Suggested Books for Independent Reading

Suggested Books for Independent Reading

- compiled from suggestions by students, librarians, bookstore managers, and teachers

*Canadian (where known)

FICTION

1 – BEAUTY AND THE BEAST/HOLD FAST TO DREAMS

Baker, Nancy. A Terrible Beauty. Gothic Vampire novels, about the “inner vampire”, set in Toronto.*

Brooks, Martha. Bone Dance. A teenage girl from Toronto travels west and meets a boy haunted by nightmares.*

Burnard, Bonnie. A Good House. Three generations in the life of an ordinary small-town family from the 1950's to the 1990's. 1999 Winner of the Giller Prize.*

Crutcher, Chris. Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes. Male/female relationships.

Garland, Alex. The Beach. A Lord of the Flies for Generation X. Richard and his friends find a beach in Thailand where life seems ideal until conflicts with nature, armed guards, and each other create a nightmare.

Hospital, Janette Turner. Tiger in the Tiger Pit. The family secret explodes at a birthday party.*

Ihimaera, Witi. The Whale Rider. The only heir in line for tribal chief is female. Kahu struggles with

tradition.

Laurence, Margaret. The Stone Angel. An old woman examines her relationships in life.*

Melling, O.R. Druid’s Tune. Fantasy. Teenagers travel to the time of the Celtic Druids.

Salinger, J.D. Catcher in the Rye. Holden Caulfield, isolated from his peers, seeks meaning in the adult world

and his family.

Shields, Carol. The Stone Diaries.* The story of a woman’s life: her childhood, marriage, widowhood, remarriage, motherhood, and old age.

Steinbeck, John. Of Mice and Men. Two friends seek their dream and find a nightmare.

2 – VOICES (controversial issues)

Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. A science fiction world where books are burned.

Grisham, John. A Time to Kill. A good plot and revelation of prejudice in the American south.

Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. A science fiction depiction of a pleasure-loving world

Ibuse, Masuji. Black Rain. A Japanese writer portrays the aftermath of a nuclear bomb.

Kogawa, Joy. Itsuka. Naomi moves to Toronto and becomes involved in the Japanese-Canadian fight for compensation.*

Kogawa, Joy. Obasan. Naomi’s childhood is torn apart by Canada’s treatment of Japanese-Canadian citizens during the 1940's.*

LeGuin, Ursula. The Left Hand of Darkness. In the alien world of Winter, people are either genderless or both genders.

Maguire, Gregory. I Feel Like the Morning Star. Science fiction. Teenagers in a post-holocaust world.*

Matas, Carol. Lisa’s War. Teenagers struggle with Nazi oppression in Denmark.

Morrissey, Donna. Kit’s Law. A fourteen-year-old Kit Pitman in an isolated outport in Newfoundland struggles with a tragic change of circumstances and a local menace.*

Quinn, Daniel. My Ishmael. A 15-year-old girl meets a teacher who helps her examine her own culture.

Pfeffer, Susan. Twice Taken. A teenager girl deals with the problem of abduction.*

Reynolds, Marilyn. Detour for Emmy. A teenage girl struggles being a teen mother.*

Rostkowski, Margaret. The Best Friends. Teenagers in the time of the Vietnam War.

Tepper, Sherry. Grass.

Wiggins, Marianne. John Dollar. A female Lord of the Flies.

Yolen, Jane. Briar Rose. A blend of the fairy tale Sleeping Beauty with the holocaust.

3 – DIVERSITY (from another culture, autobiography, biography)

Agiri, Laura. The God in Flight. Gender issues.

Badami, Anita Rau. Tamarind Mem. A portrait of two generations of women in an East Indian family.*

Black, Francesca. Girl Goddess #9.

Brown, Rosellen. Civil Wars. Multicultural.

Buck, Pearl. A Pavilion of Women. Life in China from women’s perspective.

Chambers, Aidan. Dance on my Grave. Gender issues.

Choy, Wayson. The Jade Peony. Three characters reminisce about growing up in Chinatown, Vancouver, in the late 1930s and ‘40s. A Trillium Book Award winner.*

Courtenay, Bryce. Smoky Joe’s Café. Australian Vietnam War vets work together in an illegal scheme to raise money for a sick daughter.

Desai, Anita. Fire on the Mountain. Generational.

Doyle, Brian. Angel Square.* Spud Sweetgrass.*

Ellis, Deborah. Parvana’s Journey. A young girl in Afghanistan sets out to find her family after the fall of Kabul.

Esquivel, Laura. Like Water for Chocolate. In Mexico, a daughter struggles with her mother’s harsh expectations.

Fredriksson, Marianne. Simon and the Oaks. Holocaust survivor.

Garden, Nancy. Good Moon Rising and Lark in the Morning. Gender issues.

Gates Jr., Henry Louis. Coloured People. Multicultural.

Green, Bette. Summer of My German Soldier. Multicultural, male/female relationships.

Hartling, Peter. Old John. Generational issues.

Haviaras, Stratis. Where the Tree Sings. Greek freedom fighters struggle to defend their land.

Hesse, Hermann. Siddhartha. A young man seeks and finds enlightenment in India.

Highway, Tomson. Kiss of the Fur Queen. Two Cree brothers are torn from their life in northern Manitoba and thrust into a residential school. Both fight to survive and become artists.*

Holubitsky, Katherine. Alone at Ninety Foot.

Howe, James. The Watcher. Three troubled teens deal with divorce, death, abuse, and alcoholism.

Jin, Ha. Waiting. Two members of the Chinese army are waiting for the man’s pre-arranged marriage to become annulled in order to finalize their relationship.

Kim, Helen. The Long Season of Rain. Four sisters grow up in 1960s Korea.

Kincaid, Jamaica. Annie John. A young girl comes of age on her island home of Antigua.

Kinsella, W.P. Dance Me Outside. North American Indian life.

Magorian, Michelle. Goodnight Mister Tom. A WWII child evacuee from London is taken in by a kind old man, but eventually must return to his abusive mother.

Major, Kevin. Blood Red Ochre. Male/female issues, Multicultural*.

Manioka, Lensey. Ties that Bind, Ties that Break: a Novel. Multicultural.

Markandaya, Kamala. Nectar in a Sieve.

Miller, Isabel. Side by Side. Gender issues.

Morrison, Toni. Sula.

Naidoo, Beverley. Journey to Jo’burg: a South African Story. Multicultural.

Napoli, Donna Jo. Sirena. Male/female relationships.

Newbery, Yearling. The Watsons Go to Birmingham.

Njuguna, Paul Kihiu. Mihele Africa.

Patchett, Ann. The Magician’s Assistant. Gender issues, Male/Female relationships.

Potok, Chaim. The Chosen. Generational.

Ricci, Nino. Lives of the Saints. A young boy in Italy comes to terms with his mother’s “crime”.*

Richardson, Bill. Bachelor Brothers’ Bed and Breakfast. The hilarious encounters among guests at a bed and breakfast inn in British Columbia.*

Selvadurai, Shyam. Funny Boy.

Solzhenitsyn, Alexander. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. The story of one man’s struggle to survive in a Russian prison.

Staples, Suzanne Fisher. Haveli. Male/female relationships. Shabanu: Daughter of the Wind. Multicultural.

Tan, Amy. The Joy Luck Club. Set in modern times in California, a group of Chinese women share their stories.

Bonesetter’s Daughter.

Uchida, Yoshiko. Journey to Topaz. Multicultural, generational.

Vassanji, M.G. No New Land. An Asian family from Africa immigrate to Don Mills and find themselves caught between two worlds.*

NON-FICTION

1 – BEAUTY AND THE BEAST/HOLD FAST TO DREAMS (autobiography, biography)

Anonymous. Go Ask Alice. A diary of a teenage girl caught in the world of drugs.

Barlow, Maude. Global Showdown. How the new activists are fighting global corporate rule.*

Campbell, Maria. Half-Breed.*

Christopher, Matt. On the Course with Tiger Woods.

Epstein, Edward. Michelle Kwan - Born to Skate.

Freedland, Michael. The Secret Life of Danny Kaye. How the famous comedian made his dream come true.

Hounam, Peter. Who Killed Diana? Diana, Princess of Wales.

Kingwell, Mark. Better Living In the Pursuit of Happiness From Plato to Prozac. A modern philosopher’s exploration of what happiness is and how we can achieve it.

Dreams of Millennium: Report from a Culture on the Brink. An analysis of our culture’s preoccupation with the new millennium, with comparisons between past and present.*

Klein, Naomi. No Logo. An analysis of our world of brand names where beauty for some causes nightmarish

conditions for others.*

McFarlane, Brian. Stanley Cup Fever.*

Merritt, Susan. Her Story: Women from Canada’s Past.* (also books II, and III)

Pipher, Mary. Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls. A clinical psychologist sheds light on the world of teenage girls from her therapy sessions with adolescents.

Stout, Glen, ed. Chasing Tiger: the Tiger Woods Reader.

Wolf, Naomi. The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty are Used Against Women. A critique of the ways the

media prey upon women’s insecurities and a celebration of feminine uniqueness.

2 – VOICES (controversial issues, autobiography, biography)

Conlon, Gerry. Proved Innocent. An account of the British government conspiracy against a group of thieves after the IRA bombing of a London pub in 1974. Inspired the movie In the Name of the Father.

Demczyna, Antonina. From East to West. An inspiring true story of a young girl’s struggle in a German prisoner-of-war factory, her marriage, and her journey to Canada.*

Edwards, Peter. One Dead Indian: the Premier, the Police, and the Ipperwash Crisis.*

Harr, Jonathan. A Civil Action. The gripping story of how a lawyer discovered the crime behind a leukemia outbreak in an area of the United States.

Karp, Carl. When Justice Fails: The David Milgaard Story. Wrongfully accused; murder trial.*

Kaysen, Susanna. Girl, Interrupted. The author’s account of her two-year experience in a psychiatric

hospital.

McCourt, Frank. Angela’s Ashes. A boy growing up in poverty in Ireland.

Sher, Julian. Until You Are Dead: Steven Truscott’s Long Ride Into History.

Winik, Marion. Telling. A journalist’s account of her wild youth.

Wurtzel, Elizabeth. Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America: A Memoir.

3 – DIVERSITY (from another culture, autobiography, biography)

Angelou, Maya. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.

Bernstein, Sara Tuvel. The Seamstress: a Memoir of Survival.

Bitton-Jackson, Livia. I Have Lived a Thousand Years: Growing Up in the Holocaust.

Connelly, Karen. Touch the Dragon. A Thai Journal. A Canadian teenager keeps a diary during her time

in Thailand.*

Frank, Anne. The Diary of Anne Frank. A Jewish girl, in hiding during World War 11, deals with the problems of confinement, war, and growing up.

Friedrich, Otto. The Kingdom of Auschwitz. The holocaust; personal narrative.

Miller, Orlo. The Donnellys Must Die. The clash between a family and a community in early Ontario.*

Olsson, Eva. Unlocking the Doors: a Woman’s Struggle Against Intolerance.

Sando, Tom. Wild Daisies in the Sand. Life in a Japanese-Canadian internment camp in WWII.

Sender, Ruth. To Life. Holocaust.

The Cage. A teenage girl recounts the suffering and persecution of her family under the Nazis.

Siedlecki, J.N. Beyond Lost Dreams. Holocaust; personal narrative.

Wong, Jan. Red China Blues: My Long March from Mao to Now.* An account of life in China from the perspective of a Chinese-Canadian.