AUTHOR

Williamson County Schools
10th Grade Reading Lists

AUTHOR	TITLE	SUBJECTS	SUMMARY NOTES
Abelove, Joan	Saying It Out Loud	Fiction. Mothers and Daughters, Fathers and Daughters, Death, Jews	With the help of her best friend, sixteen-year-old Mindy sorts through her relationships with her solicitous mother and her detached father as she tries to come to terms with the fact that her mother is dying from a brain tumor.
Achebe, Chinua	Things Fall Apart	Historical Fiction, Nigeria, African History	Set in an Ibo village in Nigeria, the novel recreates pre-Christian tribal life and shows how the coming of the white man led to the breaking up of the old ways.
Alvarez, Julia	*In the Time of Butterflies*	Dominican Republic Historical Fiction, Women	Gives a fictionalized account of four sisters in the Dominican Republic under the dictatorship of General Trujillo.
Anaya, Rudolfo A.	*Bless Me, Ultima*	Fiction, Mexican American Children	Presents selections from the story of a young Mexican American's life in a small New Mexican community during World War II. Includes a short biography of the author.
Angelou, Maya	*I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings*	Autobiography, African American Women Authors and Entertainers	Autobiography covering the childhood of a woman who has been a professional dancer, actress, poet, journalist, and television producer.
Angelou, Maya	*Wouldn’t Take Nothing for My Journey Now*	Nonfiction, Meditations	Maya Angelou shares her thoughts about spirituality and how it can move and shape your life. She urges service and grace in giving, and celebrates the spirit of her people and the sensuality of the sisterhood.
Armstrong, Lance	*It’s Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life*	Autobiography, Cyclists, Cancer Patients	Champion cyclist Lance Armstrong describes his triumph over cancer.
Asimov, Isaac	*Foundation; Foundation and Empire; Second Foundation*	Science Fiction, Space Warfare, Extraterrestrial Beings, Epic Literature	A series of books featuring the psychohistorian, Hari Seldon.
Asimov, Isaac	*The Gods Themselves*	Three Novelettes, Science Fiction	Few Know the Truth: An Outcast Earth Scientist; A Rebellious Alien; A Lunar-Born Human Intuitionist
Atwood, Margaret Eleanor	*The Robber Bride*	Fiction, Fairy Tales	Inspired by the Brothers Grimm fairy tale “The Robber Bridegroom.”
Austen, Jane	*Emma*	Fiction, Humorous Stories, Love Stories, England Social Life and Customs, Young Women	A novel of Regency England that centers upon a self-assured young lady who is determined to arrange her life and the lives of those around her into a pattern dictated by her romantic fancy.

Austen, Jane	*Sense and Sensibility*	Fiction, Humorous Stories, Love Stories, England Social Life and Customs, Young Women	Two sisters of opposing temperments share the pangs of tragic love. Their mutual suffering brings a closer understanding between the two sisters, and true love finally triumphs.
Azuela, Mariano	*The Underdogs: A Novel of the Mexican Revolution*	Fiction, Mexican History, War Stories	During the Mexican Revolution, Demetrio Macias is forced to side with the rebels so he can save his family, and while he is fighting in Pancho Villa's army, he realizes he is more violent than he thought possible.
Bellamy, Edward	*Looking Backward: 2000-1887*	Fiction, Utopia, Limited Availability	Julian West goes to sleep in 1887 and wakes up in 2000. Commentary on the economic and social workings of 2000.
Black Elk, Nicholas (as told through John G. Neihardt)	*Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux*	Biography, Black Elk (1863-1950), Native Americans of the Great Plains	Black Elk, a Sioux holy man, imparts his own life story and the story of the Oglala Sioux during the tragic decades of the Custer battle, the ghost dance, and the Wounded Knee massacre, and relates many aspects of Native American spirituality.

AUTHOR	TITLE	SUBJECTS	SUMMARY NOTES
Boulle, Pierre	*The Bridge Over the River Kwai*	Fiction, History, Thailand, Limited Availability	Story of war-torn times.
Brooks, Martha	*Bone Dance*	Fiction, Parent and Child, Dreams, Supernatural, Native Americans, Canada	When her father wills her a cabin on land in rural Manitoba, Alexandra meets a young man who shares her Indian heritage and her experience of being haunted by spirits.
Brooks, Bruce	*Midnight Hour Encores*	Fiction, Fathers and Daughters, Mothers and Daughters, Cellists	A sixteen-year-old cellist and musical prodigy travels cross-country with her father, a product of the 1960s, to meet her mother, who abandoned her as a baby.
Brown, Claude	*Manchild in the Promised Land*	Autobiography	Story of Claude Brown’s childhood as a hardened criminal trying to survive the streets of Harlem in the 1940s and 1950s.
Card, Orson Scott	*Ender’s Game*	Science Fiction, Military Education, Space Warfare	Ender, who is the result of genetic experimentation, may be the military genius Earth needs in its war against an alien enemy.
Card, Orson Scott	*Ender’s Shadow*	Science Fiction, Imaginary Wars and Battles, Extraterrestrial Beings	Bean must overcome his past and prove to the recruiters at the Battle School that he can help save the planet from an alien invasion.
Card, Orson Scott	*The Shadow of the Hegemon*	Science Fiction, Life on Other Planets, Extraterrestrial Beings	A sequel to Ender’s Shadow, in which the child-warriors, heroes of the Formic War, have returned to their families on Earth only to become the pawns of nations who want to use them as weapons in their quest for sovereignty.
Carter, Alden R.	*Bull Catcher*	Fiction, Baseball, Friendship, Wisconsin	Pete and Jeff continue their friendship and love of baseball as they progress from ninth grade through high school in their small Wisconsin town.
Carter, Forrest	*The Education of Little Tree*	Autobiography, Forrest Carter, Cherokee Indians	Forrest Carter's controversial work about an orphaned boy in 1930s Appalachian Tennessee who learns about his cultural heritage when he is adopted by his Native American grandparents and learns about prejudice when he is sent to a boarding school run by Whites.
Clark, Mary Higgins	*Where Are the Children?*	Fiction, Mystery, Missing Children, Mothers	Nancy had fled from the tragedy of her first marriage, the deaths of her two little children, and the charges against her. Now the safety of her new family is threatened when her son and daughter turn up missing.
Clark, Mary Higgins	*Remember Me*	Fiction, Mystery and Detective Stories, Married People, Cape Cod (Mass.)	After the death of their two-year-old son, Menley and her husband, a high profile criminal defense attorney, are determined to rebuild a life around their new infant daughter--unaware that someone has a different agenda for them.
Clarke, Arthur Charles	*2001: A Space Odyssey*	Science Fiction, Computers, Space Vehicles, Computer-Human Interaction	The spacecraft Discovery journeys to the outer edge of the solar system, and two navigators become uneasy when Hal, the craft's talking computer system, demonstrates unusual behavior.
Clarke, Arthur Charles	*Childhood’s End*	Science Fiction, Extraterrestrial Beings, Space Warfare	When the Overlords first came to Earth, they brought peace and prosperity with them, but it soon became apparent that their purpose was the elimination of the human race.
Clarke, Breena	*River, Cross My Heart*	Fiction, African Americans, Washington (D.C.), Psychological Aspects of Death and Separation, Potomac River	Alice and Willie Bynum, having moved from rural North Carolina to Georgetown in search of a better life for themselves and their children, must find a way to cope when their six-year-old daughter Clara drowns in the Potomac River.
Cochran, Thomas	*Roughnecks*	Fiction, Football, Louisiana	Travis Cody prepares for the final game of his high school football career, a rematch with his school's chief rival.
Coman, Carolyn	*Many Stones*	Fiction, Family Life, South Africa, Fathers and Daughters, Murder, Death	After her sister Laura is murdered in South Africa, Berry and her estranged father travel there to participate in the dedication of a memorial in her name.
Cooney, Caroline B.	*Both Sides of Time*	Fiction, Space and Time	The summer after senior year, Annie, wishing she could have lived a hundred years ago in a more romantic time, finds herself in the 1890s and it is indeed romantic--and very painful.
AUTHOR	TITLE	SUBJECTS	SUMMARY NOTES
Cormier, Robert	*After the First Death*	Fiction, Terrorism, Fathers and Sons	Events of the hijacking of a bus of children by terrorists seeking the return of their homeland are described from the perspectives of a hostage, a terrorist, an Army general involved in the rescue operation, and his son, chosen as the go-between.
Cormier, Robert	*The Bumblebee Flies Anyway*	Fiction, Experimental Medicine	Sixteen-year-old Barney has only fleeting memories about the past, but as a voluntary patient at the institute for experimental medicine, he knows he is different from the terminally ill patients surrounding him.
Crichton, Michael	*The Terminal Man*	Science Fiction, Bionics, Homicide	Harry Benson, a man who suffers from violent seizures, is implanted with electrodes that are designed to send soothing pulses to the pleasure centers of his brain, but something goes wrong with the operation and Benson sets out to get revenge on the doctors he believes are trying to turn him into a machine.
Criddle, JoAn Dewey	*To Destroy You is No Loss: The Odyssey of a Cambodian Family*	Nonfiction, Cambodia	Story of a Cambodian family’s struggle to survive four years of brutality during the Khmer Rouge regime.
Brave Bird, Mary	*Lakota Woman*	Autobiography, Mary Brave Bird, Dakota Women, Social Conditions, Rosebud Indian Reservation (S.D.)	A woman from He-Dog – Invisible fathers – Civilize them with a stick – Drinking and fighting – Aimlessness – We aim not to please – Crying for a dream – Cankpe Opi Wakpala – The siege – The ghosts return – Birth giving – Sioux and elephants never forget – Two cut-off hands – Cante Ishta—the eye of the heart -- The eagle caged – Ho Uway Tinkte—my voice you shall hear. Story of Mary Crow Dog, nee Mary Brave Bird, who rebelled against the life of the South Dakota Indian reservation and participated in the beginning of the tribal movements of the sixties and seventies.
Crutcher, Chris	*Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes*	Fiction, Friendship	The daily class discussions about the nature of man, the existence of God, abortion, organized religion, suicide and other contemporary issues serve as a backdrop for a high-school senior’s attempt to answer a friend’s dramatic cry for help.
Dangarenbga Tsitsi	*Nervous Conditions*	Fiction, Africa	Girl’s coming-of-age novel with a compelling portrayal of the loss involved in the colonization of one culture by another.
Dante, Alighieri	*The Divine Comedy*	Epic Poetry, Classical Literature, Latin	An epic poem in which the poet describes his spiritual journey through Hell, Purgatory and Paradise—guided first by the poet Virgil and then by his beloved Beatrice—which results in a purification of his religious faith.
Dickens, Charles	*A Tale of Two Cities*	Fiction, France History (1789-1799), Revolution	Relates the adventures of a young Englishman who gives his life during the French Revolution to save the husband of the woman he loves.
Dillard, Annie	*Pilgrim at Tinker Creek*	Nonfiction, Nature	The author philosophizes on the positive and negative sides of nature while observing life near Tinker Creek, in a valley in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains.
D’Orso, Michael	*Rosewood: Like Judgment Day*	Nonfiction, Race Relations	Details the 1923 massacre of the inhabitants of the small Florida town of Rosewood by a white lynch mob.
Draper, Sharon M.	*Tears of a Tiger*	Fiction, Death, High Schools, African Americans	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.
Duncan, Lois	*Stranger With My Face*	Fiction, Astral Projection, Twins	A seventeen-year-old senses she is being spied on and probably impersonated, but when she discovers what actually is occurring, it is more unbelievable than she ever imagined.

AUTHOR	TITLE	SUBJECTS	SUMMARY NOTES
Earley, Tony	*Jim the Boy: A Novel*	Historical Fiction, Boys, Great Depression (1929-1939), North Carolina	Jim, living with his mother and three uncles in the small hamlet of Aliceville, North Carolina, comes of age in the Depression years and begins to realize the largeness of the world outside his happy home.
Edgerton, Clyde	*Walking Across Egypt: A Novel*	Fiction, Grandmothers, Southern States, Friendship, Young Men	Tells the story of a 78-year-old independent widow who recognizes the loneliness in her life—until Wesley Benfield drops in.
Edgerton, Clyde	*The Floatplane Notebooks*	Fiction, Family Memories	The Copeland family goes back every year to the graveyard in North Carolina. Here they tell stories which Albert collects in his notebook.
Euripides	*Medea*	Drama, Classical Mythology, Love Story, Adventure Story, Check Availability in Collections of Plays by the Author	Without Medea’s help, Jason has no hope of getting the Golden Fleece and bringing it home to his people, but in order for Medea to help him, she would have to betray her family.
Evans, Nicholas	*The Horse Whisperer*	Fiction, Horses, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Love Stories	A mother brings her teenage daughter and their horse, Pilgrim, both seriously injured by a speeding truck, to the Horse Whisperer in Montana.
Fox, Paula	*The Slave Dancer*	Historical Fiction, Slave Trade	Kidnapped by the crew of an Africa bound ship, a thirteen-year-old boy discovers to his horror that he is on a slaver and his job is to play music for the exercise periods of the human cargo.
Frank, E. R.	*Life is Funny*	Fiction, Interpersonal Relations, Family Problems	The lives of a number of young people of different races, economic backgrounds, and family situations living in Brooklyn, New York, become intertwined over a seven-year period.
Frank, Pat	*Alas, Babylon*	Science Fiction, Nuclear Warfare, Florida, Survival Skills	The story of a group of people who rely on their own courage and ingenuity to survive in a small Florida town that escaped nuclear bombing.
Freedman, Benedict	*Mrs. Mike*	Fiction, Romance	Mrs. Mike is the love story of Katherine Mary O’Fallon, a young Irish girl from Boston, and Sergeant Mike Flannigan of the Canadian Mounted Police, who is a priest, doctor and magistrate to all in the great Canadian wilderness area under his supervision.
Gaines, Ernest J.	*A Gathering of Old Men*	Fiction, African American Farmers, Louisiana, Race Relations, Homicide	When Beau Boutan, a Cajun farmer, is found shot on a Louisiana plantation, the claimants to the killing form a wall of protection around the real murderer.
Gibbons, Kaye	*Ellen Foster*	Fiction, Children of Alcoholics, Foster Children, Southern States	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.
Gogol, Nikolai	*The Overcoat*	Fiction, Short Story, Check Availability in Collections of Short Stories by the Author	Main Character is destined to be a nobody in this world from birth.
Gopnik, Adam	*Paris to the Moon*	Nonfiction, Paris (France) Social Life and Customs	Adam Gopnik describes the experiences he, his wife, and their infant son had while traveling through Paris in the late 1990s.
Graham, Robin Lee	*Dove*	Autobiography, Voyages Around the World	Describes the five years the author spent sailing around the world alone in his twenty-four-foot sloop (Dove).
Grisham, John	*The Chamber*	Fiction, Legal Stories, Civil Rights Movement, Bombings, Ku Klux Klan, Death Row Inmates	In Mississippi in 1967 Klan member, Sam Cayhall is accused of bombing Marvin Kramer’s law offices killing his two sons. In 1990 just weeks before his execution, a young lawyer asks to work on his case.
Guest, Judith	*Ordinary People*	Fiction, Illinois Teenagers, Brothers, Death	After spending eight months in a mental institution following a suicide attempt, seventeen-year-old Conrad returns home and finds that he must rebuild his life.

AUTHOR	TITLE	SUBJECTS	SUMMARY NOTES
Hahn Beer, Edith	*The Nazi Officer’s Wife: How One Jewish Woman Survived the Holocaust*	Nonfiction, Memoir, Holocaust	This book explains how the survival instinct allows one to “sleep with the enemy.”
Hale, Janet Campbell	*The Owl’s Song*	Fiction, American Indians	A powerful and moving story of an Indian boy’s struggle to survive in an environment that would destroy him.
Haruf, Kent	*Plainsong*	Fiction, Teachers, Single-Parent Families	Guthrie, a high school teacher left alone to raise his two young sons, becomes involved in the lives of Victoria, a homeless, pregnant teenager, and two elderly bachelors.
Hersey, John	*Hiroshima*	Nonfiction, Hiroshima (Japan) Bombardment, World War (1939-1945), Atomic Bomb Victims	The story of six people who lived through the explosion of the atomic bomb in 1945 in Hiroshima.
Hesse, Hermann	*Demian*	Fiction, Young Men Conduct of Life, Self-Realization, German Philosophy	A young man rebels against convention, gets involved in the world of petty crime, and discovers his new powers for good and evil.
Hesse, Hermann	*Siddhartha*	Fiction, Mysticism, India	A moral allegory, set in ancient India, about one soul’s quest for the ultimate answer to the enigma of man’s role in this world. The hero, Siddhartha, undergoes a series of experiences to emerge in a state of peace and wisdom.
Hesse, Hermann	*Steppenwolf*	Historical Fiction, Psychological Fiction, Germany, Western Civilization	In postwar Germany, a fifty-year-old man regards himself as a dual personality, half man and half wolf.
Heyerdahl, Thor	*Kon-Tiki: Across the Pacific by Raft*	Nonfiction, Kon-Tiki Expedition, Polynesia	The record of a 4,300 nautical mile journey across the Pacific Ocean by raft.
Hickam, Homer H.	*Back to the Moon*	Fiction, Space Shuttles, Moon Exploration, Engineers	Rocket engineer Jack Medaris, having failed in his attempt to build a machine that would travel to the moon and collect an isotope desperately needed to produce energy on Earth, and hoping to redeem himself for what he sees as a personal failure, highjacks the space shuttle Columbia and heads for the lunar surface.
Hillerman, Tony	*Dance Hall of the Dead*	Fiction, Mystery and Detective Stories, Police, Southwestern States, Navajo Indians, Homicide	No one was seriously alarmed by the disappearance of two teenage boys, until Lt. Joe Leaphorn found the splattered trail of blood which lead to a ritually slaughtered victim.
Hillerman, Tony	*Skinwalkers*	Fiction, Mystery and Detective Stories, Southwestern States, Navajo Indians	Lt. Joe Leaphorn and Officer Jim Chee of the Navajo Tribal Police are united in a murder investigation that leads them into the dark world of Navajo witchcraft.
Hugo, Victor	*Les Miserables*	Fiction, Epic Literature, Paris (France) Social Life and Customs	Traces the life of Jean Valjean, a peasant who steals a loaf of bread to feed his starving children and thereby becomes a convict.
Hunter-Gault, Charlayne	*In My Place*	Autobiography, African Americans, Journalists, Race Discrimination	Autobiography of award-winning journalist Charlayne Hunter-Gault, the first African-American woman to attend the University of Georgia
Huxley, Aldous	*Brave New World*	Fiction, Utopias, Culture, Propaganda, Brainwashing, Science (Governmental Policy and Ethics)	A satirical novel about the utopia of the future, a world in which babies are decanted from bottles and the great Ford is worshipped.

AUTHOR	TITLE	SUBJECTS	SUMMARY NOTES
Ibsen, Henrik	*A Doll’s House*	Norwegian Drama, Check Availability in Collections of Plays by the Author	Groundbreaking drama which highlights the restricted position of women in a male-dominated society.
Jarrell, Randall	*The Bat-Poet*	Poetry, Fiction, Bats, Animals	A bat who can’t sleep during the day makes up poems about the woodland creatures he now perceives for the first time.
Junger, Sebastian	*The Perfect Storm*	Nonfiction, New England Storms	Uses interviews, memoirs, radio conversations, and technical research to recreate the last days of the crew of the Andrea Gail, a fishing boat that was lost in a storm off the coast of Nova Scotia in October 1991.
Kafka, Franz	*The Metamorphosis*	Fiction, Embryology	A young man wakes up one morning to find himself transformed into a giant beetle-like insect. He becomes an object of disgrace to his family and an alienated man.
Katz, Jon	*Geeks: How Two Lost Boys Rode the Internet Out of Idaho*	Nonfiction, Computer Technicians and Data Processing Personnel Case Studies	Tells the true story of Jesse and Eric, nineteen-year-old roommates in the small town of Caldwell, Idaho who changed their lives and built a new future for themselves with the power of the Internet.
Kincaid, Jamaica	*The Autobiography of My Mother*	Fiction, Women of the Caribbean	Xuela Claudette Richardson grows up in the care of her father’s laundress obsessed with trying to piece together a portrait of her Carib mother who died at the moment of Xuela’s birth.
King, Stephen	*The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon*	Fiction, Adventure Stories, Children of Divorced Parents, Baseball Players, Appalachian Trail	Nine-year-old Trisha McFarland, lost in the woods after she wanders off to escape the bickering between her mom and her brother, boosts her courage by imagining that her hero, Boston Red Sox relief pitcher Tom Gordon, is with her, helping her survive an unknown enemy.
Kingsolver, Barbara	*The Bean Trees*	Fiction, Humorous Stories, Native American Children, Orphans, Friendship, Automobile Travel	Taylor, a poor Kentuckian, makes her way west with an abandoned baby girl and stops in Tucson. There she finds friends and discovers resources in apparently empty places.
Kingsolver, Barbara	*Pigs in Heaven*	Fiction, Love Stories, Cherokee Indians, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Adopted Children	Six-year-old Turtle Green witnesses a freak accident drawing her and her mother into a conflict of historic proportions.
Kingsolver, Barbara	*The Poisonwood Bible*	Historical Fiction, Congo	Nathan Price and his family move to the Belgian Congo in 1959, and the experiences they have while living in Africa affect each member of the family in a different way.
Kinsella, W. P.	*Shoeless Joe*	Fiction, Baseball and Baseball Players	An Iowa farmer builds a baseball stadium in his cornfield, hoping his hero, Shoeless Joe Jackson, will play in it.
Kipling, Rudyard	*Captains Courageous*	Fiction, Sea Stories, Fishing, Ships, Boys	The adventures of the spoiled son of an American millionaire who is washed overboard off Newfoundland and must share the hard life and labor of the fishermen who rescue him.
Klass, David	*Danger Zone*	Fiction, Basketball, Race Relations, Prejudices, African Americans, Rome (Italy)	When he joins a predominantly African-American “Teen Dream Team” that will be representing the United States in an international basketball tournament in Rome, Jimmy Doyle makes some unexpected discoveries about prejudice, racism, and politics.
Kogawa, Joy	*Obasan*	Historical Fiction, Japanese, World War (1939-1945), Canada Evacuation of Civilians	Naomi Nakane, a child of Japanese immigrant parents, is interned by the Canadians at the beginning of World War II when she is five years old.
L’Engle, Madeleine	*Camilla*	Fiction, Parent and Child, Family Problems, New York	Fifteen-year-old Camilla gains new maturity through her relationship with her best friend’s brother and the growing realization that her parents are fallible individuals.

AUTHOR	TITLE	SUBJECTS	SUMMARY NOTES
Lewis, C. S.	*Out of the Silent Planet*	Science Fiction, Life on Other Planets, Kidnapping, Interplanetary Voyages	Volume one of C.S. Lewis’s Space trilogy, followed by Perelandra and That Hideous Strength. A philologist is kidnapped and taken via space-ship from England to Malacandra where he escapes and goes on the run.
MacLean, Norman	*A River Runs Through It and Other Stories*	Fiction, Short Stories, Montana Social Life and Customs, Brothers, Father-Son Relationship	A River Runs Through It – Logging and Pimping and “Your Pal, Jim” – USFS 1919: The Ranger, the Cook, and a Hole in the Sky. A collection of three Western stories, featuring the title piece about the relationship between a father and his two sons, bound together by love and fly fishing.
Maguire, Gregory	*Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister*	Fantasy, Cinderella, Stepfamilies	Retells the story of Cinderella from her stepsister’s point of view.
Malamud, Bernard	*The Assistant*	Fiction, Italian Americans, New York	Malamud’s classic 1957 story of a young Gentile hoodlum who works at a family-owned Jewish grocery store in exchange for a place to stay. What the family doesn’t know is that he was one of the boys responsible for a previous robbery of their store.
Malamud, Bernard	*The Natural*	Fiction, Baseball Players	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.
MarkandayaKamala	*Nectar in a Sieve*	Fiction, Women, India	Tells of a simple peasant woman in a primitive village in India whose whole life was a gallant and persistent battle to care for those she loved.
Mason, Herbert	*Gilgamesh: A Verse Narrative*	Poetry, Limited Availability	One of mankind’s earliest epics.
Mathabane, Mark	*Kaffir Boy: The True Story of a Black Youth’s Coming of Age in Apartheid South Africa*	Autobiography, Apartheid, South Africa	Recreates the author’s boyhood experiences in South Africa.
McCaffrey, Anne	*The White Dragon*	Fantasy, Dragons	On the planet of Pern, a small white dragon and his rider prove their value as destroyers of Threadfire.
McCammon Robert R.	*Boy’s Life*	Fiction, Mystery, Alabama	When Cory Mackenson accompanies his father on his milk route one spring day in 1964, they see a car plunge into a bottomless lake. As Cory and his father search for the truth about the incident, they come face-to-face with the forces of good and evil in their hometown.
McComb, Sharyn	*The Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter*	Fiction, Mystery and Detective Stories, Appalachian Region	Laura Bruce, wife of a minister in Appalachia, experiences danger after she is asked by the sheriff to help tend two children who survived a murder-suicide at their family farm.
McComb, Sharyn	*She Walks These Hills*	Fiction, Shawnee Indians, Appalachian Trail	Historian Jeremy Cobb is backpacking on the Appalachian Trail, attempting to retrace the tragic journey of 18-year-old Katie Wyler, who was captured by the Shawnee after the massacre of her pioneer family.
McCullers, Carson	*The Heart is a Lonely Hunter*	Fiction, Allegories, Love Stories, Teenagers, Southern States Social Life and Customs, Deaf	A deaf-mute who has lost his only friend to a hospital for the insane becomes the recipient of the confidences of several other town residents.
McCullers, Carson	*The Member of the Wedding*	Fiction, Girls, Weddings, African Americans, Georgia	Frankie Addams, a motherless twelve-year-old raised by her father and the family’s African-American cook, struggles with conflicting feelings about her brother’s upcoming wedding.

AUTHOR	TITLE	SUBJECTS	SUMMARY NOTES
McDonald, Joyce	*Swallowing Stones*	Fiction, Guilt, Death, Grief, Family Life	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.
McKinley, Robin	*Spindle’s End*	Fantasy, Fairy Tales, Princesses, Good and Evil	The infant princess Briar Rose is cursed on her name day by Pernicia, an evil fairy, and then whisked away by a young fairy to be raised in a remote part of a magical country, unaware of her real identity and hidden from Pernicia’s vengeful powers.
Miller, Walter M.	*A Canticle for Leibowitz*	Science Fiction, Monasticism and Religious Orders, Nuclear Warfare	Many years after a nuclear war, scholars seeking the old learning come to a monastery where much knowledge has been preserved.
Mishima, Yukio	*The Sound of Waves*	Fiction, Love Stories, Gossip, Japan	In their Japanese fishing village, Shinji falls in love with Hatsue and they must have the courage to battle ugly gossip.
Momaday, N. Scott	*House Made of Dawn*	Historical Fiction, Western Stories, Kiowa (Native Americans), Southwestern States	A young American Indian, Abel, lived in two worlds. One was that of his fathers and a drug called peyote and the other was the twentieth century. Home from a foreign war he was being torn apart, unable to find his place either in the white man’s world or on the reservation.
Namioka, Lensey	*Ties That Bind, Ties That Break*	Fiction, China, Sex Role, Individuality	Ailin’s life takes a different turn when she defies the traditions of upper class Chinese society by refusing to have her feet bound.
Napoli, Donna Jo	*Crazy Jack*	Fairy Tales, English Folklore	In this version of the traditional tale of the young boy who climbs a beanstalk, Jack searches for his father, falls in love with Flora, and learns the value of real treasure.
O’Brien, Tim	*In the Lake of the Woods*	Fiction, Vietnam War	Pursued by rumors of the atrocities he committed in Vietnam, a politician and his wife seek refuge in a cabin in Minnesota.
Orwell, George	*1984*	Science Fiction, Totalitarianism	Depicts life in a totalitarian regime of the future.
Paton, Alan	*Cry, The Beloved Country*	Fiction, South Africa Race Relations	Accused of murdering a white man, a young black South African turns to his minister father and a white attorney for help, but the racial problems of the country prevent justice from being served.
Paulsen, Gary	*Father Water, Mother Woods: Essays on Fishing and Hunting in the North Woods*	Nonfiction Descriptions, Hunting, Fishing, Minnesota	Takes you through the seasons, from the incredible taste of a spring fish fresh from the smokehouse, to the first sight of the first deer, to the peace of winter days spent dreaming by the stove in a fishhouse on the ice. Shows fishing and hunting as pleasure, art, companionship, and as sources of life’s deepest lessons.
Pirsig, Robert M.	*Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance*	Autobiography, Robert M. Pirsig, Values	During a motorcycle trip with his son, the author reveals his past life and muses on philosophical topics.
Plum-Ucci, Carol	*The Body of Christopher Creed*	Fiction, Missing Persons, Peer Pressure, Emotional Problems, High Schools	Torey Adams, a high school junior with a seemingly perfect life, struggles with doubts and questions surrounding the mysterious disappearance of the class outcast.
Porter, Connie Rose	*Imani All Mine*	Fiction, Teenage Mothers, African Americans	Tasha, a fifteen-year-old mother, is proud of her baby girl and is determined to be a good parent to her child, but she must draw upon her newfound faith to go on when tragedy strikes.
Potok, Chaim	*My Name Is Asher Lev*	Fiction, Jews, New York, Painters	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.
Price, Reynolds	*Kate Vaiden*	Fiction, Family Life, Desertion and Nonsupport	Fifty-seven-year-old Kate Vaiden reassesses her life and her motivations while preparing to contact the son she deserted forty years earlier.

AUTHOR	TITLE	SUBJECTS	SUMMARY NOTES
Pyle, Howard	*The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood*	Fiction, Nottinghamshire and Sherwood Forest (England)	The adventures of the outlaw Robin Hood and his merry men as they evade the King and overcome many a foe in Sherwood Forest.
Rand, Ayn	*Anthem*	Science Fiction, Psychology, Individuality	In a future world, only one man dares to think, strive, and love as an individual in the midst of a paralyzing collective humanity.
Ray, Janisse	*Ecology of a Cracker Childhood*	Autobiography, Ecology, Deforestation, Social Aspects of Consumption	Janisse Ray explains how spending her childhood in rural isolation grew into a passion to save the longleaf pine ecosystem in the South.
Remarque, Erich Maria	*All Quiet on the Western Front*	Fiction, World War (1914-1918)	Depicts the experiences of a group of young German soldiers fighting and suffering during the last days of World War I.
Renault, Mary	*The King Must Die*	Fiction, Mythology	Story of young Theseus set in ancient Greece.
Rivera, Tomas	*And the Earth Did Not Devour Him*	Hispanic Fiction	Novel about a Mexican-American family’s life as migrant workers during the 1950s.
Rolvaag, O. E.	*Giants in the Earth: A Saga of the Prairie*	Nonfiction, Frontier and Pioneer Life, South Dakota, Farm Life	A Norwegian pioneer family struggles with the land and the elements of the Dakota Territory in their efforts to make a new life in America.
Rostand, Edmond	*Cyrano de Bergerac: Heroic Comedy in Five Acts*	Drama, French History (1619-1655)	An English translation of the nineteenth century French play about Cyrano de Bergerac, a brilliant swordsman who hides his love for his cousin Roxane out of fear she will reject him because of his looks.
Sams, Ferrol	*Run With the Horsemen*	Fiction, Georgia	Fictional account of a boy growing up on an ancestral farm in middle Georgia.
Sanders, Dori	*Clover*	Fiction, African Americans, Interracial Marriage	After her father dies within hours of being married to a white woman, a ten-year-old black girl learns with her new mother to overcome grief and to adjust to a new place in their rural African-American South Carolina community.
Shakespeare William	*Julius Caesar*	Drama, Tragedy	Shakespeare's historical tragedy in which Roman leader Julius Caesar is betrayed by his closest comrade.
Shakespeare William	*The Tempest*	Drama, Tragicomedy	The darkly humorous play about Prospero, the deposed Duke of Milan, who is exiled to a magical island with his daughter, Miranda.
Shakespeare William	*Merchant of Venice*	Drama, Comedies	Shakespeare's comedy about a creditor demanding a pound of flesh in payment of a defaulted debt and a lover who must choose among three caskets in a riddle game to win the hand of a wealthy lady.
Shute, Nevil	*A Town Like Alice*	Fiction, Japan, World War (1939-1945)	Tells of a young woman who miraculously survived a Japanese “death march” in World War II, and a prisoner of war who offered to help her even at the cost of his life.
Sillitoe, Alan	*The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner*	Fiction, Short Stories, Great Britain, Working Class	Contains nine darkly comic stories of working-class men in 1950s Nottingham.
Solzhenitsyn Aleksandr Isaevich	*One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich*	Fiction, Convict Labor, Soviet Union, Communism	Recounts the experiences of Shukhov, a prisoner at a Soviet work camp in Siberia, as he struggles for survival.
Sophocles	*Antigone*	Drama, Greek Mythology, Tragedies	King Creon of Thebes refuses to allow the burial of his nephew, whom he has declared a traitor. The dead man's sister, Antigone, is engaged to Creon's son. Disaster follows for the family.
Sophocles	*Oedipus the King*	Drama, Tragedies, Greece	Sophocles' play of a king prophesied to kill his father and marry his mother is here presented in a translation designed to be used on stage.
Sparks, Nicholas	*A Walk to Remember*	Fiction, Love Story	A tale of first love set in the 1950s. The characters learn the true nature of beauty, the joy of giving, and the power of love.
AUTHOR	TITLE	SUBJECTS	SUMMARY NOTES
Spiegelman, Art	*Maus: A Survivor’s Tale*	Collective Biography, Comic Books and Strips, Holocaust Survivors	A memoir about Vladek Spiegleman, a Jewish survivor of Hitler’s Europe, and about his son, a cartoonist who tries to come to terms with his father, his story, and with history itself. Cartoon format portrays Jews as mice and Nazis as cats.
St. George, Judith	*Sacagawea*	Biography, Women, Shoshoni Indians	Tells the story of the Shoshoni Indian girl who served as interpreter, peacemaker, and guide for the Lewis and Clark Expedition to the Northwest in 1805-1806.
Tan, Amy	*The Kitchen God’s Wife*	Fiction, Chinese Immigrants	Winnie and Helen have kept each other’s worst secrets for more than fifty years. Now, because she believes she is dying, Helen wants to expose everything.
Tate, Sonsyrea	*Little X Growing Up in the Nation of Islam*	Nonfiction, Memoir, Islam	Shows the nation of Islam from the inside, describing its purposes as well as its shortcomings. ALA Best Book of the Year, 1998.
Thompson, Julian F.	*Brothers*	Fiction, Family	Seventeen-year-old Chris has always idolized his big brother, Cam. Now Cam has disappeared after being placed in a mental hospital. Chris begins a search for him.
Thornton, Yvonne S.	*Ditch Digger’s Daughters: A Black Family’s Astonishing Success Story*	Collective Biography, New Jersey African Americans	The story of the Thornton family, which produced two doctors, a dentist, an attorney, a nurse, and a court stenographer. Donald Thornton worked two full-time jobs to support his family and prodded and inspired his six daughters to pursue education and succeed as young musicians and in their professions.
Tolstoy, Leo	*The Death of Ivan Ilyich*	Fiction, Sick, Death, Russia, Judges	The story of a worldly careerist, a high court judge who has never given the inevitability of his dying so much as a passing thought.
Townsend, Sue	*The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 ¾*	Fiction, Adolescence	The memoir of a British teenager named Adrian Mole.
Turtledove, Harry	*The Guns of the South: A Novel of the Civil War*	Fiction, Civil War	A strange man with an unfamiliar accent provides the losing General Robert E. Lee and something that assures their victory.
Tyler, Anne	*The Accidental Tourist*	Fiction, Family	Story of a travel-hating writer who despises both travel and strangeness.
Voigt, Cynthia	*Elske*	Fantasy, Queens, Nobility, Heroes	Thirteen-year-old Elske escapes rape and certain death at the hands of the leaders of her barbaric society and later becomes handmaiden to a rebellious noblewoman whose rightful throne together they reclaim.
Vonnegut, Kurt	*Slaughterhouse Five*	Science Fiction, Historical Fiction, World War (1939-1945)	A fourth-generation German-American is tortured by his memories of the firebombing of Dresden in 1944, which he witnessed while a prisoner of war.
Wallace, Bill	*Aloha, Summer*	Fiction, Hawaii, Household Moving	In 1925 fourteen-year-old John, an Oklahoma farm boy, has to accept many changes in his life when his father takes a job on a pineapple plantation in Hawaii and the family moves there.
Wells, H. G.	*The Island of Dr. Moreau*	Science Fiction, Animal Experimentation	Dr. Moreau, a scientist, finds an isolated island that gives him the freedom to create hideous creatures with manlike intelligence.
Wiesel, Elie	*Night*	Nonfiction, Personal Narratives, Concentration Camps, Holocaust Survivors, World War (1939-1945) RL: 4.8	A true account of the author’s experiences as a Jewish boy with his family in a Nazi concentration camp.
Williams, Lori Aurelia	*When Kambia Elaine Flew in From Neptune*	Fiction, Teenagers, Houston (TX), African Americans	Shayla Dubois, an aspiring writer growing up in a poor section of Houston, is mystified by the fantastic stories told to her by new neighbor Kambia Elaine, but she soon comes to realize that the girl is in trouble, yet she cannot get past the stories to the truth.

AUTHOR	TITLE	SUBJECTS	SUMMARY NOTES
Willis, Connie	*To Say Nothing of the Dog*	Science Fiction, Time Travel, Fourth Dimension, England	Time-travel researcher Ned Henry shuttles back and forth between the 21^st century and the 1940s in order to correct an incongruity brought forward from the past.
Wouk, Herman	*The Caine Mutiny: A Novel of World War II*	History Fiction, Sea Stories, Navy, World War (1939-1945)	This book is the account of a well-to-do man who serves on a minesweeper during World War II, describing the events on the Navy ship Caine and what ultimately led the first mate, Lieutenant Maryk, a man with little schooling or experience, to take command of the vessel from Captain Queeg and the subsequent court-martial of Maryk.
Wyndham, John	*The Chrysalids*	Science Fiction, Limited Availability	The terrifying story of a world paralyzed by genetic mutation.
Yolan, Jane	*Briar Rose*	Fantasy, Fairy Tales, Holocaust (1933-1945)	The tale of Sleeping Beauty and the dark tale of the Holocaust twined together in a story of darkness and redemption.

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Saying It Out Loud

Things Fall Apart

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