Summer Reading

Class of 2021

Allende, Isabel. The House of Spirits. In one of the most important and beloved Latin American works of the twentieth century, Isabel Allende weaves a luminous tapestry of three generations of the Trueba family, revealing both triumphs and tragedies. Here is patriarch Esteban, whose wild desires and political machinations are tempered only by his love for his ethereal wife, Clara, a woman touched by an otherworldly hand. Their daughter, Blanca, whose forbidden love for a man Esteban has deemed unworthy infuriates her father, yet will produce his greatest joy: his granddaughter Alba, a beautiful, ambitious girl who will lead the family and their country into a revolutionary future. Amazon. AR BL 8.4 Fiction

Blehm, Eric. Fearless: The Undaunted Courage and Ultimate Sacrifice of Navy SEAL Team SIX Operator Adam Brown. Blehm presents a deeply personal glimpse inside the SEAL Team SIX brotherhood that shows how these elite operators live out the rest of their lives, away from danger, as husbands, fathers, and friends. Adam Brown waged a war against his own worst impulses, persevered to reach the top tier of the U.S. military, and his final act of bravery led to the ultimate sacrifice. Summary from Request. AR BL 7.7 Nonfiction

Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. A book burner in a future fascist state finds out books are a vital part of a culture he never knew. He clandestinely pursues reading, until he is betrayed. Destiny. AR BL 5.2 Fiction

Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. In early nineteenth-century England, an orphaned young woman accepts employment as a governess at Thornfield Hall, a country estate owned by the mysteriously remote Mr. Rochester. Summary from Request. AR BL 7.9 Fiction

Clare, Cassandra. Mortal Instrument Series Choose One

City of Bones. (No.1) Suddenly able to see demons and the Darkhunters who are dedicated to returning them to their own dimension, fifteen-year-old Clary Fray is drawn into this bizarre world when her mother disappears and Clary herself is almost killed by a monster. Provided by publisher. AR BL 5.0 Fiction

City of Ashes. (No.2) Sixteen-year-old Clary continues trying to make sense of the swiftly changing events and relationships in her life as she becomes further involved with the Shadow hunters and their pursuit of demons and discovers some terrifying truths about her parents, her brother Jace, and her boyfriend Simon. Provided by publisher AR BL 5.0 Fiction

City of Glass. (No. 3) Still pursuing a cure for her mother's enchantment, Clary uses all her powers and ingenuity to get into Idris, the forbidden country of the secretive Shadowhunters, and to its capital, the City of Glass, where with the help of a newfound friend, Sebastian, she uncovers important truths about her family's past that will not only help save her mother but all those that she holds most dear. Provided by publisher. AR BL 5.0 Fiction

City of Fallen Angels. (No.4) As mysterious murders threaten the new peace between Shadowhunters and Downworlders, only Simon, the Daylighter vampire, can help bring both groups together. Provided by publisher. AR BL 5.2 Fiction

City of Lost Souls. (No.5) When Jace vanishes with Sebastian, Clary and the Shadowhunters struggle to piece together their shattered world and Clary infiltrates the group planning the world's destruction. Provided by publisher. AR BL 5.1 Fiction

City of Heavenly Fire. (No.6) "Darkness has descended on the Shadowhunter world. Chaos and destruction overwhelm the Nephilim as Clary, Jace, Simon, and their friends band together to fight the greatest evil they have ever faced: Clary's own brother. Nothing in this world can defeat Sebastian--but if they journey to the realm of demons, they just might have a chance. “Summary from Destiny. AR BL 5.8 Fiction

Danticat, Edwidge. The Farming of Bones. In 1937, on the Dominican side of the Haitian border, Amabelle, an orphaned maid to an army colonel's wife, falls in love with Sebastien, an itinerant sugarcane cutter, but their relationship is threatened by the violent persecution of the Haitians. Summary from Destiny. AR BL 6.0 Fiction

Davis, Sampson. The Pact. Follows the experiences of the authors, three friends who grew up in impoverished families in Newark, New Jersey, and who supported one another in their dreams of becoming doctors in spite of tremendous disadvantages. Destiny. AR BL 6.8 Nonfiction

Doerr, Nick. All the Light We Cannot See. A blind French girl on the run from the German occupation and a German orphan-turned-Resistance tracker struggle with respective beliefs after meeting on the Brittany coast. AR BL 6.2 Fiction

Kent, Kathleen. The Heretic’s Daughter. Martha Carrier was one of the first women to be accused, tried and hanged as a witch in Salem, Massachusetts. Like her mother, young Sarah Carrier is bright and willful, openly challenging the small, brutal world in which they live. Often at odds with one another, mother and daughter are forced to stand together against the escalating hysteria of the trials and the superstitious tyranny that led to the torture and imprisonment of more than 200 people accused of witchcraft. This is the story of Martha's courageous defiance and ultimate death, as told by the daughter who survived. Summary from Agent. AR BL 6.8 Fiction

Kesey, Ken. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. McMurphy, a criminal who feigns insanity, is admitted to a mental hospital where he challenges the autocratic authority of the head nurse. AR, Summary from Destiny. AR BL 6.7 Fiction

King, Stephen. Finders Keepers. "Wake up, genius." So begins King's instantly riveting story about a vengeful reader. The genius is John Rothstein, an iconic author who created a famous character, Jimmy Gold, but who hasn't published a book for decades. Morris Bellamy is livid, not just because Rothstein has stopped providing books, but because the nonconformist Jimmy Gold has sold out for a career in advertising. Morris kills Rothstein and empties his safe of cash, yes, but the real treasure is a trove of notebooks containing at least one more Gold novel. Morris hides the money and the notebooks, and then he is locked away for another crime. Decades later, a boy named Pete Saubers finds the treasure, and now it is Pete and his family that Bill Hodges, Holly Gibney, and Jerome Robinson must rescue from the ever-more deranged and vengeful Morris when he's released from prison after thirty-five years.” AR BL 5.5 Fiction

Morgan, David Lee, Jr. Lebron James: The Rise of a Star. The son of an unmarried, teenage mother, African American LeBron James overcame a culture of drugs, poverty, and violence in the Akron, Ohio, housing projects where he grew up to become a basketball superstar who signed more than $100 million dollars in promotional contracts before the end of his senior year in high school. Destiny. AR BL 7.4 Nonfiction

Picoult, Jodi. Vanishing Acts. Thirty-two-year-old New Hampshire search-and-rescue worker Delia Hopkins, a soon-to-be-married mother of a five-year-old daughter, begins having strange flashbacks of a forgotten childhood and learns that her father, whom she always believed to be a widower, kidnapped her when she was four--and that her mother is still alive. Summary from Destiny. AR BL 5.9 Fiction

Talley, Robin. Lies We Tell Ourselves. In 1959 Virginia, the lives of two girls on opposite sides of the battle for civil rights will be changed forever. Sarah Dunbar is one of the first black students to attend the previously all-white Jefferson High School. An honors student at her old school, she is put into remedial classes, spit on and tormented daily. Linda Hairston is the daughter of one of the town's most vocal opponents of school integration. She has been taught all her life that the races should be kept "separate but equal." Forced to work together on a school project, Sarah and Linda must confront harsh truths about race, power and how they really feel about one another. Summary from Destiny. AR BL 4.2 Fiction