ANNOTATED BOOK LIST The following is a list of possible core novels to be incorporated into the English Language Arts

curriculum for the Providence Public School District. Through the month of October, Providence Schools invites staff, families and the community to Read With Us! and to review these novels using our online survey found at www.providenceschools.org. Readers responses will aid the curriculum team in choosing books to be taught in grades 6 through 12. Thank you for your support!
MIDDLE SCHOOL 145th Street: Short Stories (Myers) A salty, wrenchingly honest collection of stories set on one block of 145th Street. We get to know the oldest resident; the cop on the beat; fine Peaches and her girl, Squeezie; Monkeyman; and Benny, a fighter on the way to a knockout. A Family Apart (Nixon) When their mother can no longer support them, six siblings are sent by the Children's Aid Society of New York City to live with farm families in Missouri in 1860. A Hole in My Life (Gantos) The author relates how, as a young adult, he became a drug user and smuggler, was arrested, did time in prison, and eventually got out and went to college, all the while hoping to become a writer. Anthony Burns: The Defeat and Triumph of a Fugitive Slave (Hamilton) A biography of the slave who escaped to Boston in 1854, was arrested at the instigation of his owner, and whose trial caused a furor between abolitionists and those determined to enforce the Fugitive Slave Acts. Baseball in April (Gary Soto) Calling on his own experiences of growing up in California's Central Valley, poet Gary Soto brings to life the joys and pains of young people everywhere. The smart, tough, vulnerable kids in these stories are Latino, but their dreams and desires belong to all of us. Bluish (Hamilton) Ten-year-old Dreenie feels both intrigued and frightened when she thinks about the girl nicknamed Bluish, whose leukemia is making her pale and causing her to use a wheelchair. Bridge to Terabithia (Paterson) The life of a ten-year-old boy in rural Virginia expands when he becomes friends with a newcomer who subsequently meets an untimely death trying to reach their hideaway, Terabithia, during a storm. Chains (Laurie Halse Anderson) As the Revolutionary War begins, thirteen-year-old Isabel wages her own fight...for freedom Algernon, Charlie and I: A Writers Journey (Daniel Keyes) In his bestselling novel Flowers for Algernon, Daniel Keyes created an unlikely duo -- a laboratory mouse and a man -- who captured the hearts of millions of readers around the world. Now, in Algernon, Charlie, and I, Keyes reveals his methods of creating fiction as well as the heartbreaks and joys of being published. For the first time, readers, writers, teachers, and students can glimpse the creative life behind this cherished novel.

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Children of the River (Linda Crew) Sundara fled Cambodia with her aunt's family to escape the Khmer Rouge army when she was thirteen, leaving behind her parents, her brother and sister, and the boy she had loved since she was a child. Dragonwings (Laurence Yep) Moon shadow is eight years old when he sails from China to join his father, Windrider, in America. Windrider lives in San Francisco and makes his living doing laundry. Father and son have never met. Fahrenheit 451 (Bradbury) First published in 1953, Fahrenheit 451 is a classic novel set in the future when books forbidden by a totalitarian regime are burned. The hero, a book burner, suddenly discovers that books are flesh and blood ideas that cry out silently when put to the torch. Fast Sam, Cool Clyde, and Stuff (Myers) New to 116th Street in New York, a young boy soon makes friends and begins a year of unusual experiences. Girl or Who Owned A City (O.T. Nelson) When a plague sweeps over the earth killing everyone except children under twelve, ten-year-old Lisa organizes a group to rebuild a new way of life. Harlem Stomp!: A Cultural History of the Harlem Renaissance (Laban Carrick Hill) When it was released in 2004, Harlem Stomp! was the first trade book to bring the Harlem Renaissance alive for young adults! Meticulously researched and lavishly illustrated, the book is a veritable time capsule packed with poetry, prose, photographs, full-color paintings, and reproductions of historical documents. Now, after more than three years in hardcover, three starred reviews and a National Book Award nomination, Harlem Stomp! is being released in paperback. Hatchet (Gary Paulsen) After a plane crash, thirteen-year-old Brian spends fifty-four days in the Canadian wilderness, learning to survive with only the aid of a hatchet given him by his mother, and learning also to survive his parents' divorce. House of Dies Drear (Hamilton) A black family tries to unravel the secrets of their new home which was once a stop on the Underground Railroad. Homecoming (Voigt) Abandoned by their mother, four children begin a search for a home and an identity. Hush (Woodson) Twelve-year-old Toswiah finds her life changed when her family enters the witness protection program. I Hadnt Meant to Tell You This (Woodson) Marie, the only black girl in the eighth grade willing to befriend her white classmate Lena, discovers that Lena's father is doing horrible things to her in private. Jip: His Story (Paterson) While living on a Vermont poor farm during 1855 and 1856, Jip learns his identity and that of his mother and comes to understand how he arrived at this place.

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Julie of the Wolves (Jean Craighead George) While running away from home and an unwanted marriage, a thirteen-year-old Eskimo girl becomes lost on the North Slope of Alaska and is befriended by a wolf pack. Knots in My Yo-yo String (Spinelli) This Italian-American Newbery Medalist presents a humorous account of his childhood and youth in Norristown, Pennsylvania. Life as We Knew It (Susan Pfeffer) When an asteroid hits the moon, Miranda must learn to survive the unimaginable . . . Living Up the Street (Soto) The author describes his experiences growing up as a Mexican American in Fresno, California. Locomotion (Woodson) In a series of poems, eleven-year-old Lonnie writes about his life, after the death of his parents, separated from his younger sister, living in a foster home, and finding his poetic voice at school. Lupita Manana (Beatty) To help her poverty-stricken family, 13-year-old Lupita enters California as an illegal alien and starts to work while constantly on the watch for "la migra." Mamas Girl (Chambers) More than a family memoir, Mama's Girl gives voice to the first generation of African-Americans to come of age in the post-Civil Rights era. Maniac Magee (Jerry Spinelli) After his parents die, Jeffrey Lionel Magee's life becomes legendary, as he accomplishes athletic and other feats which awe his contemporaries. Miracles Boys (Woodson) Twelve-year-old Lafayette's close relationship with his older brother Charlie changes after Charlie is released from a detention home and blames Lafayette for the death of their mother. Mississippi Trial: 1955 (Crowe) In Mississippi in 1955, a sixteen-year-old finds himself at odds with his grandfather over issues surrounding the kidnapping and murder of a fourteen-year-old African American from Chicago. Monster (Myers) As he writes in his introductory note to readers, Walter Dean Myers, in writing Monster, hoped to show the steps that lead someone "from innocence to criminal acts and, eventually, to prison." The novel will shock, disturb, awaken, and inspire. 1999 National Book Award nominee for Young People's Literature. Never Cry Wolf (Mowat) Mowat is dropped alone onto the frozen tundra, where he begins his mission to live among the howling wolf packs and study their ways. Novio Boy a play (Soto) Rudy anxiously prepares for and then goes out on a first date with an attractive girl who is older than he is.

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Plain City (Hamilton) Going forward without a past is not easy to do. But Buhlaine Sims has been doing it for as long as she can remember. Then her father returns to town, and Buhlaire's world is turned upside down. Red Scarf Girl (Jiang) When China's Communist Party detained Ji-li's father, the 12-year-old was faced with the most difficult choice of her life. She could denounce her father and break with her family, or she could refuse to testify and sacrifice her future in her beloved Communist Party. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry (Mildred Taylor) The story of one African American family fighting to stay together and strong in the face of brutal racist attacks, illness, poverty, and betrayal in the Deep South of the 1930s. Smoke Signals a screen play (Alexie) Set in Arizona, Smoke Signals is the story of two Native American boys on a journey. Victor is the stoic, handsome son of an alcoholic father who has abandoned his family. Thomas is a gregarious, goofy young man who lost both his parents in a fire at a very young age. Sold (Patricia McCormick) Lakshmi is a thirteen-year-old girl who lives with her family in a small hut on a mountain in Nepal. Something Wicked This Way Comes (Bradbury) Few American novels written this century have endured in the heart and memory as has Ray Bradbury's unparalleled literary classic SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES. For those who still dream and remember, for those yet to experience the hypnotic power of its dark poetry, step inside. The show is about to begin. Speak (Anderson) Melinda Sordino busted an end-of-summer party by calling the cops. Now her old friends won't talk to her, and people she doesn't even know hate her from a distance. Stuck in Neutral (Trueman) Fourteen-year-old Shawn McDaniel, who suffers from severe cerebral palsy and cannot function, relates his perceptions of his life, his family, and his condition, especially as he believes his father is planning to kill him. Stargirl (Spinelli) Leo Borlock follows the unspoken rule at Mica Area High School: don't stand out--under any circumstances! Then Stargirl arrives at Mica High and everything changes--for Leo and for the entire school. Swallowing Stones (McDonald) Dual perspectives reveal the aftermath of seventeen-year-old Michael MacKenzie's birthday celebration during which he discharges an antique Winchester rifle and unknowingly kills the father of high school classmate Jenna Ward. Sweet Whispers, Brother Rush (Hamilton) Fourteen-year-old Tree, resentful of her working mother who leaves her in charge of a retarded brother, encounters the ghost of her dead uncle and comes to a deeper understanding of her family's problems.

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Tears of a Tiger (Sharon Draper) The death of high school basketball star Rob Washington in an automobile accident affects the lives of his close friend Andy, who was driving the car, and many others in the school. Ten Little Indians (Alexie) Sherman Alexie is one of our most acclaimed and popular writers today. With Ten Little Indians, he offers nine poignant and emotionally resonant new stories about Native Americans who, like all Americans, find themselves at personal and cultural crossroads, faced with heartrending, tragic, sometimes wondrous moments of being that test their loyalties, their capacities, and their notions of who they are and who they love. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian (Alexie) In his nationally acclaimed, semi-autobiographical YA debut, author Sherman Alexie tells the heartbreaking, hilarious, and beautifully written story of a young Native American teen as he attempts to break free from the life he was destined to live. Winner of the 2007 National Book Award for Young Peoples Literature. The Autobiography of My Dead Brother (Myers) As Jesse fills his sketchbook with drawings and portraits of Rise, he tries to make sense of the complexities of friendship, loyalty, and loss in a neighborhood plagued by drive-bys, vicious gangs, and abusive cops. The Crossing (Paulsen) Thirteen-year-old Manny, a street kid fighting for survival in a Mexican border town, develops a strange friendship with an emotionally disturbed American soldier who decides to help him get across the border. The Giver (Lois Lowry) Given his lifetime assignment at the Ceremony of Twelve, Jonas becomes the receiver of memories shared by only one other in his community and discovers the terrible truth about the society in which he lives. The Glory Field (Myers) Follows a family's two hundred forty-one year history, from the capture of an African boy in the 1750s through the lives of his descendants, as their dreams and circumstances lead them away from and back to the small plot of land in South Carolina that they call the Glory Field. The Invention of Hugo Cabret (Selznick) Hugo lives in the walls of a busy Paris train station, where his survival depends on secrets and anonymity. But when his world suddenly interlocks with an eccentric, bookish girl and a bitter old man who runs a toy booth in the station, Hugo's undercover life, and his most precious secret, are put in jeopardy. The Legend of Buddy Bush (Sheila P. Moses) In this impressive novel, Moses interweaves Buddy Bush's story with her own childhood and family memories growing up on Rehobeth Road in Rich Square, North Carolina. Finalist for the 2004 National Book Award for Young People's Literature and an Honor Book for the Coretta Scott King Author Award. The Martian Chronicles (Bradbury) A classic work of twentieth-century literature whose extraordinary power and imagination remain undimmed by time's passage. In connected, chronological stories, a true grandmaster once again enthralls, delights and challenges us with his vision and his heart-starkly and stunningly exposing in brilliant spacelight our strength, our weakness, our folly, and our poignant humanity on a strange and breathtaking world where humanity does not belong.

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The Phantom Tollbooth (Juster) A journey through a land where Milo learns the importance of words and numbers provides a cure for his boredom. The Watsons Go to Birmingham (Curtis) A wonderful middle-grade novel narrated by Kenny, 9, about his middle-class black family, the Weird Watsons of Flint, Michigan. When Kenny's 13-year-old brother, Byron, gets to be too much trouble, they head South to Birmingham to visit Grandma, the one person who can shape him up. The Underneath (Kathi Appelt) There is nothing lonelier than a cat who has been loved, at least for a while, and then abandoned on the side of the road. A calico cat, about to have kittens, hears the lonely howl of a chained-up hound deep in the backwaters of the bayou. She dares to find him in the forest, and the hound dares to befriend this cat, this feline, this creature he is supposed to hate. They are an unlikely pair, about to become an unlikely family. True Believer (Wolff) Living in the inner city amidst guns and poverty, fifteen-year-old LaVaughn learns from old and new friends, and inspiring mentors, that life is what you make it--an occasion to rise to. Walk Two Moons (Sharon Creech) After her mother leaves home suddenly, thirteen-year-old Sal and her grandparents take a car trip retracing her mother's route. Along the way, Sal recounts the story of her friend Phoebe, whose mother also left. Wanted! (Cooney) In a tense voice, Alice's very rational father suggests that she drive his precious Corvette and meet him. But Alice doesn't have a driver's license. "It doesn't matter!" he yells. Yet he never shows up. Never calls. Something is very wrong. Her father is dead. Everyone, including her mother, believes that Alice is guilty. Within Reach: My Everest Story (Pfetzer) The author describes how he spent his teenage years climbing mountains in the United States, South America, Africa, and Asia, with an emphasis on his two expeditions up Mount Everest. Woodsong (Paulsen) For a rugged outdoor man and his family, life in northern Minnesota is a wild experience involving wolves, deer, and the sled dogs that make their way of life possible. Includes an account of the author's first Iditarod, a dogsled race across Alaska. Zeely (Hamilton) A new 25th anniversary edition. "For Geeder, competent, self-possessed, six-and-a-half-foot Zeely Taylor becomes a romanticized idol. When Geeder finally meets Zeely, she gains a new perspective on daydreams and reality and a more realistic appreciation of Zeely's true character."

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HIGH SCHOOL

American Literature
A Lesson Before Dying (Gaines) From the author of A Gathering of Old Men and The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman comes a deep and compassionate novel. A young man who returns to 1940s Cajun country to teach visits a black youth on death row for a crime he didn't commit. Together they come to understand the heroism of resisting. A Raisin in the Sun a play (Hansberry) When it was first produced in 1959, A Raisin in the Sun was awarded the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for that season and hailed as a watershed in American drama. A pioneering work by an African-American playwright, the play was a radically new representation of black life. "A play that changed American theater forever. Always Running: La Vida Loca: Gang Days in LA (Rodriguez) By age twelve, Luis Rodriguez was a veteran of East L.A. gang warfare. Lured by a seemingly invincible gang culture, he witnessed countless shootings, beatings, and arrests, then watched with increasing fear as drugs, murder, suicide, and senseless acts of street crime claimed friends and family members. American Born Chinese graphic novel (Luen Yang) Three very different characters, one simple goal: to fit in. Before Women Had Wings (Connie May Fowler) Starstruck by a dime-store picture of Jesus, Avocet Abigail "Bird" Jackson fancies herself "His girlfriend" and embarks upon a spiritual quest for salvation, even as the chaos of her home life plunges her into a stony silence. Blue Highways (Heat-Moon) That unexcelled exploration of our nation based on a 13,000-mile journey in a Ford van along back roads (printed in blue on old maps) is available for the first time in a trade paperback edition that replicates the style and design of the original hardcover. Photographs and maps. Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind of Spirit (Quinn) When a man in search of truth answers an ad in a local newspaper from a teacher looking for serious students, he finds himself alone in an abandoned office with a gorilla named Ishmael. Catalyst (Anderson) Eighteen-year-old Kate, who sometimes chafes at being a preacher's daughter, finds herself losing control in her senior year as she faces difficult neighbors, the possibility that she may not be accepted by the college of her choice, and an unexpected death. Cold Mountain (Frazier) Cold Mountain is an extraordinary novel about a soldiers perilous journey back to his beloved at the end of the Civil War. At once a magnificent love story and a harrowing account of one mans long walk home, Cold Mountain introduces a stunning new talent in American literature. Death of A Salesman a play (Miller) The story revolves around the last days of Willy Loman, a failing salesman, who cannot understand how he failed to win success and happiness.

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Feed (Anderson) In a future where most people have computer implants in their heads to control their environment, a boy meets an unusual girl who is in serious trouble. Fences a play (Wilson) A Pulitzer Prize winner. Garbage collector Troy Maxson clashes with his son over an athletic scholarship. Go Tell It On the Mountain (James Baldwin) Moving through time from the rural South to the northern ghetto, starkly contrasting the attitudes of two generations of an embattles family, Go Tell It On The Mountain is an unsurpassed portrayal of human beings caught up in a dramatic struggle and of a society confronting inevitable change. The House on Mango Street (Sandra Cisneros) The House on Mango Street tells the story of Esperanza Cordero, whose neighborhood is one of harsh realities and harsh beauty. Esperanza doesn't want to belong - not to her run-down neighborhood, and not to the low expectations the world has for her. How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents (Alvarez) It's a long way from Santo Domingo to the Bronx, but if anyone can go the distance, it's the Garcia girls. Four lively latinas plunged from a pampered life of privilege on an island compound into the big-city chaos of New York, they rebel against Mami and Papi's old-world discipline and embrace all that America has to offer. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Maya Angelou) Superbly told, with the poet's gift for language and observation, Angelou's autobiography of her childhood in Arkansas - a world of which most Americans are ignorant. Invisible Man (Ralph Ellison) The nameless narrator of the novel describes growing up in a black community in the South, attending a Negro college from which he is expelled, moving to New York and becoming the chief spokesman of the Harlem branch of "the Brotherhood", and retreating amid violence and confusion to the basement lair of the Invisible Man he imagines himself to be. Kindred (Octavia Butler) Dana, a modern black woman, is celebrating her twenty-sixth birthday with her new husband when she is snatched abruptly from her home in California and transported to the antebellum South. Krik? Krak! (Edwidge Danticat) A Haitian-American writer of subtle power and great beauty presents a collection of intimate stories about the raw longings of people for some chance at peace and happiness for themselves and their imprisoned society, about existences contorted by forced separation, and of personal lives shot through with terror. Maus a graphic novel (Art Spiegelman) Maus is a haunting tale within a tale. Vladeks harrowing story of survival is woven into the authors account of his tortured relationship with his aging father. Middlesex (Eugenides) A dazzling triumph from the bestselling author of THE VIRGIN SUICIDESthe astonishing tale of a gene that passes down through three generations of a Greek-American family and flowers in the body of a teenage girl.

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Native Son (Richard Wright) Widely acclaimed as one of the finest books ever written on race and class divisions in America, this powerful novel reflects the forces of poverty, injustice, and hopelessness that continue to shape out society. Of Mice and Men (John Steinbeck) The tragic story of the complex bond between two migrant laborers in Central California. They are George Milton and Lennie Small, itinerant ranch hands who dream of one day owning a small farm. George acts as a father figure to Lennie, who is a very large, simpleminded man, calming him and helping to reign in his immense physical strength. On the Road (Kerouac) On the Road chronicles Jack Kerouac's years traveling the North American continent with his friend Neal Cassady, "a sideburned hero of the snowy West." As "Sal Paradise" and "Dean Moriarty," the two roam the country in a quest for self-knowledge and experience. Kerouac's classic novel of freedom and longing defined what it meant to be "Beat" and has inspired every generation since its initial publication more than forty years ago. Our Town a play (Wilder) Taking as his material three periods in the history of a placid New Hampshire town, Mr. Wilder has transformed the simple events of human life into universal reverie. He has given familiar facts a deeply moving, philosophical perspective...Our Town is one of the finest achievements of the current stage. Puddnhead Wilson (Mark Twain) Reversed identities, an eccentric detective, a horrible crime, and a tense courtroom scene are major ingredients in Twain's witty, yet fierce condemnation of a racially prejudiced society that condoned the institution of slavery. Rule of the Bone (Banks) When we first meet him, Chappie is a punked-out teenager living with his mother and abusive stepfather in an upstate New York trailer park. During this time, he slips into drugs and petty crime. Song of Solomon (Toni Morrison) Song of Solomon is a 1977 novel by Pulitzer and Nobel Prize-winning American author Toni Morrison. It follows the life of Macon "Milkman" Dead III, an African-American male living in Michigan, from birth to adulthood. This book won the National Books Critics Award, was chosen for Oprah Winfrey's popular book club, and was cited by the Swedish Academy in awarding Morrison the 1993 Nobel Prize in literature. Barack Obama has listed it as one of his favorite books of all time. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain) Huckleberry Finn, rebel against school and church, casual inheritor of gold treasure, rafter of the Mississippi, and savior of Jim the runaway slave, is the archetypical American maverick. The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, v1: The Pox Party (M.T. Anderson) It sounds like a fairy tale. He is a boy dressed in silks and white wigs and given the finest of classical educations. Raised by a group of rational philosophers known only by numbers, the boy and his mother a princess in exile from a faraway land are the only persons in their household assigned names The Autobiography of Malcolm X (Alex Haley) If there was any one man who articulated the anger, the struggle, and the beliefs of African Americans in the 1960s, that man was Malxolm X. His AUTOBIOGRAPHY is now an established classic of modern America, a book that expresses like none other the crucial truth about our times.

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The Awakening (Chopin) Hailed as an early vision of woman's emancipation, "The Awakening" tells of a woman in search of self-discovery who turns away from convention and society and toward the primal, becoming irresistibly attracted to nature and the senses The Bell Jar (Plath) The Bell Jar is a classic of American literature, with over two million copies sold in this country. This extraordinary work chronicles the crack-up of Esther Greenwood: brilliant, beautiful, enormously talented, successful - but slowly going under, and maybe for the last time. The Bluest Eye (Toni Morrison) Pecola Breedlove, a young black girl, prays every day for beauty. Mocked by other children for the dark skin, curly hair, and brown eyes that set her apart, she yearns for normalcy, for the blond hair and blue eyes that she believes will allow her to finally fit in.Yet as her dream grows more fervent, her life slowly starts to disintegrate in the face of adversity and strife The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (Diaz) Weirdly wonderful Oscar clearly is not intended to function as a hero in the classical sense. Is he meant primarily to symbolize the tangled significance of desire, exile and homecoming? Or is he a 307-lb. warning that only slim guys get the girls? The Catcher in the Rye (Salinger) Salinger's classic coming-of-age story portrays one young man's funny and poignant experiences with life, love, and sex. The Color Purple (Alice Walker) Celie is a poor black woman whose letters tell the story of 20 years of her life, beginning at age 14 when she is being abused and raped by her father and attempting to protect her sister from the same fate, and continuing over the course of her marriage to "Mister," a brutal man who terrorizes her. The Crucible (Arthur Miller) Based on historical people and real events, Arthur Miller's play uses the destructive power of socially sanctioned violence unleashed by the rumors of witchcraft as a powerful parable about McCarthyism The Glass Castle (Walls) Jeannette Walls grew up with parents whose ideals and stubborn nonconformity were both their curse and their salvation The Glass Menagerie a play (Williams) No play in the modern theatre has so captured the imagination and heart of the American public as Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald) The timeless story of Jay Gatsby and his love for Daisy Buchanan is widely acknowledged to be the closest thing to the Great American Novel ever written. The Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (Eggers) Dave Eggers' memoir of bringing up his younger brother after his parent's death, has been shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award, which aims to recognize and reward new writing across fiction and non-fiction.

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The Joy Luck Club ( Amy Tan) In 1949, four Chinese women begin meeting in San Francisco for fun. Nearly 40 years later, their daughters continue to meet as the Joy Luck Club. The Last of the Mohicans (Cooper) It is 1757. The English and French are engaged in a savage, bloody war for control of the North American continent. Making tenuous, shifting alliances with various Indian tribes, the two European powers struggle to gain the upper hand on unfamiliar, forested battlegrounds. The Perks of Being a Wallflower (Chbosky) This is the story of what it's like to grow up in high school. More intimate than a diary, Charlie's letters are singular and unique, hilarious and devastating. The Piano Lesson a play (August Wilson) Set in 1936, The Piano Lesson is a powerful new play from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Fences and Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. A sister and brother fight over a piano that has been in the family for three generations, creating a remarkable drama that embodies the painful past and expectant future of black Americans. The Scarlet Letter (Hawthorne) The Scarlet Letter is the story of three New England settlers at odds with the puritan society in which they live. The Secret Life of Bees (Kidd) Set in South Carolina in 1964, The Secret Life of Bees tells the story of Lily Owens, whose life has been shaped around the blurred memory of the afternoon her mother was killed The Things They Carried (OBrien) Neither a novel nor a short story collection, it is an arc of fictional episodes, taking place in the childhoods of its characters, in the jungles of Vietnam and back home in America two decades later. The Third Life of Grange Copeland (Alice Walker) Despondent over the futility of life in the South, black tenant farmer Grange Copeland leaves his wife and son in Georgia to head North. After meeting an equally humiliating existence there, he returns to Georgia, years later, to find his son, Brownfield, imprisoned for the murder of his wife. Their Eyes Were Watching God (Zora Neale Hurston) Initially published in 1937, this novel about a proud, independent black woman's quest for identity, a journey that takes her through three marriages and back to her roots, has been one of the most widely read and highly acclaimed novels in the canon of African-American literature. To Kill A Mockingbird (Lee) Harper Lee's classic novel of a lawyer in the Deep South defending a black man charged with the rape of a white girl. Touching Snow (M. Sindy Felin) Karina has plenty to worry about on the last day of seventh grade: finding three Ds and a C on her report card again, getting laughed at by everyone again, being sent to the principal again. She'd like this to change, but with her and her sisters dodging their stepfather's fists every day after school, she doesn't have time to do much self-reflecting.

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Uncle Toms Cabin (Stowe) Although the American anti-slavery movement had existed at least as long as the nation itself, Stowes Uncle Toms Cabin (1852) galvanized public opinion as nothing had before. Its vivid dramatization of slaverys cruelties so aroused readers that it is said Abraham Lincoln told Stowe her work had been a catalyst for the Civil War. Though Uncle Tom has become a synonym for a fawning black yes-man, Stowes Tom is actually American literatures first black hero, a man who suffers for refusing to obey his white oppressors. Uncle Toms Cabin is a living, relevant story, passionate in its vivid depiction of the cruelest forms of injustice and inhumanityand the courage it takes to fight against them. Walden (Thoreau) It recounts the author's experiences living in a small house in the woods around Walden Pond near Concord in Massachusetts. Thoreau constructed the house himself, with the help of a few friends, and one of the reasons why he moved into it was in an attempt to see if he could live independently and away from society When I Was Puerto Rican (Santiago) In this first volume of her much-praised, bestselling trilogy, Esmeralda Santiago's story begins in rural Puerto Rico from the barrio to Brooklyn to high honors at Harvard. Your Blues Aint Like Mine (Bebe Moore Campbell) Set in the recent American past, this is a timeless tale of racism, murder, and redemption. A black Chicago-born teen goes Deep South for the summer and is murdered for saying the wrong thing to a white woman. Repercussions are felt by everyone involved, both black and white, for generations. Zeitoun (Eggers) When Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, Abdulrahman Zeitoun, a prosperous Syrian-American and father of four, chose to stay through the storm to protect his house and contracting business.

British Literature
1984 (Orwell) Orwell's final novel, 1984, is the story of one man's struggle against the ubiquitous, menacing state power (Big Brother) that tries to dictate nearly every aspect of human life. The novel is a classic in anti-utopian fiction, and a trenchant political satire that remains as relevant today as when it was first published. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens) It was the best of times, it was the worst of times . . . With these famous words, Charles Dickens plunges the reader into one of historys most explosive erasthe French Revolution. From the storming of the Bastille to the relentless drop of the guillotine, Dickens vividly captures the terror and upheaval of that tumultuous period. At the center is thenovels hero, Sydney Carton, a lazy, alcoholic attorney who, inspired by a woman, makes the supreme sacrifice on the bloodstained streets of Paris. Animal Farm (Orwell) Orwell's classic political fable is often cited as simply a condemnation of Stalinism, which it certainly was, but its political relevance is both wider and more enduring. Frankenstein (Shelly) A monster assembled by a scientist from parts of dead bodies develops a mind of his own as he learns to loathe himself and hate his creator.

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Great Expectations (Charles Dickens) Written in the last decade of his life, Great Expectations reveals Dickenss dark attitudes toward Victorian society, its inherent class structure, and its materialism. Yet this novel persists as one of Dickenss most popular. Richly comic and immensely readable, Great Expectations overspills with vividly drawn characters, moral maelstroms, and the sorrow and pity of love. Hamlet (Shakespeare) His father is dead. Has his mother married the killer? A ghost cries out for vengeance, but has the Prince who hears the cry gone mad? A kingdom hangs in the balance, but who can be trusted? Family, politics, blood lust, betrayal, mystery, friendship and love--each plays a role in Shakespeare's great tragedy. Julius Ceasar (Shakespeare) Great tragedy based on Plutarch's account of the lives of Brutus, Julius Caesar and Mark Antony. Evil plotting, ringing oratory, high tragedy with Shakespeare's incomparable insight, dramatic power. King Lear (Shakespeare) King Lear banishes his favorite daughter when she speaks out against him. Little does he know that the two other daughters who praise him are actually plotting against him. Macbeth (Shakespeare) Macbeth is a dark and bloody drama of ambition, murder, guilt and revenge. Prompted by the prophecies of three mysterious witches and goaded by his ambitious wife, the Scottish thane Macbeth murders Duncan, King of Scotland, in order to succeed him on the throne. Mrs. Dalloway (Woolf) This brilliant novel explores the hidden springs of thought and action in one day of a womans life. Direct and vivid in her account of the details of Clarissa Dalloways preparations for a party she is to give that evening, Woolf ultimately managed to reveal much more. Othello (Shakespeare) The most striking difference between Othello and Shakespeare's other tragedies is its more intimate scale. Because the play focuses on personal rather than public life, Othello's private descent into jealous obsession is especially chilling to behold. Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (James Joyce) James Joyce's semi-autobiographical first novel follows Stephen Dedalus, a sensitive and creative youth who rebels against his family, his education, and his country by committing himself to the artist's life. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen) Pride and PrejudiceAusten's own 'darling child'tells the story of fiercely independent Elizabeth Bennet, one of five sisters who must marry rich, as she confounds the arrogant, wealthy Mr. Darcy. What ensues is one of the most delightful and engrossingly readable courtships known to literature, written by a precocious Austen when she was just twenty-one years old. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (Austen and Grahame-Smith) Feisty heroine Elizabeth Bennet is determined to wipe out the zombie menace, but she's soon distracted by the arrival of the haughty and arrogant Mr. Darcy.

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Pygmalion-a play (Shaw) Pygamalion tells the story of Henry Higgins, a professor of phonetics, who makes a bet with his friend Colonel Pickering that he can successfully pass off a Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, as a refined society lady by teaching her how to speak with an upper class accent and training her in etiquette. Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare) Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of playwright William Shakespeare about two young "star-cross'd lovers" whose untimely deaths ultimately unite their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular plays during his lifetime and is one of his most frequently performed plays. Today, the title characters are regarded as archetypal young lovers. The Hobbit (Tolkien) Bilbo Baggins, a respectable, well-to-do hobbit, lives comfortably in his hobbit-hole until the day the wandering wizard Gandalf chooses him to share in an adventure from which he may never return. The Hours (Cunningham) In The Hours, Michael Cunningham, widely praised as one of the most gifted writers of his generation, draws inventively on the life and work of Virginia Woolf to tell the story of a group of contemporary characters struggling with the conflicting claims of love and inheritance, hope and despair.

World/International Literature (by content/subject and/or author)

100 Years of Solitude (Marquez) The novel tells the story of the rise and fall of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buenda family. It is a rich and brilliant chronicle of life and death, and the tragicomedy of humankind. A Dolls House (Ibsen) Ibsen's best-known play displays his genius for realistic prose drama. An expression of women's rights, the play climaxes when the central character, Nora, rejects a smothering marriage and life in "a doll's house." Angelas Ashes (McCourt) Sometimes it's worth the wait. Having waited 40 years to tell his story, Frank McCourt doesn't pull any punches in his story of growing up dirt poor in Limerick, Ireland. Having emigrated to America, McCourt's family returns to Ireland after his sister dies in Brooklyn. It is there that things turn from bad to worse. Bless Me Ultima (Anaya) Antonio Marez is six years old when Ultima enters his life. She is a curandera, one who heals with herbs and magic. 'We cannot let her live her last days in loneliness,' says Antonio's mother. 'It is not the way of our people,' agrees his father. And so Ultima comes to live with Antonio's family in New Mexico. Death and the Kings Horseman- a play (Soyinka) Elesin Oba, the Kingss Horseman, has a single destiny. When the King dies, he must commit ritual suicide and lead his Kings favorite horse and dog through the passage to the world of the ancestors. A British colonial officer, Pilkings, intervenes. Demian (Hesse) One of the great writers of the 20th century tells the dramatic story of a young man's awakening to selfhood.

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Farewell to Manzanar (Houston) Jeanne Wakatsuki was seven years old in 1942 when her family was uprooted from their home and sent to live at Manzanar internment campwith 10,000 other Japanese Americans. Heroes, Gods and Monsters (Evslin) The earth breeds giants and ogres of indescribable horror the heavens hold omnipotent gods and goddesses, abounding in courage, strength and wisdom. I Have Lived a Thousand Years (Bitton-Jackson) A graphic narrative describes what happens to a 13-year-old Jewish girl when the Nazis invade Hungary in 1944. Includes a brief chronology of the Holocaust. Life of Pi (Martel) An impassioned defense of zoos, a death-defying trans-Pacific sea adventure la "Kon-Tiki," and a hilarious shaggy-dog story starring a four-hundred-and-fifty-pound Bengal tiger named Richard Parker: this audacious novel manages to be all of these as it tells the improbable survivor's tale of Pi Patel, a young Indian fellow named for a swimming pool (his full first name is Piscine) who endures seven months in a lifeboat with only a hungry, outsized feline for company. Winner of the 2002 Man Booker Prize for Fiction. Like Water for Chocolate (Esquivel) Earthy, magical, and utterly charming, this tale of family life in turn-of-the-century Mexico became a best-selling phenomenon with its winning blend of poignant romance and bittersweet wit. Nelson Mandela: The Authorized Comic Book (Nelson Mandela Foundation and Umlando Wezithombe) The fantastic, heroic life of Nelson Mandela, brought to life in this landmark graphic work. Night (Eli Weisel) An autobiographical narrative in which the author describes his experiences in Nazi concentration camps, watching family and friends die, and how they led him to believe that God is dead. Oedipus, The King (Sophocles) Oedipus the King is the story of Oedipus, King of Thebes. Abandoned as a young child, Oedipus returns to Thebes, unaware of his heritage and the phrophecy surrounding his birth. The fulfillment of his destiny and of those prophecies results in grave consequences for the royal house of Thebes. Persepolis a graphic novel (Satrapi) Persepolis is Marjane Satrapi's wise, funny, and heartbreaking memoir of growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. In powerful black-and-white comic strip images, Satrapi tells the story of her life in Tehran from ages six to fourteen, years that saw the overthrow of the Shah's regime, the triumph of the Islamic Revolution, and the devastating effects of war with Iraq. Siddhartha (Hesse) A classic of 20th-century fiction, Hesse's most celebrated work reflects his lifelong studies of Oriental myth and religion. The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf (Kahf) Punctuated by the five Muslim prayers and set to a disco and glam-rock soundtrack, Girl in the Tangerine Scarf evokes female adolescence in the vein of Cisnero's House on Mango Street and like Allegra Goodman's Kaaterskill Falls looks at orthodox religion against an American backdrop.

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The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver) The Poisonwood Bible is a story told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. The Kite Runner (Hosseini) Heres a real find: a striking debut from an Afghan now living in the US. His passionate story of betrayal and redemption is framed by Afghanistans tragic recent past. The Meaning of Consuelo: A Novel (Cofer) La nina seria, the serious child. That's how Consuelo's mother has cast her pensive, book-loving daughter, while Consuelo's younger sister Mili, is seen as vivacious--a ray of tropical sunshine. The Namesake (Lahiri) An engineer by training, Ashoke adapts far less warily than his wife, who resists all things American and pines for her family. When their son is born, the task of naming him betrays the vexed results of bringing old ways to the new world. The Odyssey (Homer) Crowded with characters, both human and non-human, and bursting with action, The Odyssey details the adventures of Odysseus, king of Ithaca and hero of the TrojanWar, as he struggles to return to his home and his waiting, ever-faithful wife, Penelope. Things Fall Apart (Achebe) A classic of modern African writing, this is the tale of what happens to tribal customs and old ways during colonialism. West of the Jordan: A Novel (Halaby) A poignant novel of four Arab women; This is a brilliant and revelatory first novel by a woman who is both an Arab and an American, who speaks with both voices and understands both worlds. What Is the What (Eggers) In a heartrending and astonishing novel, Eggers illuminates the history of the civil war in Sudan through the eyes of Valentino Achak Deng, a refugee now living in the United States.

For more information, please contact Sheryl Rabbitt, K-12 English Language Arts Supervisor at Sheryl. Rabbitt@ppsd.org or Dina Cerra, Secondary English Language Arts Intervention Specialist at Dina.Cerra@ppsd.org.

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