Book List for Extra Credit Book Report

All of these books can be found in the library. Go to to find out which library near you has your book in stock. Some books may have different covers than the ones shown here. You can also find many of them in the CHS library.

  • Monster by Walter Dean Myers. Sixteen year old Steve is on trial for his involvement in a murder in a convenience story. Is Steve an accomplice to a crime, or was he just in the wrong place at the wrong time? This is Steve’s story in his own words.You may read another novel by Walter Dean Myers such as Durango Street, Game, Sunrise over Fallujah, or Street Love.
  • Always Running: La Vida Loca: Gang Days in L.A. by Luis Rodriguez. A true story about growing up in Los Angeles in a gang.
  • The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini.The story of Amir, the privileged son of a wealthy businessman in Kabul, and Hassan, the son of Amir's father's servant. Set in the early 1970s, the boys are inseparable. An unspeakable event changes the nature of their relationship forever, and eventually cements their bond in ways neither boy could have ever predicted.
  • The Color Purple by Alice Walker. A strong statement of how love transforms and cruelty disfigures the human spirit. Celie has been raped, abused, degraded. After her father takes her children away from he marries her off to her cold, distant husband, who deprives her of her sister Nettie, the only one who ever loved her. She has a powerful story to tell and she brings us into it and makes it ours.
  • Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser. A look inside the fast food industry from the history of the countries largest chains and how the food is brought from the ranch to your table. Non-fiction.
  • Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson. An incredible story of an isolated teenager during her freshman year in high school. After a traumatic encounter, Melinda goes from a quiet girl who barely talks to finding her voice. You may select any other book by Laurie Halse Anderson such as: Catalyst, Fever 1871, Prom, and Twisted.
  • The DiVinci Code by Dan Brown. A Cryptology Professor and a female French detective go on a clue-hunting, code-cracking adventure through Europe to uncover a mystery regarding the life of Jesus. You may read another book by Dan Brown such as Angels and Demons, Deception Point or Digital Fortress.
  • Catcher In The Rye by J.D. Salinger. A trouble-making teenage boy gets kicked out of boarding school and begins an adventure through 1950’s New York to figure out about himself.
  • The Chocolate War by Robert Cormeir. A teenage boy at a privateschool risks everything to stand up for what he believes in by refusing to sell chocolates for a school sale.
  • The Lovely Bonesby Alice Sebold. A teenage girl watches from beyond the grave as her family reocovers from her death, and investigators track down her murderer over the course of a decade.
  • Zlata’s Diary. Zlata is a typical teenager living in Sarajevo in the nineties until a civil war begins tearing her country apart. This is her diary, in her words.
  • Dreams From My Father Barack Obama. A poignant, probing memoir of an unusual life. Born in 1961 to a white American woman and a black Kenyan student, Obama was reared in Hawaii by his mother and her parents, his father having left for further study and a return home to Africa. Obama's youth is a lonely voyage to racial identity. His travels take him back to his homeland of Kenya where he confronts obligation and loss, and finds wellsprings of love and attachment.
  • Any novel by Sarah Dessen. Dessen writes novels about teenage girls going through typical ‘teenage girl’ issues. All of her books are very interesting and easy to read, and many have been adapted into movies.
  • Any novel by Gary Soto. Easy and fun reading about latino characters.