Book List
While compiling a genealogy of her family, sixteen-year-old history buff Ivy Breedlove treks into the mountain wilderness to interview a reclusive aunt with whom she identifies and who in turn helps her to truly know herself and her family.
Cold Fire by Dean Koontz (FICTION - Medium)
Jim Ironheart flies to Oregon on an impulse. There he risks his life to save a young boy from being killed by a drunk driver. Soon Jim is on the run from a deadly enemy.
Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier (FICTION/HISTORICAL - Medium/Difficult)
Inman, a wounded Confederate soldier, leaves the hospital where he is being treated and determines to walk home to his sweetheart Ada, only to find the land and the girl he remembers as changed by the war as he.
Cowboys Are My Weakness by Pam Houston (SHORT STORIES - Difficult)
In these strong, shrewd, and very funny stories, we meet smart women who are looking for the love of a good man, and men who are wild and hard to pin down. Our heroines are part daredevil, part philosopher, all acute observers of the nuances of modern romance. Mature Themes - recommended for Juniors/Seniors.
Eleven Seconds by Travis Roy (BIOGRAPHY/SPORTS - Medium)
Travis Roy recounts how his life has changed since a freak accident in 1995 in his first Boston University hockey game that left him paralyzed from the neck down. ONLY AVAILABLE IN HARDCOVER AT THIS TIME.
Eyre Affaire by Jasper Fforde (FICTION - Medium/Difficult)
Thursday Next is sent to investigate the theft of one of Dicken's original manuscripts. A combination of fantasy, comedy, science fiction, Douglas Adams, Kurt Vonnegut, Lewis Carroll, Monty Python and even "Buffy the Vampire Slayer."
Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal by Eric Schlosser (NONFICTION - Medium)
Traces the history of the fast food industry and discusses how it arose in postwar America.
Fatal Voyage: A Novel by Kathy Reichs (FICTION/CRIME - Medium)
Forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan is called to the Great Smoky Mountains, scene of the crash of TransSouth Air flight 228 where 88 souls suffered gruesome deaths. As the medical teams work to reassemble and identify bodies, Tempe makes a disturbing discovery - a foot that doesn't belong to any of the victims. She finds her involvement in the aftermath of the crash becoming increasingly dangerous as she attempts to discover why the plane went down and who is responsible. Contains graphic details of the plane wreck victims.
Final Justice by W.E.B. Griffin (FICTION/CRIME - Medium)
In this compelling police novel, sleuth Matt Payne tracks down culprits in three homicide assignments, each seemingly more complicated and confusing than the last. ONLY AVAILABLE IN HARDCOVER AT THIS TIME.
Firebrand by Marion Zimmer Bradley (FANTASY - Difficult)
The story of the fall of Troy, from the point of view of Kassandra, daughter of King Priam. A story of love and betrayal, wars and kings, gods and magic. From the author of The Mists of Avalon. ONLY AVAILABLE IN HARDCOVER AT THIS TIME.
Hard Love by Ellen Wittlinger (FICTION - Easy)
After starting to publish a magazine in which he writes his secret feelings about his lonely life and his parents' divorce, sixteen-year-old John meets an unusual girl and begins to develop a healthier personality.
Holes by Louis Sachar (FICTION - Easy)
As further evidence of his family's bad fortune which they attribute to a curse on a distant relative, Stanley Yelnats is sent to a hellish correctional camp in the Texas desert where he finds his first real friend, a treasure, and a new sense of himself.
Homecoming by Cynthia Voigt (FICTION - Easy)
Abandoned by their father and then their mother, four children begin a search for a home and an identity.
Ice Time by Jay Atkinson (NONFICTION/SPORTS - Medium)
Shows that hockey, like America's Pastime, is a lifelong passion that cements the bonds between father and son. Tracking the progress of the Metheun High Rangers, Atkinson pays tribute to the rugged sport in which "if you don't shovel, you can't play."
If I Should Die Before I Wake by Han Nolan (FICTION - Easy)
As Hilary, a Neo-Nazi initiate, lies in a coma, she is transported back to Poland at the onset of WWII into the life of a Jewish teenager.
In Cold Blood: A True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequences by Truman Capote
Recreates the slaying of the Cutter family of Kansas, and the capture, trial, and execution of their murderers. For mature readers.
In These Girls, Hope is a Muscle by Madeleine Blais (NONFICTION/SPORTS - Medium)
Chronicles one basketball season of a girls' high school team in Amherst, Massachusetts.
Last of the Mohicans by James Fennimore Cooper (FICTION/HISTORICAL - Medium)
A Mohican brave struggles to protect two English girls from an evil Huron during the French and Indian War in upstate New York.
Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold (FICTION - Medium)
Fourteen-year-old Susia Salmon, the victim of a sexual assault and murder, looks on from the afterlife as her family deals with their grief, and waits for her killer to be brought to some type of justice. For mature readers. ONLY AVAILABLE IN HARDCOVER AT THIS TIME.
No Finish Line: My Life as I See It by Marla Runyan (BIOGRAPHY - Medium)
Marla Runyan, who lost her vision as a child, tells of her lifelong love of sports, and discusses the challenges she faced on her way to becoming the first legally blind woman to compete in the Olympic Games, after qualifying as a runner in 2000.
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (FICTION - Medium/Difficult)
Tells the story of the rise and fall, birth and death of a mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendia family. Inventive, amusing, magnetic, sad, alive with unforgettable men and women, and with a truth and understanding that strike the soul.
Our Story: 77 Hours That Tested Our Friendship and Faith by Jeff Goodell (BIOGRAPHY - Easy/Medium)
The story of the nine Pennsylvania coal miners who were trapped underground for more than three days in July 2002. An unsentimental and true-to-life account of a horrifying situation and a triumphant escape. ONLY AVAILABLE IN HARDCOVER AT THIS TIME.
Passion of Artemesia by Susan Vreeland (FICTION - Medium)
Artemesia, having ruined her reputation by making public accusation of rape against her art teacher, enters into an arranged marriage in post-Renissance Italy and moves with her husband to Florence where her talent blossoms, bringing fame and conflict.
Peace Like a River by Leif Enger (FICTION - Medium)
In the 1960s, a spiritual man named Jeremiah Land sets out from his Minnesota home with his young son and daughter to find his elder son, Davy, after he escapes jail on the morning of his sentencing for murder.
Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving (FICTION - Difficult)
An eleven-year-old boy, Owen Meany, hits a foul ball that kills his best friend's mother during a Little League game in 1953.
Rise to Rebellion by Jeff Shaara (FICTION - Difficult)
A historical novel that chronicles the story of the American Revolution and the men and women who forged the nation, covering events from the Boston Massacre to the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
Rocket Boys by Homer Hickam (BIOGRAPHY - Medium)
ALSO PUBLISHED AS OCTOBER SKY BY HOMER HICKAM
An autobiographical account of NASA engineer Homer Hickam's life that discusses his childhood, his obsession with rockets, his NASA career, and other related topics.
Shut Out: A Story of Race and Baseball in Boston by Howard Bryant (NONFICTION - Medium/Difficult)
Argues that the Boston Red Sox missed out on having a dream team featuring Jackie Robinson and Willie Mays due to the franchise's racist practices, and examines the ownership dynasty of the Yawkey family and racial issues in the city of Boston as a whole. ONLY AVAILABLE IN HARDCOVER AT THIS TIME.
Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas by James Patterson (FICTION - Medium)
Katie, blissfully in love, is suddenly abandoned by the man who made her happy, left with only a diary written by a new mother named Suzanne for her infant son, Nicholas--and as she reads, Katie gains a new understanding of Matt, the man who left her. Recommended for mature readers due to emotional content.
Tuesdays With Morrie by Mitch Albom (NONFICTION - Easy)
The author, an alumnus of Brandeis University, tells of his meetings with a former professor suffering from Lou Gehrig's disease and of the lessons about life and death from his college mentor.
Warriors Don't Cry: A Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock's Central High by Melba Pattillo Beals (BIOGRAPHY - Medium)
Beals chronicles her harrowing junior year at Central High where she underwent the segregationists' brutal organized campaign of terrorism which included telephone threats, vigilante stalkers, economic blackmailers, rogue police and much more.
When I Was Puerto Rican by Esmeralda Santiago (BIOGRAPHY - Medium)
Esmerelda and her seven siblings live in a corrugated metal shack in Puerto Rico. She is uprooted as a result of poverty and her parents' quarreling and suffers blows to her ego from their expectations of her. The girl goes to New York, where her grandmother lives, and must rely on her intelligence and talents to help her survive in an alien world in which being Puerto Rican is not advantageous.
Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Change (BIOGRAPY - Medium)
This is an account of China as seen through the eyes of women of three different generations: the author, who left China in 1978; her mother, a revolutionary who married one of Mao's soldiers; and her grandmother, concubine to a warlord.