry, just out of his Harlem high school, enlists in the Army in well-bred beauty said to have plunged to her death in the Hudson the summer of 1967 and spends a devastating year on active duty River. The narrative then travels back several weeks, tracing the in Vietnam. relationships and events that have led to the somber assembly. This tangled web includes not one but two sets of star-crossed The Killer Angels (Michael Shaara) Historical fiction about the lovers; an upstairs/downstairs romance; a scheming social battle of Gettysburg. Excellent storytelling combined with an climber; a bitter servant girl; and oodles of money, all set in a accurate depiction of historical events. Edith Wharton via Hollywood vision of Old New York. A Farewell to Arms (Ernest Hemingway) An American A Great and Terrible Beauty (Libba Bray) After the ambulance officer serving on the Austro-Italian front deserts to suspicious death of her mother in 1895, 16-year-old Gemma join an English nurse after the retreat of Caporetto. returns to England, after many years in India, to attend a finishing school where she becomes aware of her magical powers and ability to see into the spirit world. WAXING POETIC

Good Poems for Hard Times (Garrison Keillor) Garrison More Than Petticoats: Remarkable Connecticut Women Keillor has compiled a collection of poetry that he calls (Antonia Petrash) The lives of thirteen strong and determined “memorable, recitable, and accessible.” women, all of whom broke through social, cultural, and political barriers to advance women's roles in the arts, on the battlefield, Sailing Alone Around the Room: New and Selected Poems and in education, exploration, and commerce. (Billy Collins) A collection by Billy Collins, former U.S. Poet Laureate. Collins will tackle any topic: his subject matter varies The Book Thief (Markus Zusak) Trying to make sense of the from snow days to Aristotle to forgetfulness. horrors of World War II, Death relates the story of Liesel, a young German girl whose book-stealing and story-telling talents Stop Pretending: What Happened When My Big Sister Went help sustain her family and the Jewish man they are hiding as Crazy (Sonya Sones) In a series of short, intense poems, a well as their neighbors. younger sister has a difficult time adjusting to life after her older sister has a mental breakdown. In Johnstown, In A Beautiful Garden (Kathleen Cambor) Set against the backdrop of the Johnstown, Pennsylvania, flood of Crank (Ellen Hopkins) Kristina Georgia Snow is the perfect 1889. The South Fork Dam separates two very different worlds: daughter, gifted high school junior, quiet, never any trouble. But above it lies the exclusive South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club; on a trip to visit her absentee father, Kristina meets crystal meth, below it are scattered several working-class towns. When James “crank.” Soon, her grades plummet, her relationships with family Talbot, a lawyer hired to secure the club's charter, alerts the and friends deteriorate, and she needs more and more of the members to the earthen dam's structural problems, his warnings monster just to get through the day. ”Hypnotic and jagged free go unheeded. verse wrenchingly chronicles 16-year-old Kristina's addiction to crank” (Kirkus Review). The Black Flower: A Novel of the Civil War (Howard Bahr) A vivid retelling of the November 1864 Battle of Franklin, Food (Ogden Nash) America’s funniest poet discourses on the Tennessee. A haunting portrayal of suffering and death. (See topics of food and the perils of eating in the modern world. also sequels The Year of Jubilo and The Judas Field) The 100 Best Love Poems of All Time (Leslie Pockell, ed.) Mississippi Trial 1955 (Christopher Crowe) In Mississippi in Timeless verses of passion and romance, from old favorites to 1955, a 16-year-old finds himself at odds with his grandfather modern classics. over issues surrounding the kidnapping and murder of a 14-year- old African American from Chicago. Cool Salsa (Lori Carlson) Whether discussing the immigrant's frustration at not being able Finding Moon (Tony Hillerman) Set mostly in Vietnam to speak English, the violence suffered both within and outside of during the fall of Saigon in 1975, this is the story of Moon the ethnic community, the familiar adolescent desire to belong, or Mathias. When his younger brother dies in Southeast Asia, celebrating the simple joys of life, these fine poems are incisive Moon discovers that there is a baby daughter missing somewhere and photographic in their depiction of a moment. in Vietnam. He leads a motley group of culturally varied misfits in his quest. Red Hot Salsa: Bilingual Poems on Being Young and Latino in the United States (Lori Marie Carlson, ed.) Latino poets tell us, Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett) The story of medieval France in English and in Spanish, who they are, where they are, and and the building of the gothic and Roman cathedrals told through what their hopes are for the future. the life of a family. Poems From Homeroom: A Writer’s Place to Start (Kathi King Leopold’s Ghost (Adam Hochschold) The history behind Appelt) A collection of poems about the experiences of young Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. The story of the Belgian people and a section with information about how each poem was Congo and human rights during the late 19th Century. written to enable readers to create their own original poems.

Paint Me Like I Am: Teen Poems (WritersCorps) A collection Being Dead (Vivian Vande Velde) Seven supernatural stories, of poems by teens who have taken part in writing programs run all having something to do with death. by a national nonprofit organization called WritersCorps. To read the words of these young people is to hear the diverse voices of Paranoid Park (Blake Nelson) A 16-year-old Portland, teenagers everywhere. Oregon, skateboarder, whose parents are going through a difficult divorce, is engulfed by guilt and confusion when he accidentally kills a security guard at a train yard. NOT FOR THE FAINT-HEARTED (HORROR/SUPERNATURAL) Dreamcatcher (Stephen King) Four friends’ association with a mentally handicapped boy with supernatural abilities leaves them Cirque du Freak (Darren Shan) Two boys who are best friends with special gifts that come in handy when they unite as adults visit an illegal freak show where an encounter with a vampire and for an annual hunting trip in Maine and find themselves in the a deadly spider forces them to make life-changing choices. middle of an alien invasion.

Vampire Kisses (Ellen Schreiber) Sixteen-year-old Raven, an Dracula (Bram Stoker) After discovering the double identity of outcast who always wears black and hopes to become a vampire the wealthy Transylvanian nobleman, Count Dracula, a small some day, falls in love with the mysterious new boy in town who group of people vow to rid the world of the evil vampire. is eager to find out if he can make her dreams come true. Edgar Allen Poe (Edgar Allen Poe) A collection of five of Twilight (Stephanie Myers) Poe's unsettling short stories, including “The Fall of the House of When seventeen-year-old Bella leaves Phoenix to live with her Usher,” “The Masque of the Red Death,” “The Tell-Tale Heart,” father in Forks, Washington, she meets an exquisitely handsome “The Cask of Amontillado,” and “The Oval Portrait.” boy at school for whom she feels an overwhelming attraction and who she comes to realize is not wholly human. The story Coraline ( Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean) continues in Eclipse and New Moon. After Coraline and her parents move into an old house, Coraline asks her mother about a mysterious locked door. Her mother A Fate Totally Worse Than Death (Paul Fleischman) In this unlocks it to reveal that it leads nowhere: "When they turned the horror novel parody, three self-centered members of Cliffside house into flats, they simply bricked it up," her mother explains. High School's ruling clique, who are beginning to age rapidly, But something about the door attracts the girl, and when she later become convinced that the beautiful new exchange student is the unlocks it herself, the bricks have disappeared. Through the door, ghost of the girl whose death they caused the year before. she travels a dark corridor into a world that eerily mimics her own, but with sinister differences. Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid: The Book of Scary Urban Legends (Jan Harold Brunvand) More than 90 frightening urban legends. Prom Dates from Hell (Rosemary Clement-Moore) Under normal circumstances, Maggie Quinn would want nothing Shattered Mirror (Amelia Atwater-Rhodes) As 17-year-old to do with the vicious, elite clique at her high school. But when Sarah, daughter of a powerful line of vampire-hunting witches, the jocks and their girlfriends start falling prey to a series of continues to pursue the ancient bloodsucker Nikolas, she finds situations ranging from embarrassing to potentially fatal, not to herself in a dangerous friendship with two vampire siblings in her mention reeking of sulfur, the school newspaper reporter can't high school. ignore the story. In addition to being a Nancy Drew wannabe, Maggie has inherited her grandmother's sixth sense, as evidenced Watchers (Dean Koontz) The adventures of two creatures by the demon appearing in her dreams. Although she is initially which have escaped from a secret, sinister government laboratory reluctant to believe that anything supernatural is going on, her where experiments in genetic engineering are conducted. partnership with a paranormal-studies college student who is in one of her father's classes eventually leads her to a salt-throwing Full Tilt (Neal Shusterman) When 16-year-old Blake goes to a showdown with the demon and his minions at her senior prom. mysterious, by-invitation-only carnival he somehow knows that it could save his comatose brother but soon learns that much more is at stake if he fails to meet the challenge presented there by the *Summaries adapted from Amazon.com & Titlewave.com beautiful Cassandra.