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Flop down & Flip the pages
Summer Reading Program
2008
Run
With
a Best Seller
Home Page Reading Lists Reading Responses
Student recommnended titles. 
Staff recommended titles.Featured Title The List Get Books
Featured Title
Stephanie Meyer
Twilight - New Moon & Eclipse - Began as a simple vampire series and quickly became a megaselling publishing phenomenon. The fourth book in the series is due August 2008. In the meantime you can read her lates book Host.
*Read reviews and find more books like this one in NoveList
You will need the user name and password available in the library, or ask your student if they have the password list.
Or check, Amazon for editorial reviews.
Back to top
The List (Titles in blue are new to the list).
This list of adult and young adult reading contains a sampling of fiction and non-fiction titles from current and past best sellers lists.
Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher © 2007
- When high school student Clay Jenkins receives a box in the mail containing
thirteen cassette tapes recorded by his classmate Hannah, who committed
suicide, he spends a bewildering and heartbreaking night crisscrossing their
town, listening to Hannah's voice recounting the events leading up to her
death.(Novelist)Brown, Dan
Angels and Demons -
"Pitting scientific terrorists against the cardinals of Vatican City,
this well-plotted if over-the-top thriller is crammed with Vatican intrigue
and high-tech drama" (Publishers Weekly).I'd tell you I love you, but then I'd have to kill you by Ally Carter © 2006
- As a sophomore at a secret spy school and the daughter of a former CIA
operative, Cammie is sheltered from "normal teenage life" until
she meets a local boy while on a class surveillance mission. (Novelist)Chosen: a House of Night Novel by P.C. Cast © 2008
- Dark forces are at work at the House of Night and fledging vampyre Zoey
Redbird's adventures at the school take a mysterious turn. Those who appear
to be friends are turning out to be enemies. And oddly enough, sworn enemies
are also turning into friends. So begins the gripping third installment
of this "highly addictive series" in which Zoey's mettle will
be tested like never before. (Novelist)City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare © 2008
- Sixteen-year-old Clary continues trying to make sense of the swiftly changing
events and relationships in her life as she becomes further involved with
the Shadowhunters and their pursuit of demons and discovers some terrifying
truths about her parents, her brother Jace, and her boyfriend Simon.(Novelist)
Coelho, Paulo
The Alchemist - A fable about undauntingly following one's dreams, listening to one's heart, and reading life's omens features dialogue between a boy and an unnamed being.
Cormier, Robert
Rag & Bone Shop - "Cormier's (The Chocolate War) final novel, published posthumously, is characteristically dark and thought-provoking as he delves into "the foul rag-and-bone shop of the heart," (from the Yeats poem). The author offers an in-depth study of two complicated characters: Trent, an ambitious and renowned interrogator who holds a perfect record wrenching confessionals out of criminals, and 12-year-old Jason Dorrant, suspected of murdering his neighbor, seven-year-old Alicia Bartlett" (Publishers Weekly).
California Dreaming: an A-list Novel by Zoey Dean
- With college just a week away, the private jets are booked,
the vintage Gucci steamer trunks packed, and it is time for the A-list crew
to say goodbye. Or is it? Sam is head to USC film school, but when Eduardo
offers her a different ending, like moving to Paris as newlyweds, will she
go? There are only a few precious days left in LA, and then it is time for
everyone to choose what their futures will hold. Only one thing is certain:
wherever they go, they will always be on the A-List. (Novelist)Just Listen by Sarah Dessen -
Isolated
from friends who believe the worst because she has not been truthful with
them, sixteen-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. (Novelist)Lock and Key by Sarah Dessen
"The intricacy of relationships that is Dessen's signature
shines here...[the] characters are pure pleasure to spend time with" ( Horn
Book) .Wildeness by Roddy Doyle
- "Fans of Gary Paulsen's survival
stories will enjoy bouncing alongside Tom and Johnny as they head out into
the frigid darkness in search of their beloved Mam, but these readers won't
go for the Gráinne story line. Parents might find the revelations
and narrative parallels more poignant than the target audience will" (Publishers
Weekly). November Blues by Sharon Draper ©2007
-
"A teenaged boy's death in a hazing accident has lasting effects on
his pregnant girlfriend and his guilt-ridden cousin, who gives up a promising
music career to play football during his senior year in high school"
(November 2007).Golden, Arthur
Memoirs of a Geisha - A young woman in Kyoto has to reinvent herself after World War II begins.
Hamill, Pete
Snow in August - Michael Devlin, an 11-year-old Irish American, meets Rabbi Hirsch, recently arrived from Europe, and in return for teaching the rabbi about baseball and English, the rabbi teaches Michael Yiddish and tells him about Prague, until an Irish gang becomes violent in its anti-Semitism.
Hopkins, Ellen
Impulse (2007)- Three teens tell their stories, in free verse, from a psychiatric hospital after failed suicide attempts.(Novelist)
Glass (2007) - The Sequel to Crank, this is the continuing story of Kristina and her descent back to hell. Told in verse, it's a harrowing and isturbing look at addiction and the damage that it inflicts.(Book jacket)
Burned (2006) - Full of anger at her father, an alcoholic who abuses her mother, Pattyn begins to question her Mormon religion and her preordained, subservient role within it.(Novelist)
Crank(2004) - Kristina Snow is the perfect daughter, but she meets a boy who introduces her to drugs and becomes a very different person, struggling to control her life and her mind. (Novelist)
A Voyage Long and Strange byTony Horwitz -
Tracing this legacy with his own epic trek-from Florida's
Fountain of Youth to Plymouth's sacred Rock, from desert pueblos to subarctic
sweat lodges-Tony Horwitz explores the revealing gap between what we enshrine
and what we forget. Displaying his trademark talent for humor, narrative,
and historical insight, A Voyage Long and Strange allows us to
rediscover the New World for ourselves.(Novelist) Hosseini, Khaled
The Kite Runner - Traces the unlikely
friendship of a wealthy Afghan youth and a servant's son, in a tale that
spans the final days of Afghanistan's monarchy through the atrocities of
the present day. Sequel
A Thousand Splendid Suns -
His tale is a powerful, harrowing depiction of Afghanistan, but also a lyrical
evocation of the lives and enduring hopes of its resilient characters"
(Publishers Weekly). The Big Field by Mike Lupica
- When fourteen-year-old baseball player Hutch feels threatened by
the arrival of a new teammate named Darryl, he tries to work through his
insecurities about both Darryl and his remote and silent father, who was
once a great ballplayer too. Lyga, Barry
Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl
- "I'm a computer geek, a comic book geek, a study geek. Even in
the Fast-Track classes, I'm apart." Fifteen-year-old Fanboy is miserable
at school, where he is bullied, and at home, with his pregnant mother and
her husband, the "step-fascist." His only relief is the late hours spent
creating his own comic book. Then he receives an instant message from Kyra,
an enigmatic Goth who seems to be the only witness to the violence he endures,
and the two form a cagey, charged friendship" (Booklist). Martel, Yann
Life of Pi: A Novel - Possessing
encyclopedia-like intelligence, unusual zookeeper's son Pi Patel sets sail
for America but when the ship sinks he escapes on a life boat and is lost
at sea with a dwindling number of animals until only he and a hungry Bengal
tiger remain. The Road by Cormac McCarthy -
"A man and a boy, father and son, each the others world entire, walk
a road in the ashes of the late world. In this stunning departure from his
previous work, McCarthy (No Country for Old Men, 2005) envisions a postapocalyptic
scenario" (Booklist).McMahon, Katharine
The Alchemist’s Daughter: A Novel
The daughter of an eccentric chemist, young Emilie Selden, is a scientist in an eighteenth-century world that dismisses female accomplishment until an encounter with the temptations of the outside world lures her away from her home and her work.
Marshall, Bev
Hot Fudge Sundae Blues by Bev Marshall
- "In Marshall's third novel set in sultry Zebulon, Mississippi,
the author treads mother-daughter territory reminiscent of Janet Fitch's
White Oleander (1999) and Mona Simpson's Anywhere but Here
(1986) . Layla Jay and her mother, a widow on the prowl for
a good man (or just a good time), stave off sorrow by indulging in Tastee
Freeze hot-fudge sundaes: 'Filled with that cup of joyful sweetness, suddenly
you don't have the blues anymore'." (Booklist) Host by Stephanie Meyer -
The author of the Twilight series a #1 bestseller delivers her
brilliant first novel for adults: a gripping story of love betrayal in future
with the fate of humanity at stake. (Amazon)The Final Warning: A Maximum Ride Novel by James Patterson
- While on a mission to Antartica to save the world from global
warming, fourteen-year-old Maximum Ride and the other members of the Flock--a
band of genetically modified children who can fly--are pusued by their creator,
the Uber-Director, who wants to auction them off to the highest bidder.(Novelist)Picoult, Jodi
My Sister's Keeper - Conceived to provide
a bone marrow match for her leukemia-stricken sister, teenage Kate begins
to question her moral obligations in light of countless medical procedures
and decides to fight for the right to make decisions about her own body.
Picoult, Jodi
Nineteen Minutes: a novel. Popular and prolific Picoult ( My Sister's Keeper, and The Tenth Circle , 2006) now tackles the troubling topic of a school shooting. Picoult considers the tragedy--in 19 quick minutes, 10 are dead and 19 are wounded--from several different perspectives, including that of the shooter, a troubled boy named Peter, who was mercilessly picked on at school.(Novelist)
Three Little Words : a Memoir by Ashley Rhodes-Courter (2008) -
Ashley spent nine years in foster care after being taken away from
her mother. She endured many caseworkers, moving from school to school and
manipulative, humiliating and abusive treatment from one foster family.
See how she survives and eventually thrives against the odds. (Novelist)The Name of the Wind: The Kingkiller Chronicle: Day One by Patrick Rothfuss
A hero named Kvothe, now living under an assumed name as the humble
proprietor of an inn, recounts his transformation from a magically gifted
young man into the most notorious wizard, musician, thief, and assassin
in his world. (Novelist)
The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick - When twelve-year-old Hugo, an orphan living and repairing clocks within the walls of a Paris train station in 1931, meets a mysterious toyseller and his goddaughter, his undercover life and his biggest secret are jeopardized.
Tweak by Nic Sheff
- The author details his immersion in a world of hardcore drugs,
revealing the mental and physical depths of addiction, and the violent relapse
one summer in California that forever changed his life, leading him down
the road to recovery.(Novelist)Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village by Laura Amy Schlitz © 2007-
- A collection of short one-person plays featuring characters, between ten
and fifteen years old, who live in or near a thirteenth-century English
manor.(Novelist) Pride of Baghdad by Brian Vaughan, 2006
- Based on true events and told in graphic novel format. "This story
of a pride of lions who escape fro the Badhdad Zoo during Operation Iraqi
Freedom bombing is simple, lavishly drawn, and devastating...Stunning"
(Publishers Weekly).The Glass Castle : A Memoir by Jeanette Walls
"Being homeless is an adventure," Walls's mom used to say. In
her extraordinary memoir, Walls recalls her nomadic life with surprising
affection-though she would not want to relive it. The title, which derives
from her father's dream house, serves as an apt metaphor for the Walls'
fragility. Yet Walls sheds no tears nor succumbs to self-pity-she probably
learned early on they would get her nowhere. Instead of condemning her parents'
foibles, she unblinkingly examines how they transformed hardship into family
romance and adventure. Sharing incredible, painful experiences in no-nonsense
prose, Walls has, as The New York Times Book Review notes, "succeeded
in doing what most writers set out to do-to write the kind of book they
themselves most want to read." The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
- Trying to make sense of the horrors of World War II, Death relates
the story of Liesel--a young German girl whose book-stealing and story-telling
talents help sustain her family and the Jewish man they are hiding, as well
as their neighbors.
Books recommended by students Fiction
Non-fiction
Firefly's World of Facts by Russell Ash © 2007
Class Pictures by Dawoud Bey ©2007 -
For the past 15 years, Dawoud Bey has been making striking, large-scale color portraits of students at high schools across the United States. Depicting teenagers from a wide economic, social and ethnic spectrum--and intensely attentive to their poses and gestures--he has created a highly diverse group portrait of a generation that intentionally challenges teenage stereotypes.Bey spends two to three weeks in each school, taking formal portraits of individual students, each made in a classroom during one 45-minute period. At the start of the sitting, each subject writes a brief autobiographical statement. By turns poignant, funny or harrowing, these revealing words are an integral part of the project, and the subject's statement accompanies each photograph in the book. Together, the words and images in Class Pictures offer unusually respectful and perceptive portraits that establish Dawoud Bey as one of the best portraitists at work today. (Amazon)
50 x 50: 50 Cent in His Own Words by Noah Callahan-Bever ©2007 -
Through candid, raw personal essays and rare family photos, this compelling
book tells the story of a man who rose from a life of hardcore hustling
to one of unrivaled success not just in the music industry, but in the entertainment
and commercial world beyond. (Amazon)Moon by Michael Carlowicz ©2007 -
The Moon explores how our celestial sister works her magic on
the earth, how she has profoundly influenced our beliefs and our cultures,
and how she continues to affect our oceans and our science. This is the
full picture, from the moon's fiery and violent birth four billion years
ago to the near future, when we will once again stand on its dusty surface.
AmazonAlter Ego: Avatars and their creators by Robbie Cooper ©2007
- Alter Ego is a cool concept book, presenting the phenomenon of the contemporary
avatar-the virtual characters gamers choose and design to engage in 3D worlds
online. Portraits of gamers from the United States, Europe, China, and Japan
(including leading figures of the gaming world) are paired with digital
images of their alter egos, graphically dramatizing the gap between fantasy
and reality. (Amazon)Encyclopedia Horrifica: The Terrifying TRUTH! About Vampires, Ghosts, Monsters, and More by Joshua Gee ©2007
- Nominated for the BRAM STOKER AWARD for "SUPERIOR ACHIEVEMENT
IN NONFICTION" and A YALSA Quick Pick Blue Lipstick: Concrete Poems by John Grandits
"This irreverent, witty collection should resonate with a wide audience."
(School Library Journal).Thin by Lauren Greenfield ©2006 - Critically acclaimed for Girl Culture and Fast Forward , Lauren Greenfield continues her exploration of contemporary female culture with Thin , a groundbreaking book about eating disorders. Greenfield's photographs are paired with extensive interviews and journal entries from twenty girls and women who are suffering from various afflictions. (Amazon)
Graffiti L.A. : Street Style and Art by Steve Grody ©2007
-
"The importance of Grody's work-as in any other street art roundup-is
in capturing these short-lived pieces before they're inevitably defaced
by rivals or painted over by the authorities; what makes this beautiful
book stand out is the way Grody completes his vibrant picture with the voices
of the street artists themselves" (Publishers Weekly). Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race amd Inheritance by Barach Obama - Barack Obama, a black man raised by his white mother and grandparents, decided to journey to Kenya to learn more about his African father after receiving news of his death.
Grace After Midnight: A Memoir by Felicia 'Snoop' Pearson ©2007
- "This isn't a light celebrity bio, but a powerful story of someone
trying to find her way in a dark world, realizing she can still choose her
life's direction even in tremendously difficult circumstances. Pearson's
narrative is spare, even poetic, rendering traumatic moments all the more
powerful" (Publishers Weekly). The Burn Journals by Brent Runyon -
"Some excruciatingly painful moments notwithstanding, this can and
should be read by young adults, as much for its literary merit as for its
authentic perspective on what it means to attempt suicide, and, despite
the resulting scars, be unable to remember why" (Booklist). Leaving Dirty Jersey : A Crystal Meth Memoir by James Salant
- "This book stands out. The atmosphere and the detail with which the bit
players are brought to life recall William S. Burroughs's classic Junky"
(Library Journal).Slam Dunks and No-Brainers by Leslie Savan - " Language mavens rejoice! This new book by three-time Pulitzer finalist Savan is spunky, well reasoned, perceptive, and massively entertaining. It's a nearly encyclopedic catalog of what the author calls pop language: "the catchwords, phrases, inflections, and quickie concepts that Americans seem unable to communicate without." Terms that rely on inflection ( Hel-lo ?! for example) are well represented, and Savan carefully explains how inflection can change meaning ("whatever" versus " what -ever") (Booklist).
Inside Out: Portrait of an Eating Disorder by Nadia Shivack ©2007
- "Though intensely personal and perhaps of necessity repetitious,
this kharrowing chronicle may well provide support and solace to teens facing
a similar crisis" (Publishers Weekly). Twelve Rounds to Glory by Charles R. Smith Jr ©2007
- "A dynamic author-illustrator team follows the threetime heavyweight
champ through twelve rounds of a remarkable life" (Amazon 2007). Brett Favre: The Tribute by Sports Illustrated
"The Tribute includes 16 of SI's finest Favre stories, by such renowned
writers as Peter King, Michael Silver, Leigh Montville, Jeff MacGregor and
Alan Shipnuck, plus brilliant pictures from the recognized leader in sports
photography--stunning action shots, intimate portraits and candid off-the-field
moments--that illuminate this icon, a man who, more than any other of our
time, played his game the way it should be played" (Amazon).Thalia: Belleza!: Lessons in Lipgloss and Happiness by Thalia ©2007 "A woman's exterior beauty is a reflection of her internal peace and happiness. Thalia is a perfect example of that. As a role model for our generation of Latinas she and her new book prove that true beauty is a combination of mind, spirit, and body." Gloria Estefan
Smashed: Story of a Drunken
Girlhood by Koren Zailckas
- Zailckas' memoirs documents how she gave up drinking after a decade of
getting drunk, having blackouts and experiencing brushes with comas, date
rape and suicide. (Amazon)Back to top
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