 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|||||||||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Summer Reading Program 2010 |
Flop down and Flip the pages.
Trek
to Someone Else's World
 |
Books recommended by students. |
 |
Books recommended by staff |
|
|
 |
What I Saw and How I Lied by Judith Blundell |
National Book Award for Young Peoples' Literature, School Library Journal Best Books 2009, YALSA Best Book for Young Adults 2009, Notable Book 2008 - In this sophisticated thriller, 15-year-old Evie grows up quickly when she discovers her adored parents are not the people she thought they were. While on vacation in Palm Beach in 1947, Evie's parents, Joe and Bev, get involved in a shady business deal with the Graysons, another couple on holiday. Meanwhile, Evie begins a flirtation with Peter, a handsome ex-GI who served with Joe and just happens to be staying at their hotel. Evie soon learns that Peter's presence is no coincidence and that he threatens to uncover a terrible secret that Joe has kept since the war. Then Bev, Joe, and Peter go boating, but only two of them return. Evie must sort through secrets, lies, and her own grief to find the truth. Using pitch-perfect dialogue and short sentences filled with meaning, Blundell has crafted a suspenseful, historical mystery that not only subtly explores issues of post—WWII racism, sexism, and socioeconomic class, but also realistically captures the headiness of first love and the crushing realization that adults are not all-powerful. -- Hubert, Jennifer (Reviewed 11-01-2008) (Booklist, vol 105, number 5, p36) |
|||
*Read reviews at Novelist. This is a password protected site, either ask your student or contact the BHS library.
*You can also get
reviews at Amazon.
Back to top
Fiction
The
List
(Titles in blue are new to the summer reading list - Titles in green are books by Brazilian authors.)
 |
Does My Head look Big in This? By Randa Abdel-Fattah - Year Eleven at an exclusive prep school in the suburbs of Melbourne, Australia, would be tough enough, but it is further complicated for Amal when she decides to wear the hijab, the Muslim head scarf, full-time as a badge of her faith--without losing her identity or sense of style. |
Things
Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe - "Okonkwo, driven by blinding ambition,
finally overcomes his father's legacy of shame. Or does he? In the Ibo
village of Umuofia at a time when the tribe is intact, the gods are respected,
and planting yams is a man's principal responsibility, Achebe tells, above
all, a man's story. Like Okonkwo's life, it is clean, hard and beautiful,
but finally painful when the orderly, peaceful village life comes crashing
into Christianity" (AudioFile). |
|
|
Senhora by Jose de Alencar - A Brazilian book that protrays a girl with a strong personality
who gets what she wants. |
||
|
Ubirajara by Jose de Alencar - Portrays the Indians of Brazil: their cultures and their struggles. |
||
The Smell of Apples by Mark Behr - In 1970s South Africa, Marnus Erasmus, an Afrikaner whose father
is a general in the military, watches his family disintegrate under the
ruthlessness of apartheid. |
|||
The Alchemist: A Fable About Following Your Dream by Paula Coelho -
This novel by a Brazilian author is about an Andalusian shepherd boy named
Santiago who travels from his homeland in Spain to the Egyptian desert
in search of treasure buried in the Pyramids. Along the way he meets a
Gypsy woman, a man who calls himself king, and an Alchemist, all of whom
point Santiago in the direction of his quest. No one knows what the treasure
is, or if Santiago will be able to surmount the obstacles along the way
But what starts out as a journey to find worldly goods turns into a meditation
on the treasures found within. |
|||
The
Power of One (Young reader's condensed edition) by Bryce
Courtenay, 1989 - "The original book was published for adults
and made into a movie with Morgan Freeman; this effective condensation
for YAs gives a sense of personal uplift, despite the virulent racism,
but American teens wont get the complex political history. What is timeless
is the picture of the sport and the kid who takes on the giants and wins"
(Booklist). |
|||
Born
Confused by Hidier Desai
- "' Dimple Lala has spent her entire
life trying to fit in. In India, she is too American, while in America
she feels unable to conform, largely because of her parents' efforts to
educate and involve her in Indian culture. By her 17th birthday, she feels
incapable of making anyone happy and is hopelessly confused as to where
she belongs" (School Library Journal). |
|||
 |
Bog Child by Siobhan Dowd - In 1981, the height of Ireland's "Troubles," eighteen-year-old Fergus is distracted from his upcoming A-level exams by his imprisoned brother's hunger strike, the stress of being a courier for Sinn Fein, and dreams of a murdered girl whose body he discovered in a bog. |
 |
Daughter of War by Marsha Forchuk - Skrypuch Armenian Marta disguises herself as a Muslim to escape genocide in Turkey, and must now locate her sister and fiance also who may have hidden their true identities. |
A
Passage to India by E. M. Forster
- " A Passage to India limns a troubling portrait of colonialism
at its worst, and is remarkable for the complexity of its characters.
Here the personal becomes the political and in the breach between Aziz
and his English "friends," Forster foreshadows the eventual end of the
Raj" (School Library Journal). |
|
|
|
Don't
Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood by Alexandra Fuller - Pining for Africa, Fuller's parents departed England in the early '70s while
she was still a toddler. They knew well that their life as white farmers
living in Zimbabwe (Rhodesia at the time) would be anything but glamorous.
Living a crude, rural life, the author and her older sister contended
with "itchy bums and worms and bites up their arms from fleas" and losing
three siblings" (School Library Journal). |
|
|
|
Annie on my Mind by Nancy Garden - A few months into her freshman year at MIT, Liza Winthrop relives in reflective retrospect the past year, when she met and fell in love with Annie Kenyon.
|
|
Ha,
JinWaiting - "The
story of Lin Kong, an officer and doctor living in China during the mid-1960s.
The novel spans 20 years and takes readers on Kong's life journey. In
the beginning, Kong follows the wishes of his parents, entering into a
loveless arranged marriage and producing a daughter" (Library Journal). |
|||
Asphalt Angels by Ineke Holtwijk -
Abandoned on the streets of Rio de Janeiro, thirteen-year-old Alex joins
a group of children like him and finds himself adapting to his new life. |
|||
The
Kite Runner -
"This beautifully written first
novel presents a glimpse of life in Afghanistan before the Russian invasion
and introduces richly drawn, memorable characters. Quiet, intellectual
Amir craves the attention of his father, a wealthy Kabul businessman"
(School Library Journal). Sequel A Thousand Splendid Suns - Hosseini deftly sketches the history of his native land in the late 20th century while also delivering a sensitive and utterly persuasive dual portrait. His writing is simple and unadorned, but his story is heartbreaking. Highly recommended. |
|||
|
The
Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri - "The multigenerational story of the Ganguli family, who arrive in
Cambridge, Massachusetts, from Calcutta in the 1960s. Over 40 years, we
follow the arranged marriage of Western-oriented Ashoke and his traditional
wife, Ashima, and the efforts of their children to live both American
and Indian lives" (AudioFile). |
Tiger Moon by Antonia Michaelis - Snow by Orhan Pamuk
- "After
eight years spent living in exile in Frankfurt, Germany, the poet Ka returns
to the isolated town of Kars during a historic blizzard. Cut off from
the outside world, the town's ingrown tensions are thrown into sharp relief
as Ka investigates the epidemic of suicides occurring among devoutly religious
schoolgirls who prefer to take their own lives rather than remove their
head scarves" (Booklist). |
|
|
Monsoon
Summer by Mitali Perkins -
"This realistic and romantic
novel unobtrusively incorporates details of Indian life and culture. Jazz
is a believable character, curious about her new surroundings but most
engaged by her own family and friendship issues. She is appropriately
upset by the poverty that surrounds her and increasingly aware of the
Indians' different perceptions, including subtle indications of race and
caste" (School Library Journal). |
 |
Red
Glass by Laura Resau,
2007 - "Rich, poetic language, elements of the hero quest story pattern,
and quotations from St. Exupéry's The Little Prince are
braided through this coming-of-age romance as Sophie grows from amorphous
onlooker into a strong, risk-taking young woman" (School Library
Journal). |
Esperanza
Rising - Pam Munoz Ryan -
Esperanza and her mother are forced to leave their life of wealth and
privilege in Mexico to go work in the labor camps of Southern California,
where they must adapt to the harsh circumstances facing Mexican farm workers
on the eve of the Great Depression. |
|
The
Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seirstad
- "A female journalist from Norway moved
in with the Khan family in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban.
Disguised as she was behind the bulky, shapeless burka and escorted always
by a man and even in Western dress, she was somehow anonymous and accepted
readily into the bookseller's large extended family" (School Library
Journal). |
|
 |
Pride
of Baghdad by Brian Vaughan,
2006 - During an American bombing raid in 2003, four lions escaped from the
Baghdad Zoo. That true story is the basis for this excellent fable by
Vaughan ( Ex Machina; Runaways ) and Henrichon in which the animals
can talk to one another and discuss the relative merits of captivity and
life in the wild" (Library Journal). |
 |
Climbing the Stairs by Padma Venkatraman - In India, in 1941, when her father becomes brain-damaged in a non-violent protest march, fifteen-year-old Vidya and her family are forced to move in with her father's extended family and become accustomed to a totally different way of life. |
Nonfiction
Snow
Falling in Spring: Coming of age in China during the cultural revolution. by
Moying Li, 2008 - This inspiring memoir follows Moying Li from age twelve to
twenty-two, illuminating a complex, dark time in China's history as it
tells the compelling story of one girl's difficult but determined coming-of-age
during the Cultural Revolution (Amazon). |
|||
 |
American Shaolin by Matt Polly, 2007 - "I loved American Shaolin . Reading it was like being abducted by an alien-a brilliant, funny, and hospitable alien who took me to another universe of sensibility. There I enjoyed myself immensely" (O'Rourke, P.J.) |
||
First
In: An insider's Account of how the CIA spearheaded the war on terror
in Afganistan. by Gary Schroen, 2007 - " Gary
C. Schroen's astonishing new book tells the story of how a handful of
CIA agents like Hal led the initial post-Sept. 11 charge against al Qaeda
and its Taliban patrons, far outstripping the agency's lumbering competitor,
the U.S. military" (Wahington Post). |
|||
Buy a book online |
||
