Independent reading: Literature Circles
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Nectar in a Sieve
Markandaya, Kamala
This beautiful and eloquent story tells of a simple peasant woman in a primitive village in India whose whole life is a gallant and persistent battle to care for those she loves-an unforgettable novel that "will wring your heart out" (Associated Press). IL: UG - BL: 6.2 - AR Pts: 10.0
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A Night to Remember
Lord, Walter
This book provides an account of the sinking of the "Titanic," a reputedly unsinkable ship that went down in the Atlantic on April 10, 1912 after hitting an iceberg, resulting in the deaths of over 1,500 people. IL: UG - BL: 7.0 - AR Pts: 8.0
IL: UG - BL: 7.0 - AR Pts: 8.0IL: UG - BL: 7.0 - AR Pts: 8.0
AR Quiz Types: RP, VP
Rating:
This book provides an account of the sinking of the "Titanic," a reputedly unsinkable ship that went down in the Atlantic on April 10, 1912 after hitting an iceberg, resulting in the deaths of over 1,500 people.IL: UG - BL: 7.0 - AR Pts: 8.0
AR Quiz Types: RP, VP
Rating:
This book provides an account of the sinking of the "Titanic," a reputedly unsinkable ship that went down in the Atlantic on April 10, 1912 after hitting an iceberg, resulting in the deaths of over 1,500 people.IL: UG - BL: 7.0 - AR Pts: 8.0
AR Quiz Types: RP, VP
Rating:
This book provides an account of the sinking of the "Titanic," a reputedly unsinkable ship that went down in the Atlantic on April 10, 1912 after hitting an iceberg, resulting in the deaths of over 1,500 people.Top of Form
Shane
Schaeffer, Jack
In 1889, a mysterious, drifting gunman helps the homesteaders break the power of the Wyoming cattlemen. IL: UG - BL: 5.5 - AR Pts: 7.0
Night
Wiesel, Elie
This book chronicles the true and terrifying story of the author and his life as a Jew under the Nazis. IL: UG - BL: 4.8 - AR Pts: 4.0
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Unabridged)
Twain, Mark
Huck Finn, the son of the town drunk, and Jim, an escaped slave, make a break for freedom down the vast Mississippi River on a raft. IL: MG - BL: 6.6 - AR Pts: 18.0
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Angelou, Maya
This sensitive autobiography tells of a Black woman's childhood journey to retain her personal "human dignity" following the troubling events of her childhood that rendered her speechless. IL: UG - BL: 6.7 - AR Pts: 13.0
Shoeless Joe
Kinsella, W.P.
"If you build it, he will come." The mysterious words of an Iowa baseball announcer lead Ray Kinsella to carve a baseball diamond in his cornfield in honor of his hero, the baseball legend Shoeless Joe Jackson. IL: UG - BL: 6.2 - AR Pts: 13.0
Things Fall Apart
Achebe, Chinua
Set in an Ibo village in Nigeria, this novel recreates pre-Christian tribal life and shows how the coming of the white man led to the breaking up of the old ways. IL: UG - BL: 6.2 - AR Pts: 8.0
One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest
Kesey, Ken
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 powers that keep them all imprisoned. IL: UG - BL: 6.2 - AR Pts: 18.0
Native Son
Wright, Richard
Bigger Thomas, a young black man in Chicago, kills his first victim in a moment of panic. He then goes on to kill again. The book describes the feelings of freedom and identity bigger gains from these acts.
IL: UG - BL: 6.1 - AR Pts: 24.0
Lord of the Flies
Golding, William
After a plane crash strands them on a tropical island while the rest of the world is ravaged by war, a group of British schoolboys’ attempts to form a civilized society but descends into brutal anarchy. IL: UG - BL: 5.0 - AR Pts: 9.0
The Kite Runner
Hosseini, Khaled
Amir, haunted by his betrayal of Hassan, the son of his father's servant and a childhood friend, returns to Kabul as an adult after he learns Hassan has been killed. IL: UG - BL: 5.2 - AR Pts: 16.0
Fallen Angels
Myers, Walter Dean
Seventeen-year-old Richie Perry, just out of high school, enlists in the Army in the summer of 1967 and spends a devastating year on active duty in Vietnam. The plot contains profanity, sexual situations, violence, and racist remarks. IL: UG - BL: 4.2 - AR Pts: 11.0
Dances with Wolves
Blake, Michael
Lieutenant John J. Dunbar, stationed at the abandoned Fort Sedgewick, is accepted into a small band of Comanche Indians. His life changes forever as he learns their language and way of life and falls in love with a white woman living as a Comanche. IL: UG - BL: 6.7 - AR Pts: 15.0
The Afterlife
Soto, Gary
A senior at East Fresno High School lives on as a ghost after his brutal murder in the restroom of a club where he has gone to dance. IL: UG - BL: 5.2 - AR Pts: 5.0
Animal Farm
Orwell, George
Politically minded farm animals undergo a revolution against their human master and establish a new government that fails because of a corrupt leader tempted by greed and power.
IL: UG - BL: 7.3 - AR Pts: 5.0
The Friends
Guy, Rosa
When Phyllisia is overwhelmed with life in New York she finds true friendship in a very unlikely place, a girl named Edith who lives on her own. IL: UG - BL: 5.0 - AR Pts: 7.0
The Giver
Lowry, Lois
While training to be the Receiver of Memory, Jonas experiences joy and sadness for the first time. He becomes convinced his society has given up too much, and he can no longer accept the sameness. IL: MG - BL: 5.7 - AR Pts: 7.0
The Grapes of Wrath
Steinbeck, John
Journey with the Joad family as they are forced to deal with the devastation of the Dust Bowl. Controversial, even shocking, when it was written, the book continues to be so even today, posing fundamental questions about justice, power, the ownership and stewardship of the land, the role of government, and the very foundations of capitalist society. As history, this brings the Dust Bowl years to life in a most memorable way. IL: UG - BL: 4.9 - AR Pts: 25.0
Jane Eyre (Unabridged)
Brontë, Charlotte
Jane, a plain and penniless orphan in nineteenth-century England, accepts employment as a governess at Thornfield Hall and soon finds herself in love with her melancholy employer, Mr. Edward Rochester, a man with a terrible secret. IL: UG - BL: 7.9 - AR Pts: 33.0
The Yearling
Rawlings, Marjorie
A young boy living in the Florida backwoods is forced to decide the fate of a fawn he has lovingly raised as a pet. IL: UG - BL: 5.0 - AR Pts: 19.0
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian
Alexie, Sherman
Budding cartoonist Junior leaves his troubled school on the Spokane Indian Reservation to attend an all-white farm town school where the only other Indian is the school mascot. The plot contains profanity and mature themes. IL: UG - BL: 4.0 - AR Pts: 6.0
How I Got Rich Writing C Papers
Charles Remington Drummel has spent his entire high school career profiting from two things: 1. His classmates’ laziness and 2. His superior ability to craft essays for his customers based on the grade for which they’re able to pay. Now that Charles is about to graduate, it’s time for him to share the secrets of his overwhelming success. Don’t be surprised if this entertaining novel convinces you that writing your own papers can be even easier and more fun than paying someone else to do it for you. IL: UG - BL: 5.2 – AR Pts: NA (120 pages)
Eragon
Paolini, Christopher
In Alagaesia, a fifteen-year-old boy of unknown lineage called Eragon, finds a mysterious stone that weaves his life into an intricate tapestry of destiny, magic, and power, peopled with dragons, elves, and monsters. IL: UG - BL: 5.6 - AR Pts: 25.0
The Notebook
Sparks, Nicholas
Socialite Allie Nelson is about to marry a wealthy lawyer, but she cannot stop thinking about the boy who long ago stole her heart. IL: UG - BL: 5.5 - AR Pts: 8.0
Holes
Sachar, Louis
As further evidence of his family's bad fortune which they attribute to a curse on a distant relative, Stanley is sent to a hellish correctional camp in the Texas desert. IL: MG - BL: 4.6 - AR Pts: 7.0
That Was Then, This Is Now
Hinton, S.E.
Sixteen-year-old Mark and Bryon have been like brothers since childhood, but now, as their involvement with girls, gangs, and drugs increases, their relationship seems to gradually disintegrate. IL: UG - BL: 4.6 - AR Pts: 5.0
The Outsiders
Hinton, S.E.
Rivalry between rich and poor gangs in 1960s Oklahoma leads to the deaths of three teenagers and intense soul-searching for one of the kids involved, a sensitive fourteen-year-old writer named Ponyboy. IL: UG - BL: 4.7 - AR Pts: 7.0
The Crossing
Paulsen, Gary
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. IL: UG - BL: 5.8 - AR Pts: 3.0
Catching Fire
Collins, Suzanne
By winning the Hunger Games, District 12 tributes Katniss and Peeta have secured a life of safety, but by defying the rules, they become the faces of an impending rebellion. The plot contains graphic descriptions of violence. Book #2 IL: MG+ - BL: 5.3 - AR Pts: 16.0