West Genesee High School2010 – 2011 Titles

Summer ReadingSummer Reading

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Ninth Grade Titles

Dive into a great bookDive into a great book

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High School all-American Neely Crenshaw returns home after a fifteen-year absence to attend the funeral of Coach Eddie Rake, the man who molded the Spartans into a football dynasty.

Now as Coach Rake's "boys" sit in the bleachers waiting for the dimming field lights to signal his passing, they replay the old games, relive the old glories, and try to decide once and for all whether they love Eddie Rake - or hate him.

16-year-old Katniss hunts the forest illegally to keep her family alive. When she is forced to compete in the Hunger Games, a fight to the death where two teenagers are selected from each of the 12 districts, she must forge alliances and strategize to survive.

Peeta’s love for Katniss will surely get him killed. For Katniss to win she must decide if her survival is worth the inhumanity she’s forced into.

Filled with twists, suspense, and romance, you will not be able to put this book down.

Thirteen-year-old Anna was conceived specifically to provide blood and bone marrow for her sister Kate who was diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia at the age of two.

Anna decides to sue her parents for control of her body when her mother wants her to donate a kidney to Kate.

(Titlewave, 2007)

“It begins with a free and joyful act—but from then on, Michael finds it impossible even to remember what it felt like to be free and joyful. When he fires his new rifle into the air on his seventeenth birthday, he never imagines that the bullet will end up killing someone… And Michael keeps desperately silent while he watches his world crumble.”

(Book Jacket)

In this sequel to the beloved Rules of the Road, Jenna Boller is dripping with newfound maturity after her life-altering summer on the road. She has a job she loves at Gladstone Shoes, a best friend who makes her laugh, and a dysfunctional family she's learning how to handle. Jenna feels ready for anything--until Tanner Cobb, a guy with a past, a police record, and dangerously good looks, walks into her life.

(Barnes and Noble, 2008)

Harvest a 10th grade Harvest a 10th grade title!title!

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A shepherd boy, who dreams of seeing the world, journeys from Spain to Morocco in search of worldly success, and eventually to Egypt, where a fateful encounter with an alchemist brings him at last to self-understanding and spiritual enlightenment.

Publisher’s Weekly 1993

This is a tale of two cousins born on the same day, their premature births brought on by a mysterious occurrence that claims the lives of both their fathers. Sudha is beautiful, Anju is not; yet the girls love each other as sisters, the bond between them so strong it seems nothing can break it.

When both are pushed into arranged marriages, however, each discovers a devastating secret that changes their relationship forever.

(Amazon.com review)

Alfred Kropp is an overweight, underachieving teen whose main goals in life consist of getting his learner's permit and dating Amy Pouchard. Things take a very unexpected turn, however, when his uncle talks him into participating in the get-rich-quick scheme of stealing a valuable sword (which just happens to be Excalibur). Before Alfred knows it, he has vowed to protect the powerful sword from the motorcycle-riding, sword-wielding Agents of Darkness.

(From Kirkus, Sept 15, 2005)

Isaac Amin, a Jewish gem dealer in Iran, is arrested for being a spy. Not unexpected, other neighbors and family have disappeared, taken by the Revolutionary Guards. Terrified by his arrest, his family must reconcile a new world of cruelty and chaos with the collapse of everything they have known.

Sofer illuminates the horrific details of Isaac's months in prison and deftly captures how that experience affects the rest of his family. Her writing is full of well-observed details, compassion, and most important, hope.

In 1942, ten-year-old Sarah is taken with her parents by the French police as they go door to door arresting Jews.

Desperate to protect her younger brother, Sarah locks him in a bedroom cupboard—their secret hiding place—and promises to come back for him as soon as they are released.

Sixty years later Sarah’s story intertwines with that of Julia Jarmond, an American journalist who stumbles onto a trail of secrets that link her to Sarah.

11th grade titles!11th grade titles!

Catch the reading bug!Catch the reading bug!

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D.J.'s family members don't talk much, especially about the fact that 15-year-old D.J. does all the heavy work on their Wisconsin dairy farm since her father broke his hip and her two older brothers left for college. Nor do they talk about why D.J.’s mom… is so busy …she's never home. And …her brothers haven't called home for more than six months.

When D. J. decides to try out for the Red Bend football team, even though she's been secretly training (and falling for) Brian Nelson, the cute quarterback from Hawley, Red Bend's rival, she becomes the talk of the town. Suddenly, her family has quite a bit to say.

(Booklist. April, 2006) )

A Humorous Romance

Seven-year-old Calli Clark hasn't spoken a word in the three years since a particularly nasty run-in with her violent, wife-beating father, Griff. During a bender, Griff suddenly decides to haul his mute daughter into the nearby forest, where they get lost. At the same time, Calli's best friend Petra goes missing.

The Clark and Gregory families are now tied by the question of what happened to their children, and the answer is trapped in the silence of unspoken family secrets.(Publishers Weekly June 22, 2009) )

NASA makes an astounding discovery: there is a meteor embedded deep within the arctic ice. And it isn't just any meteor. Inside are fossils of giant insects, proof of extraterrestrial life.

The question arises: Is the meteor real or a fake? Intelligence agent Rachel Sexton and oceanographer Michael Tolland are searching out the truth. They quickly become targets of a mysterious death squad controlled by someone or something that doesn't want the public to hear the meteor may be a fraud…

(From Publisher’s Weekly, 2001)

Louie Banks has the world by the tail. It's his last year in high school; he has wheels, a starting spot on the football team, good friends, and the girl of everyone's dreams. If he can stay away from Boomer Cowans long enough to graduate, he's got it made.

But the world suddenly turns and snatches Louie by the tail, and it just won't let go. His visions of sportsmanship and fair play go up in smoke by the second game of the season; his expectations of life are shattered by spring. This is a story about honor and principles, in which Louie learns about love, death, sportsmanship, and integrity as well as football.

The Glass Castle is a detached, direct, and unflinching memoir of Jeannette Walls's rags-to-riches life. She recalls her life growing up in a dysfunctional family with an alcoholic father and distant mother and describes how she and her siblings had to fend for themselves until they finally found the resources and will to leave home.

(Follett’s Titlewave, (Follett’s Titlewave, 2005)2005)

Light up the night with a 12Light up the night with a 12thth grade title grade title

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Star cross-country runner Ben Wolf learns during a physical that he has developed a rare, aggressive, fatal blood disease. Rather than seek treatment, he swears his doctor to secrecy, hides the truth of his health from his family, friends and coach, and decides to go after the things he's always wanted but never pursued.

(From Kirkus Review, July 15, 2007)

Eighty-year old Lily reflects back on her life in 19th century China, where foot-binding was practiced and women had their own secret language.

Lily and Snow Flower, a girl from a “better” family, were bound together for life. Lily marries and grows more powerful than Snow Flower, and they break their ties. They reunite when Lily reaches out to make the dying Snow Flower’s last days more comfortable and they review the happiness, love, pain, and sorrows of their lifelong friendship.

(School Library Journal, Sept 1, 2005)

In the playground of Woodside

Elementary School two students,

a little girl and boy, seem to

vanish, last seen heading towards

the woods behind the school.

Hours pass and then only one of

them, Adam, a nine-year-old boy

with autism, is found alive, the

sole witness to an

incomprehensible killing. Adam

is barely verbal on the best of

days. Thus, it is up to his mother

to interpret Adam’s puzzling clues

and unlock his silence to help the

police find the killer.

(Titlewave, 2006)(Titlewave, 2006)

1962 in Jackson Mississippi, black maids raised white children and ran households. Paid poorly, they often had to use separate toilets from the family, and watched the children they cared for embrace bigotry.

Miss Skeeter, a naïve, young white woman, is an aspiring writer. She conducts a series of interviews with local black maids. Their risk is great, possibly deadly; still, Aibileen and Minny agree to participate. Tension pervades the novel as events are told by these three memorable women.

(Library Journal - January 1, 2009)

Instead of opting for the college life, Ryan Smithson joined the Army Reserve when he was seventeen. Two years later, he was deployed to Iraq as an Army engineer.

In this extraordinary and harrowing memoir, readers march along one GI’s tour of duty. It will change the way you feel about what it means to be an American.