9 Honors Reading List

Title available in digital format to read on multiple devices.

Title available in audio format to listen to on multiple devices.

 

 

Alcott, Louisa May                                                            

Little Women Lexile 1230

 

Meet the March sisters: the talented and tomboyish Jo, the beautiful Meg, the frail Beth, and the spoiled Amy, as they pass through the years between girlhood and womanhood. A lively portrait of growing up in the 19^th century with lasting vitality and enduring charm.

 

 

Anaya, Rudolfo (more copies in textbook room)

Bless Me, Ultima Lexile 840

 

When a young New Mexican boy’s great aunt Ultima comes to live with his family, and tensions and conflicts erupt as the traditional world collides with the modern. As Tony struggles to find his own way amidst familial and religious pressures, he is also conflicted by his desire to love Ultima and his fear of her supposed powers as  a witch.

 

 

 Card, Scott Orson                                                                

Ender’s Game Lexile 800

 

Once again, the Earth is under attack. Alien “buggers” are poised for a final assault. The survival of the human species depends on a military genius who can defeat the buggers. But who? Ender Wiggin. Brilliant. Ruthless. Cunning. A tactical and strategic master recruited for military training by the world government.

 

 

Cormier, Robert (more copies in textbook room)

The Chocolate War   Lexile 820

 

A high school freshman discovers the devastating consequences of refusing to join in the school’s annual fund raising drive and arousing the wrath of the school bullies.

Mature content.

 

 

 

Creech, Sharon

Walk Two Moons Lexile 770

 

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.

 

Davis, Tanita S.

Mare’s War Lexile 830

 

Teens Octavia and Tali learn about strength, independence, and courage when they are forced to take a car trip with their grandmother, who tells about growing up Black in 1940s Alabama and serving in Europe during World War II as a member of the Women's Army Corps.

 

Dickens, Charles (more copies in textbook room)

Oliver Twist   Lexile 990

 

Set against London’s seedy back street slums, Oliver Twist is the saga of a workhouse orphan captured and thrust into a thieves’ den. At the heart of this drama is Oliver whose unsullied goodness leads him at last to salvation.

 

 

Doerr, Anthony

All the Light We Cannot See Lexile 880

 

In 1944, the U.S. Air Force bombed the Nazi-occupied French coastal town of St. Malo. Doerr starts his story just before the bombing, then goes back to 1934 to describe two childhoods: those of Werner and Marie-Laure. We meet Werner as a tow-headed German orphan whose math skills earn him a place in an elite Nazi training school saving him from a life in the mines, but forcing him to continually choose between opportunity and morality. Marie-Laure is blind and grows up in Paris, where her father is a locksmith for the Museum of Natural History, until the fall of Paris forces them to St. Malo, the home of Marie-Laure's eccentric great-uncle, who, along with his longtime housekeeper, joins the Resistance. Doerr throws in a possibly cursed sapphire and the Nazi gemologist searching for it, and weaves in radio, German propaganda, coded partisan messages, scientific facts, and Jules Verne. Eventually, the bombs fall, and the characters' paths converge, before diverging in the long aftermath that is the rest of the 20th century. 

 

Draper, Sharon M.

Romiette and Julio Lexile 610

 

Romiette, an African-American girl, and Julio, a Hispanic boy, discover that they attend the same high school after falling in love on the Internet, but are harassed by a gang whose members object to their interracial dating.

 

DuMaurier, Daphne                                                           

Rebecca Lexile 880

 

With these words, the reader is ushered into an isolated gray stone mansion on the windswept Cornish coast, as the second Mrs. Maxim de Winter recalls the chilling events that transpired as she began her new life as the young bride of a husband she barely knew. For in every corner of every room were phantoms of a time dead but not forgotten—a past devotedly preserved by the sinister housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers: a suite immaculate and untouched, clothing laid out and ready to be worn, but not by any of the great house's current occupants. With an eerie presentiment of evil tightening her heart, the second Mrs. de Winter walked in the shadow of her mysterious predecessor, determined to uncover the darkest secrets and shattering truths about Maxim's first wife—the late and hauntingly beautiful Rebecca.

 

 

Enger, Leif                                                                         

Peace Like a River Lexile 900

 

Young Reuben Land has little doubt that miracles happen all around us, suspecting that his own father is touched by God. When his older brother flees a controversial murder charge, Reuben, along with his older sister and father, set off on a journey that will take them to the Badlands and through a landscape more extraordinary than they could have anticipated. Enger’s novel is at once a heroic quest and a haunting meditation on the possibility of magic in the everyday world. 

 

Fleischman, Paul

Whirligig Lexile 760

 

With a family always on the move, popularity and the ability to fit in quickly are vital to Brent Bishop's high school survival. When he blows his chances with the girl of his dreams in front of everyone, he's devastated. Brent tries to end it all in a fatal car crash, but instead he finds an unlikely beginning. He's sent on a journey of repentance—a cross-country trip building whirligigs. His wind toys are found by people in need: a Maine schoolgirl yearning for her first love, a Miami street-sweeper desperate for peace and quiet, a kid in Washington who just wants to play baseball, and a San Diego teenager dealing with loss. Brent's whirligigs bring hope to others, but will they be able to heal the wounds deep inside himself?

 

Gibbons, Kaye                                                                               

Ellen Foster Lexile 870

 

Having suffered abuse and misfortune for much of her life, a young child searches for a better life and finally gets a break in the home of a loving woman with several foster children.

  

 

Gunther, John                                                                    

Death Be Not Proud; a memoir Lexile 1060

 

A father’s account of his teenage son’s courageous fight for his life during the fifteen months he was dying from a brain tumor. WWII background.  (921 call #)

   

 

Kidd, Sue Monk                                                                

The Secret Life of Bees Lexile  840

                    

When Lily's fierce-hearted black "stand-in mother," Rosaleen, insults three of the town's most vicious racists, Lily decides they should both escape to Tiburon, South Carolina—a town that holds the secret to her mother's past. There they are taken in by an eccentric trio of black beekeeping sisters who introduce Lily to a mesmerizing world of bees, honey, and the Black Madonna who presides over their household. This is a remarkable story about divine female power and the transforming power of love.

 

  

LeGuin, Ursula                                                                  

The Left Hand of Darkness Lexile 970

 

Tells the story of a lone human emissary to Winter, an alien world whose inhabitants can change their gender. His goal is to facilitate Winter's inclusion in a growing intergalactic civilization. But to do so he must bridge the gulf between his own views and those of the completely dissimilar culture that he encounters. Embracing the aspects of psychology, society, and human emotion in an alien world, The Left Hand of Darkness stands as a landmark achievement in the annals of intellectual science fiction.

 

Paton, Alan (more copies in textbook room)

Cry, the Beloved Country Lexile 860

 

The deeply moving story of Stephen Kumalo, a Zulu pastor, and his son, Absalom. Set in the troubled and changing South Africa of the 1940s, it is also the story of a land and a people driven by racial injustice. The book is written with such keen compassion and understanding that the listener shares fully in the gravity of the characters' situations.

 

Rapp, Adam

Punkzilla Lexile 1200

 

For the runaway Punkzilla, kicking a meth habit and a life of petty crime in Oregon is a prelude to reconnecting with his older brother, who is dying of cancer in Memphis. Against a backdrop of seedy motels, dicey bus stations, and hitched rides, the fourteen-year-old meets a colorful, sometimes dangerous cast of characters. And in letters to his sibling, crackling with visceral details and dark humor, he catalogs them all. With each interstate exit his journey grows more urgent: will he make it to Tennessee in time? This daring novel offers a narrative worthy of Kerouac and a keen insight into the power of chance encounters.

 

Rawlings, Marjorie                                                             

Cross Creek Lexile 1120

 

Here is the story of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings's experiences in the remote Florida hamlet of Cross Creek, where she lived for thirteen years. From the daily labors of managing a seventy-two-acre orange grove to bouts with runaway pigs and a succession of unruly farmhands, Rawlings describes her life at the Creek with humor and spirit. Her tireless determination to overcome the challenges of her adopted home in the Florida backcountry, her deep-rooted love of the earth, and her genius for character and description result in a most delightful and heartwarming memoir. (921 call #)

 

 

Steinbeck, John                                                                  

Cannery Row Lexile 930

 

Steinbeck's tough yet charming portrait of people on the margins of society, dependent on one another for both physical and emotional survival. This book focuses on the acceptance of life as it is: both the exuberance of community and the loneliness of the individual. 

 

 Steinbeck, John (more copies in textbook room)

The Pearl Lexile 1010

 

Like his father and grandfather before him, Kino is a poor diver, gathering pearls from the gulf beds that once brought great wealth to the Kings of Spain and now provide Kino, Juana, and their infant son with meager subsistence. Then, on a day like any other, Kino emerges from the sea with a pearl as large as a sea gull's egg, as "perfect as the moon." With the pearl comes hope, the promise of comfort and of security. A story of classic simplicity, based on a Mexican folktale, The Pearl explores the secrets of man's nature, the darkest depths of evil, and the luminous possibilities of love.  

 

 

Stevenson, Bryan (more copies in textbook room)

Just Mercy Lexile 1130

 

Bryan Stevenson was a young lawyer when he founded the Equal Justice Initiative, a legal practice dedicated to defending those most desperate and in need: the poor, the wrongly condemned, and women and children trapped in the farthest reaches of our criminal justice system. One of his first cases was that of Walter McMillian, a young man who was sentenced to die for a notorious murder he insisted he didn't commit. The case drew Bryan into a tangle of conspiracy, political machination, and legal brinksmanship—and transformed his understanding of mercy and justice forever.

 

Tahir, Sabaa

An Ember In The Ashes Lexile 680

 

"Laia is a Scholar living under the iron-fisted rule of the Martial Empire. When her brother is arrested for treason, Laia goes undercover as a slave at the empire's greatest military academy in exchange for assistance from rebel Scholars who claim that they will help to save her brother from execution" 

 

Tan, Amy                                                                           

Joy Luck Club Lexile 930

 

In 1949 four Chinese women, recent immigrants to San Francisco, begin meeting to eat dim sum, play mahjong, and talk. United in shared unspeakable loss and hope, they call themselves the Joy Luck Club. With wit and sensitivity, Amy Tan examines the sometimes painful, often tender, and always deep connection between these four women and their American-born daughters. As each woman reveals her secrets, trying to unravel the truth about her life, the strings become more tangled, more entwined.

Tolkein, J.R.R. (more copies in textbook room)

 

The Hobbit Lexile 1000

 

Bilbo Baggins is a hobbit who enjoys a comfortable, unambitious life, rarely traveling any farther than his pantry or cellar. But his contentment is disturbed when the wizard Gandalf and a company of dwarves arrive on his doorstep one day to whisk him away on an adventure. They have launched a plot to raid the treasure hoard guarded by Smaug the Magnificent, a large and very dangerous dragon. Bilbo reluctantly joins their quest, unaware that on his journey to the Lonely Mountain he will encounter both a magic ring and a frightening creature known as Gollum.

 

Verne, Jules                                                                        

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea   Lexile 770

 

A nineteenth-century science fiction tale of an electric submarine, its eccentric captain, and undersea world, which anticipated many of the scientific achievements of the twentieth century.

 

 

Wells, H.G.                                                                        

The Invisible Man: a Fantastic Sensation Lexile 980

 

One of the most famous scientific fantasies ever written, this highly imaginative tale focuses on the powers and bold ventures of a scientist, who, after discovering the means to make himself invisible, unleashes a bizarre streak of terror on the inhabitants of an English village. Filled with suspense and psychological nuances of plot.

 

 

Wister, Owen                                                                     

The Virginian: a Horseman of the Plains Lexile 830

 

The first of its kind, Wister’s The Virginian is a prototypical western novel that has inspired readers and authors for over a century. Detailing the exploits of a gunslinger known solely as the Virginian, Wister’s novel introduced readers to a number of western motifs that are taken for granted in western fiction today. This is a must-read for any fan of the western genre.

 

Woodson, Jacqueline

If You Come Softly Lexile 570

 

Jeremiah feels good inside his own skin. That is, when he's in his own Brooklyn neighborhood. But now he's going to be attending a fancy prep school in Manhattan, and black teenage boys don't exactly fit in there. So it's a surprise when he meets Ellie the first week of school. In one frozen moment their eyes lock, and after that they know they fit together—even though she's Jewish and he's black. Their worlds are so different, but to them that's not what matters. Too bad the rest of the world has to get in their way.

 

Zusak, Marcus                                                                    

The Book Thief Lexile 730

 

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.

 

Over

Oregon Battle of the Books Options 2021-2022

Oregon Battle of the Books Options

These books may be options for outside reading book reports as well. Check with your teacher.

 

Berry, Julie,

Lovely War Lexile 650

 

They are Hazel, James, Aubrey, and Colette. A classical pianist from London, a British would-be architect-turned-soldier, a Harlem-born ragtime genius in the U.S. Army, and a Belgian orphan with a gorgeous voice and a devastating past. Their story, as told by goddess Aphrodite, who must spin the tale or face judgement on Mount Olympus, is filled with hope and heartbreak, prejudice and passion, and reveals that, though War is a formidable force, it’s no match for the transcendent power of Love. (from Sora)

 

 

de Castell, Sebastien

Spellslinger Lexile 

 

Kellen is moments away from facing his first duel and proving his worth as a spellcaster. There’s just one problem: his magic is fading. Facing exile unless he can pass the mage trials, Kellen is willing to risk everything - even his own life - in search of a way to restore his magic. But when the enigmatic Ferius Parfax arrives in town, she challenges him to take a different path. (from Sora)

 

Ireland, Justina

Dread Nation Lexile 870

 

Jane McKeene was born two days before the dead began to walk the battlefields of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania—derailing the War Between the States and changing the nation forever.

Almost finished with her education at Miss Preston's School of Combat in Baltimore, Jane is set on returning to her Kentucky home and doesn't pay much mind to the politics of the eastern cities, with their talk of returning America to the glory of its days before the dead rose.

But when families around Baltimore County begin to go missing, Jane is caught in the middle of a conspiracy, one that finds her in a desperate fight for her life against some powerful enemies.

And the restless dead, it would seem, are the least of her problems. (from Sora)

 

Jackson, Tiffany D.

Let Me Hear a Rhyme Lexile 

Brooklyn, 1998. Biggie Smalls was right: Things done changed. But that doesn't mean that Quadir and Jarrell are cool, letting their best friend Steph's music lie forgotten under his bed after he's murdered—not when his rhymes could turn any Bed Stuy corner into a party.With the help of Steph's younger sister Jasmine, they come up with a plan to promote Steph's music under a new rap name: the Architect. Soon, everyone wants a piece of him. When his demo catches the attention of a hotheaded music label rep, the trio must prove Steph's talent from beyond the grave.As the pressure of keeping their secret grows, Quadir, Jarrell, and Jasmine are forced to confront the truth about what happened to Steph. Only, each has something to hide. And with everything riding on Steph's fame, they need to decide what they stand for or lose all that they've worked so hard to hold on to—including each other. (from Sora)

 

Kelley, William

A Different Drummer Lexile 890

 

June, 1957. One hot afternoon in the backwaters of the Deep South, a young black farmer named Tucker Caliban salts his fields, shoots his horse, burns his house, and heads north with his wife and child. His departure sets off an exodus of the state's entire black population, throwing the established order into brilliant disarray. Told from the points of view of the white residents who remained, A Different Drummer stands, decades after its first publication in 1962, as an extraordinary and prescient triumph of satire and spirit. (from Sora)

 

Khanani, Intisar

Thorn Lexile 

Princess Alyrra has always longed to escape the confines of her royal life, but when her mother betroths her to a powerful prince in a distant kingdom, she has little hope for a better future.Until Alyrra arrives at her new kingdom, where a mysterious sorceress robs her of both her identity and her role as princess—and Alyrra seizes on the opportunity to start a new life for herself as a goose girl.But as Alyrra uncovers dangerous secrets about her new world, including a threat to the prince himself, she knows she can't remain silent forever. With the fate of the kingdom at stake, Alyrra is caught between two worlds, and ultimately must decide who she is and what she stands for. (from Sora)

 

Krosoczka, Jarrett J.

Hey, Kiddo Lexile 510

In kindergarten, Jarrett Krosoczka's teacher asks him to draw his family, with a mommy and a daddy. But Jarrett's family is much more complicated than that. His mom is an addict, in and out of rehab, and in and out of Jarrett's life. His father is a mystery — Jarrett doesn't know where to find him, or even what his name is. Jarrett lives with his grandparents — two very loud, very loving, very opinionated people who had thought they were through with raising children until Jarrett came along.Jarrett goes through his childhood trying to make his non-normal life as normal as possible, finding a way to express himself through drawing even as so little is being said to him about what's going on. Only as a teenager can Jarrett begin to piece together the truth of his family, reckoning with his mother and tracking down his father.Hey, Kiddo is a profoundly important memoir about growing up in a family grappling with addiction, and finding the art that helps you survive. (from Sora)

 

Mathieu, Jennifer

Moxie Lexile 840

 

MOXIE GIRLS FIGHT BACK!

Vivian Carter is fed up. Fed up with an administration at her high school that thinks the football team can do no wrong. Fed up with sexist dress codes, hallway harassment, and gross comments from guys during class. But most of all, Viv Carter is fed up with always following the rules.

Viv's mom was a tough-as-nails, punk rock Riot Grrrl in the '90s, and now Viv takes a page from her mother's past and creates a feminist zine that she distributes anonymously to her classmates. She's just blowing off steam, but other girls respond. As Viv forges friendships with other young women across the divides of cliques and popularity rankings, she realizes that what she has started is nothing short of a girl revolution.

Moxie is a book about high school life that will make you wanna riot! (from Sora)

 

Philippe, Ben

The Field Guide to the North American Teenager Lexile 830

 

Norris Kaplan is clever, cynical, and quite possibly too smart for his own good. A Black French Canadian, he knows from watching American sitcoms that those three things don't bode well when you are moving to Austin, Texas.

Plunked into a new high school and sweating a ridiculous amount from the oppressive Texas heat, Norris finds himself cataloging everyone he meets: the Cheerleaders, the Jocks, the Loners, and even the Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Making a ton of friends has never been a priority for him, and this way he can at least amuse himself until it's time to go back to Canada, where he belongs.

Yet against all odds, those labels soon become actual people to Norris...like loner Liam, who makes it his mission to befriend Norris, or Madison the beta cheerleader, who is so nice that it has to be a trap. Not to mention Aarti the Manic Pixie Dream Girl, who might, in fact, be a real love interest in the making.

But the night of the prom, Norris screws everything up royally. As he tries to pick up the pieces, he realizes it might be time to stop hiding behind his snarky opinions and start living his life—along with the people who have found their way into his heart. (from Sora)

 

Ribay, Randy

Patron Saints of Nothing Lexile 840

 

Jay Reguero plans to spend the last semester of his senior year playing video games before heading to the University of Michigan in the fall. But when he discovers that his Filipino cousin Jun was murdered as part of President Duterte's war on drugs, and no one in the family wants to talk about what happened, Jay travels to the Philippines to find out the real story.

Hoping to uncover more about Jun and the events that led to his death, Jay is forced to reckon with the many sides of his cousin before he can face the whole horrible truth — and the part he played in it.

As gripping as it is lyrical, Patron Saints of Nothing is a page-turning portrayal of the struggle to reconcile faith, family, and immigrant identity. (from Sora)

 

Rowell, Rainbow

Pumpkinheads Lexile 340

 

Deja and Josiah are seasonal best friends.

Every autumn, all through high school, they've worked together at the best pumpkin patch in the whole wide world. (Not many people know that the best pumpkin patch in the whole wide world is in Omaha, Nebraska, but it definitely is.) They say good-bye every Halloween, and they're reunited every September 1.

But this Halloween is different—Josiah and Deja are finally seniors, and this is their last season at the pumpkin patch. Their last shift together. Their last good-bye.

Josiah's ready to spend the whole night feeling melancholy about it. Deja isn't ready to let him. She's got a plan: What if—instead of moping and the usual slinging lima beans down at the Succotash Hut—they went out with a bang? They could see all the sights! Taste all the snacks! And Josiah could finally talk to that cute girl he's been mooning over for three years . . .

What if their last shift was an adventure? (from Sora)

 

Shusterman, Neal and Jarrod

Dry Lexile 790

 

The drought—or the Tap-Out, as everyone calls it—has been going on for a while now. Everyone's lives have become an endless list of don'ts: don't water the lawn, don't fill up your pool, don't take long showers.

Until the taps run dry.

Suddenly, Alyssa's quiet suburban street spirals into a warzone of desperation; neighbors and families turn against each other on the hunt for water. And when her parents don't return and her life—and the life of her brother—is threatened, Alyssa has to make impossible choices if she's going to survive. (from Sora)

 

10 Honors Reading List

Title available in digital format to read on multiple devices.

Title available in audio format to listen to on multiple devices.

 

Abdel-Fattah, Randa                                                                            

Does My Head Look Big in This? Lexile 770

Sixteen-year-old Amal makes the decision to start wearing the hijab full-time and everyone has a reaction. Her parents, her teachers, her friends, people on the street. But she stands by her decision to embrace her faith and all that it is, even if it does make her a little different from everyone else.

 

 Acevedo, Elizabeth                                                                           

The Poet X Lexile 800

Xiomara Batista feels unheard and unable to hide in her Harlem neighborhood. Ever since her body grew into curves, she has learned to let her fists and her fierceness do the talking. But Xiomara has plenty she wants to say, and she pours all her frustration and passion onto the pages of a leather notebook, reciting the words to herself like prayers—especially after she catches feelings for a boy in her bio class named Aman, who her family can never know about.

 

Achebe, Chinua                                                                             

Things Fall Apart Lexile 890

Follow the story of Okonkwo, the son of a lazy but amiable man and the father of several children of his own. Overcoming the obstacles set before him in childhood, he becomes a prosperous farmer and winning wrestler and gains the respect of his peers. This novel chronicles the events leading up to his banishment from the community for accidentally killing a clansman, through the seven years of his exile, to his return.

 

Allende, Isabel                                                                               

Daughter of Fortune Lexile 1250

A sweeping portrait of an unconventional woman carving her own destiny in an era defined by violence, passion, and adventure. An orphan raised in Valparaiso, Chile, young, vivacious Eliza Sommers follows her lover to California during the Gold Rush of 1849. Some mature content.

 

Bronte, Charlotte (more English textbook room)  

Jane Eyre Lexile 890

In early nineteenth-century England, an orphaned young woman accepts employment as a

governess and soon finds herself in love with her employer who has a terrible secret.

 

Buck, Pearl S.   (more English textbook room)  

The Good Earth Lexile 1530

This is the epic story of the rise from poverty of peasant Wang Lung and his family in pre-revolutionary China. Their vigor, fortitude, persistence and enduring love of the soil are emphasized as they weather famine, drought, and revolution.

 

Courtenay, Bryce (more English textbook room)       

The Power of One Lexile 850

A weak and friendless boy growing up in South Africa during WWII, Peekay turns to two older men, one black and one white, to show him how to find the courage to dream, to succeed, to triumph over a world when all seems lost, and to inspire him to summon up the most irresistible force of all: the Power of One.

 

 Dickens, Charles (more English textbook room)

A Tale of Two Cities Lexile 870

After eighteen years as a political prisoner in the Bastille, the aging Doctor Manette is finally released and reunited with his daughter in England. There the lives of two very different men, Charles Darnay, an exiled French aristocrat, and Sydney Carton, a disreputable but brilliant English lawyer, become enmeshed through their love for Lucie Manette. From the tranquil roads of London, they are drawn against their will to the vengeful, bloodstained streets of Paris at the height of the Reign of Terror, and they soon fall under the lethal shadow of La Guillotine.

 

Doerr, Anthony                                                                         

All the Light We Cannot See Lexile 880

All the Light We Cannot See is an up close and personal story of two kids, one a German orphan boy with incredible engineering skills, the other a blind French girl who loves to read and sometimes leaves the safety of her uncle's home where she is cooped up, trying to keep out of the reach of Nazis during world war two.

 

Foer, Jonathan

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close Lexile 800

Nine-year-old Oskar Schell is an inventor, amateur entomologist, Francophile, letter writer, pacifist, natural historian, percussionist, romantic, Great Explorer, jeweller, detective, vegan, and collector of butterflies. When his father is killed in the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Centre, Oskar sets out to solve the mystery of a key he discovers in his father's closet. It is a search which leads him into the lives of strangers, through the five boroughs of New York, into history, to the bombings of Dresden and Hiroshima, and on an inward journey which brings him ever closer to some kind of peace.

 

Greenberg, Joanne                                                                         

I Never Promised You a Rose Garden Lexile 960

Chronicles the three-year battle of a mentally ill, but perceptive, teenage girl against a world of her own creation, emphasizing her relationship with the doctor who gave her the ammunition of self-understanding with which to destroy that world of fantasy.

  

Haddon, Mark        

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time Lexile  1180

Despite his overwhelming fear of interacting with people, Christopher, a mathematically-gifted, autistic fifteen-year-old boy, decides to investigate the murder of a neighbor's dog and uncovers secret information about his mother.

   

Haley, Alex                                                                                    

Roots   Lexile 1330

This novel begins with a birth in 1750 in an African village; it ends seven generations later at the Arkansas funeral of a black professor whose children are a teacher, a Navy architect, an assistant director of the U.S. Information Agency, and an author.

 

Hansberry, Lorraine (more English textbook room)

A Raisin in the Sun Lexile 970

A Raisin in the Sun portrays a few weeks in the life of the Youngers, a black family, and their experiences in south Chicago in the 1950s as they attempt to improve their financial circumstances with an insurance payout following the death of the father, and deals with matters of housing discrimination, racism, and assimilation.

 

Heinlein, Robert

Stranger in a Strange Land Lexile 940

Raised by Martians on Mars, Valentine Michael Smith is a human who has never seen another member of his species. Sent to Earth, he is a stranger who must learn what it is to be a man. But his own beliefs and his powers far exceed the limits of humankind, and as he teaches them about grokking and water-sharing, he also inspires a transformation that will alter Earth’s inhabitants forever....Mature content.

 

Hillenbrand, Laura                                                                                

Unbroken   Lexile 850

Unbroken is a biography of World War II veteran Louis Zamperini, a former Olympic track star who survived a plane crash in the Pacific Theater, spent 47 days drifting on a raft, and then survived more than two and a half years as a prisoner of war (POW) in three Japanese POW camps.

 

Ishiguro, Kazuo                                                                                  

Never Let Me Go Lexile 970

Never Let Me Go takes place in a dystopian version of late 1990s England, where the lives of ordinary citizens are prolonged through a state-sanctioned program of human cloning. The clones, referred to as students, grow up in special institutions away from the outside world.

 

Jahren, Hope                                                                                   

Lab Girl Lexile 1240

Her award-winning, bestselling memoir Lab Girl tells the story of a young woman who finds friendship in odd places, battles bipolar disorder, perseveres through setbacks and relishes hard-earned triumphs, and becomes a respected scientist and passionate observer of the natural world.

 

Kalanithi, Paul                                                                                

When Breath Becomes Air Lexile 1100

At the age of 36, on the verge of completing a decade's worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live. And just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined evaporated. This inspiring, exquisitely observed memoir finds hope and beauty in the face of insurmountable odds as an idealistic young neurosurgeon attempts to answer the question: What makes a life worth living? 

 

Kesey, Ken                                                                                    

One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest Lexile 1110

This is the unforgettable story of a mental ward and its inhabitants, especially the tyrannical Big Nurse Ratched and Randle Patrick McMurphy, the brawling, fun-loving new inmate who resolves to oppose her. We see the struggle through the eyes of Chief Bromden, the seemingly mute half-Indian patient who witnesses and understands McMurphy’s heroic attempt to do battle with the awesome power of the Combine.

 

Kogawa, Joy                                                                                   

Obasan Lexile 900

Based on the author's own experiences, this award-winning novel was the first to tell the story of the evacuation, relocation, and dispersal of Canadian citizens of Japanese ancestry during the Second World War.

 

Lippincott, Rachel                                                                

Five Feet Apart Lexile 780

Seventeen-year-old Stella spends most of her time in the hospital as a cystic fibrosis patient. Her life is full of routines, boundaries and self-control -- all of which get put to the test when she meets Will, an impossibly charming teen who has the same illness.

 

Martel, Yann

Life of Pi Lexile 830

Pi Patel, having spent an idyllic childhood in Pondicherry, India, as the son of a zookeeper, sets off with his family at the age of sixteen to start anew in Canada, but his life takes a marvelous turn when their ship sinks in the Pacific, leaving him adrift on a raft with a 450-pound Bengal tiger for company.

  

McCarthy, Cormac (more copies in textbook room)

The Road  Lexile 1530

Traces the journey of a father and his son as they walk alone after a great fire has consumed the nation and left everything in ashes. A haunting novel of survival set in a post apocalyptic civilization full of violence and hopelessness.

 

McCullers, Carson  (more English textbook room)

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter Lexile 760

A deaf-mute who has lost his only friend to a hospital for the insane becomes the recipient of the confidences and yearnings of four people in a small southern town, among them a quiet, sensitive girl who searches for beauty in a small, but damned Southern town.

 

Mullenbach, Cheryl                                                             

Women in Blue Lexile N/A

Balancing the stories of trailblazers from the past with those of today’s dedicated officers, chiefs, FBI agents, and forensics experts, this collection of riveting biographies traces the evolution of women in policing. Women in Blue inspires readers to value those who broke through barriers—often enduring ridicule and discrimination as they fought for equality.

 

O’Brien, Tim                                                                                  

The Things They Carried Lexile 880

An unparalleled Vietnam testament, a classic study of men at war that brilliantly – and painfully – illuminates the capacity, and the limits, of the human heart and soul. Mature content.

 

Potok, Chaim                                                                          (more English textbook room)       

Davita’s Harp Lexile 850

For Davita Chandal, growing up in the New York of the 1930s and ‘40s is an experience of joy and sadness. Her loving parents, both fervent radicals, fill her with the fiercely bright hope of a new and better world. But as the deprivations of war and depression takes a ruthless toll, Davita unexpectedly turns to the Jewish faith that her mother had long ago abandoned.

 

Potok, Chaim                                                                                 

My Name is Asher Lev Lexile 640

The making of a great contemporary painter from the first stirrings of a commanding talent to the triumphant exhibition that wins recognition for his art and marks his final, heartrending estrangement from the world in which he was born.

 

Seton, Anya                                                                                   

Katherine         Lexile 880                                                                                

This classic romance novel tells the true story of the love affair that changed history, that of Katherine Swynford and John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, the ancestors of most of the British royal family. Set in the vibrant 14th century of Chaucer and the Black Death, the story features knights fighting in battle, serfs struggling in poverty, and the magnificent Plantagenets- Edward III, the Black Prince, and Richard II, who ruled despotically over a court rotten with intrigue. Within this era of danger and romance, John of Gaunt, the king’s son, falls passionately in love with the already married Katherine. Their well-documented affair and love persist through decades of war, adultery, murder, loneliness, and redemption.

 

 

Shaara, Michael                                                                                 

The Killer Angels Lexile 610

In the four most bloody and courageous days of our nation’s history, two armies fought for two conflicting dreams. One dreamed of freedom, the other of a way of life. Far more than rifles and bullets were carried into battle. There were memories. There were promises. There was love. And far more than men fell on those Pennsylvania fields. Bright futures, untested innocence, and pristine beauty were also the casualties of war. Michael Shaara’s Pulitzer Prize–winning masterpiece is unique, sweeping, unforgettable—the dramatic story of the battleground for America’s destiny.

 

Shelley, Mary (more copies in textbook room)

Frankenstein Lexile 1170

Victor Frankenstein has discovered the secret of generating life from lifeless matter, and has created a monster being by using this terrible power. The classic novel about a scientific experiment to create a man-made human.

 

Smith, Betty (more copies in textbook room)

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn Lexile 810

Primarily the story of Francie, this is a true story of childhood and family relationships. The Nolans lived in the slums of Brooklyn for seventeen years and the story reveals the sufferings of the city’s poor.

 

Walker, Alice (more English textbook room)      

The Color Purple Lexile 670

 

Beautifully imagined and deeply compassionate, this is the story of two sisters – one a missionary in Africa and the other  a child wife living in the South – who sustain their loyalty to and trust in each other across time, distance, and silence. Mature Content.

 

Whitehead, Colson

The Nickel Boys Lexile 940

When Elwood Curtis, a black boy growing up in 1960s Tallahassee, is unfairly sentenced to a juvenile reformatory called the Nickel Academy, he finds himself trapped in a grotesque chamber of horrors. Elwood’s only salvation is his friendship with fellow “delinquent” Turner, which deepens despite Turner’s conviction that Elwood is hopelessly naive, that the world is crooked, and that the only way to survive is to scheme and avoid trouble. As life at the Academy becomes ever more perilous, the tension between Elwood’s ideals and Turner’s skepticism leads to a decision whose repercussions will echo down the decades.

 

Whitehead, Colson                                                                 

The Underground Railroad Lexile 940

The Underground Railroad tells the story of Cora, a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. An outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is on the cusp of womanhood—where greater pain awaits. As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates the terrors of the antebellum era, he weaves in the saga of our nation, from the brutal abduction of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. The Underground Railroad is both the gripping tale of one woman's will to escape the horrors of bondage—and a powerful meditation on the history we all share.

 

Wilde, Oscar                                                                                  

The Picture of Dorian Gray Lexile 920

A remarkably handsome youth, Dorian Gray, meets Lord Henry Wotton and is corrupted by his influence into a life of decadence and corruption.

 

 11 Honors Reading List

Title available in digital format to read on multiple devices.

Title available in audio format to listen to on multiple devices.

 

 

Angelou, Maya (more copies in textbook room)

I Know why the Caged Bird Sings Lexile (1010)

 

Sent by their mother to live with their devout, self-sufficient grandmother in a small Southern town, Maya and her brother, Bailey, endure the ache of abandonment and the prejudice of the local "powhitetrash." At eight years old and back at her mother’s side in St. Louis, Maya is attacked by a man many times her age—and has to live with the consequences for a lifetime. Years later, in San Francisco, Maya learns that love for herself, the kindness of others, her own strong spirit, and the ideas of great authors ("I met and fell in love with William Shakespeare") will allow her to be free instead of imprisoned.

 

Boudinot, Elias   

Cherokee Editor

 

This volume collects most of the writings published by the accomplished Cherokee leader Elias Boudinot (1804?-1839). Founding editor of the Cherokee Phoenix, Boudinot is the most ambiguous and puzzling figure in Cherokee history. Although he first struggled against the removal of his people from their native Southeast, Boudinot later reversed his position and signed the Treaty of New Echota, an action that cost him his life.

 

Together with Theda Perdue's biographical introduction and in-depth annotations, these letters, articles, pamphlets, and editorials document the stages of Boudinot's religious, philosophical, and political growth, from his early optimism that the Cherokees could completely assimilate into white society to his call for a separate nation of "civilized" Cherokees.

 

Burns, Olive Ann (more copies in textbook room)

Cold Sassy Tree Lexile (940)

 

One thing you could depend on in Cold Sassy, Georgia, was that word got around—fast. If the preacher's wife's petticoat showed, the ladies would make the talk last a week. But on July 5, 1906, things took a scandalous turn. That was the day E. Rucker Blakeslee, proprietor of the general store and barely three weeks a widower, eloped with Miss Love Simpson—a woman half his age and, worse yet, a Yankee! On that day, fourteen-year-old Will Tweedy's adventures began, and an unimpeachably pious town came to life.

 

As the newlyweds' chaperone, conspirator, and confidant, Will is privy to his renegade grandfather's second adolescence. Meanwhile, Will does some growing up of his own. He gets run over by a train and lives to tell about it, and he kisses his first girl and survives that too. 

 

Callahan, S. Alice    Lexile 1170

Wynema: A Child of the Forest

 

Originally published in 1891, Wynema is the first novel known to have been written by a woman of American Indian descent. Set against the sweeping and often tragic cultural changes that affected southeastern native peoples during the late nineteenth century, it tells the story of a lifelong friendship between two women from vastly different backgrounds—Wynema Harjo, a Muscogee Indian, and Genevieve Weir, a Methodist teacher from a genteel Southern family. Both are firm believers in women’s rights and Indian reform; both struggle to overcome prejudice and correct injustices between sexes and races. Callahan uses the conventional traditions of a sentimental domestic romance to deliver an elegant plea for tolerance, equality, and reform.

 

Cather, Willa (more copies in textbook room)

My Antonia Lexile 1010

 

A story of pioneer life in Nebraska in which a successful lawyer recollects his boyhood experiences, describing the beauties and hardships of nineteenth century pioneer life and the life of brave people who turned the prairie into productive farmland.

 

 

Crane, Stephen

The Red Badge of Courage Lexile 900

 

A young Union soldier, Henry Fleming, tells of his feelings when he is under fire for the first time during the battle of Chancellorsville as he moves from cowardice to courage. One of the great novels of the Civil War.

 

Dorris, Michael                                                                  

A Yellow Raft in Blue Water Lexile 980

 

This is a fierce saga of three generations of Indian women, beset by hardships and torn by angry secrets, yet inextricably joined by the bonds of kinship. Starting in the present day and moving backward, the novel is told in the voices of the three women: fifteen-year-old part-black Rayona; her American Indian mother, Christine, consumed by tenderness and resentment toward those she loves; and the fierce and mysterious Ida, mother and grandmother whose haunting secrets, betrayals, and dreams echo through the years, braiding together the strands of the shared past. Some very mature content.

 

Dreiser, Theodore                                                              

Sister Carrie Lexile 980

 

The story of a young woman from Wisconsin who goes to Chicago, becomes an actress, marries and goes to NY, and when her husband loses his job, goes on stage again. The story follows the rise of Carrie and the decline of her protector, Hurstwood.

 

 

Faulkner, William (more copies in textbook room)

The Reivers   Lexile 970

 

The Reivers is a picaresque that tells of three unlikely car thieves from rural Mississippi. Eleven-year-old Lucius Priest is persuaded by Boon Hogganbeck, one of his family's retainers, to steal his grandfather's car and make a trip to Memphis. The Priest's black coachman, Ned McCaslin, stows away, and the three of them are off on a heroic odyssey, for which thy are all ill-equipped, that ends at Miss Reba's bordello in Memphis. From there a series of wild misadventures ensues—involving horse smuggling, trainmen, sheriff's deputies, and jail.

 

Ford, Jamie Lexile 850

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet 

 

In 1986, Henry Lee joins a crowd outside the Panama Hotel, once the gateway to Seattle's Japantown. It has been boarded up for decades, but now the new owner has discovered the belongings of Japanese families who were sent to internment camps during World War II. As the owner displays and unfurls a Japanese parasol, Henry, a Chinese American, remembers a young Japanese American girl from his childhood in the 1940s—Keiko Okabe, with whom he forged a bond of friendship and innocent love that transcended the prejudices of their Old World ancestors. After Keiko and her family were evacuated to the internment camps, she and Henry could only hope that their promise to each other would be kept. Now, forty years later, Henry explores the hotel's basement for the Okabe family's belongings and for a long-lost object whose value he cannot even begin to measure. His search will take him on a journey to revisit the sacrifices he has made for family, for love, for country.

 

Frazier, Charles                                                                  

Cold Mountain Lexile 1210

 

Based on local history and family stories passed down by the author’s great-great-grandfather, Cold Mountain is the tale of a wounded soldier, Inman, who walks away from the ravages of the war and back home to his prewar sweetheart, Ada. Inman’s odyssey through the devastated landscape of the soon-to-be-defeated South interweaves with Ada’s struggle to revive her father’s farm, with the help of an intrepid young drifter named Ruby. As their long-separated lives begin to converge at the close of the war, Inman and Ada confront the vastly transformed world they’ve been delivered.

 

 

Hemingway, Ernest                                                           

For Whom the Bell Tolls Lexile 840

 

The story of Robert Jordan, an American fighting during the Spanish Civil War with the antifascist guerillas in the mountains of Spain, who discovers love, destroys a bridge as assigned, and faces his final test alone.

 

 

Kesey, Ken                                                                        

Sometimes a Great Notion Lexile 1020

 

The aggressive scion of an Oregon lumber empire struggles against the conformity of townspeople. This social novel concerns itself with the economically depressed and claustrophobic culture of small family loggers in the Pacific Northwest

 

 

Kingsolver, Barbara (more copies in textbook room)

The Bean Trees Lexile 900

 

Clear-eyed and spirited, Taylor Greer grew up poor in rural Kentucky with the goals of avoiding pregnancy and getting away. But when she heads west with high hopes and a barely functional car, she meets the human condition head-on. By the time Taylor arrives in Tucson, Arizona, she has acquired a completely unexpected child, a three-year-old American Indian girl named Turtle, and must somehow come to terms with both motherhood and the necessity for putting down roots. Hers is a story about love and friendship, abandonment and belonging, and the discovery of surprising resources in apparently empty places.

 

Lewis, Sinclair                                                                   

Babbitt Lexile 1110

 

George Babbitt is a successful real estate man living in an average Midwestern city, in this satire of shallow middle class American life.

 

 

Malamud, Bernard

The Natural Lexile 1060

 

Gifted baseball player Roy Hobbs, his career derailed by a youthful indiscretion, makes a stunning comeback in later life, but finds himself still struggling against the temptations that would bring him to ruin. Some would say still this is still the best novel ever written about baseball. In it Malamud, tells the story of a superbly gifted "natural" at play in the fields of the old daylight baseball era—and invested it with the hardscrabble poetry, at once grand and altogether believable, that runs through all his best work.

 

Morrison, Toni                                                               

The Bluest Eye     Lexile 920

 

Eleven-year-old Pecola Breedlove, an African-American girl in an America whose love for blonde, blue-eyed children can devastate all others, prays for her eyes to turn blue, so that she will be beautiful, people will notice her, and her world will be different. Mature content

 

 

Rand, Ayn                                                                         

The Fountainhead Lexile 780

 

This novel is the story of a gifted young architect, his violent battle against conventional standards, and his explosive love affair with a beautiful woman who struggles to defeat him. His fierce independence in pursuing his own ideas of design is an example of the author’s concept of Objectivism which lauds individualism and “rational self-interest.”

 

 

Rolvaag, O.E.                                                                    

Giants in the Earth                                                             Lexile 830

 

This stirring story follows the lives of Norwegian immigrants Beret and her husband, Per Hansa, as they make their way from Norway, to the Dakota prairie as pioneers.

 

Stegner, Wallace                                                                

Angle of Repose Lexile 1020

 

Angle of Repose tells the story of Lyman Ward, a retired professor of history and author of books about the Western frontier, who returns to his ancestral home of Grass Valley, California, in the Sierra Nevada. Wheelchair-bound with a crippling bone disease and dependent on others for his every need, Ward is nonetheless embarking on a search of monumental proportions — to rediscover his grandmother, now long dead, who made her own journey to Grass Valley nearly a hundred years earlier. Like other great quests in literature, Lyman Ward's investigation leads him deep into the dark shadows of his own life.

 

Steinbeck, John                                                                  

The Grapes of Wrath Lexile 680

 

This classic saga tells of the hardships of the Joad family and their struggles through the Great Depression as they leave the dust bowl of Oklahoma to go to California, the promised land.

 

 

Vonnegut, Kurt (more copies in textbook room)

Slaughterhouse Five Lexile 850

 

Billy Pilgrim, an American soldier captured by the Germans, witnesses the firebombing and destruction in Dresden. More than simply a war novel – or, more precisely, an anti war novel – it is a captivating science fiction story. Scenes from WWII alternate with Billy’s life on exhibition in a kind of zoo on the distant planet Tralfamadore. Vonnegut’s style is disjointed and full of black humor. Mature content.

 

 

Wharton, Edith (more copies in textbook room)

Ethan Frome Lexile 1200

 

A grim tale of retribution involving a discouraged New England farmer, his hypochondriac wife, and a girl who still finds some joy in living.

 

Wright, Richard                                                                 

Native Son   Lexile 700

 

Trapped in the poverty-stricken ghetto of Chicago’s South Side, a young African American man finds release only in acts of violence. For Bigger Thomas, a youth accused of a crime in the white man’s world, there could be no extenuating circumstances, no explanations – only death.  Violent content.