9TH GRADE
Students are advised to read the choice book from the following list FIRST and the class-assigned book SECOND due to possible class projects or assessments on the class-assigned book soon after they return.
High school students will read a total of two books for school over the summer. All students entering 9th grade are required to read The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton. In addition, please choose one book from the Choice Book list.
Books marked with * are in the OCSI Secondary Library.
Students are responsible for obtaining the choice book. They may obtain the book in one of the following ways:
Purchasing through personal means, such as Amazon.com or Amazon.co.jp (click on English Books category).
Borrowing the books from the OCSI library or from a classroom library before school is out.
Borrowing the book from the OCSI eplatform library (ebooks and audiobooks): https://ocsi.eplatform.co.
Borrowing the books through other means, such as an on-base library or Kindle library.
Some books that are in the public domain may be read or downloaded online for free or from websites such as Project Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/.
Choice Book List
Select a book from the choices below. This is a list of books, not a link to purchase books. All book descriptions are from the publisher (adapted from Goodreads and Amazon).
ADVENTURE
Tricked by the uncle who has stolen his inheritance, young David Balfour is kidnapped and bound for America. Or at least that was the plan, until the ship runs into trouble and David is rescued by Alan Breck Stewart, fugitive Jacobite and, by his own admission, a ‘bonny fighter’. Balfour, a canny lowlander, finds an echo of some wilder and more romantic self in the wilful and courageous Highland spirit of Alan Breck. A strange and difficult friendship is born, as their adventures begin.
Young Jim Hawkins lives an ordinary life, helping his parents run the Admiral Benbow Inn in England. Until an old seafarer, Billy Bones arrives carrying the black spot, an old symbol of pirate justice. When Billy meets his tragic death, Jim unlocks the pirate’s chest only to discover a mysterious map that leads to an old treasure hidden away by the notorious Captain Flint. Soon, Jim’s life takes a most unexpected turn…
Once aboard the Hispaniola, the ship Jim joins in hopes of getting closer to riches beyond imagination, he meets the rest of his crewmates and tries to fit in as a cabin boy. But Jim doesn’t know that the crew has different intentions. In the blink of an eye, mutiny breaks out, and young Jim is caught between honest sailors and ruthless pirates, trying to pick a side. What will he choose? The one that will bring him closer to the treasure, or the one that will save his life?
CHRISTIAN FICTION
Eddie is a wounded war veteran, an old man who has lived, in his mind, an uninspired life. His job is fixing rides at a seaside amusement park. On his 83rd birthday, a tragic accident kills him as he tries to save a little girl from a falling cart. He awakes in the afterlife, where he learns that heaven is not a destination. It's a place where your life is explained to you by five people, some of whom you knew, others who may have been strangers. One by one, from childhood to soldier to old age, Eddie's five people revisit their connections to him on earth, illuminating the mysteries of his "meaningless" life, and revealing the haunting secret behind the eternal question: "Why was I here?"
This famous story of man's progress through life in search of salvation remains one of the most entertaining allegories of faith ever written. Set against realistic backdrops of town and country, the powerful drama of the pilgrim's trials and temptations follows him in his harrowing journey to the Celestial City.
Along a road filled with monsters and spiritual terrors, Christian confronts such emblematic characters as Worldly Wiseman, Giant Despair, Talkative, Ignorance, and the demons of the Valley of the Shadow of Death. But he is also joined by Hopeful and Faithful.
An enormously influential 17th-century classic, universally known for its simplicity, vigor, and beauty of language, The Pilgrim's Progress remains one of the most widely read books in the English language.
In this moving tale, follow Much-Afraid on her spiritual journey as she overcomes many dangers and mounts at last to the High Places. There she gains a new name and is transformed by her union with the loving Shepherd.
When God spoke, Mary responded in simple obedience. This humble girl would bear the long-awaited Messiah. She couldn't know that raising the perfect son would break her heart and change the world forever.
*Other books by this author are also available: Unveiled, Unspoken, Unshaken, The Priest, The Prince, The Warrior
FANTASY
A phenomenal worldwide bestseller for over thirty years, Richard Adams's Watership Down is a timeless classic and one of the most beloved novels of all time. Set in England's Downs, a once idyllic rural landscape, this stirring tale of adventure, courage and survival follows a band of very special creatures on their flight from the intrusion of man and the certain destruction of their home. Led by a stouthearted pair of friends, they journey forth from their native Sandleford Warren through the harrowing trials posed by predators and adversaries, to a mysterious promised land and a more perfect society.
Hugh Conway saw humanity at its worst while fighting in the trenches of the First World War. Now, more than a decade later, Conway is a British diplomat serving in Afghanistan and facing war yet again—this time, a civil conflict forces him to flee the country by plane.
When his plane crashes high in the Himalayas, Conway and the other survivors are found by a mysterious guide and led to a breathtaking discovery: the hidden valley of Shangri-La.
Kept secret from the world for more than two hundred years, Shangri-La is like paradise—a place whose inhabitants live for centuries amid the peace and harmony of the fertile valley. But when the leader of the Shangri-La monastery falls ill, Conway and the others must face the daunting prospect of returning home to a world about to be torn open by war.
Bilbo Baggins, a respectable, well-to-do hobbit, lives comfortably in his hobbit-hole until the day the wandering wizard Gandalf chooses him to share in an adventure from which he may never return.
*Other books by this author are also available: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, The Return of the King
HISTORICAL FICTION
Uprooted from their family home in the Dominican Republic, the four Garcia sisters - Carla, Sandra, Yolanda, and Sofia - arrive in New York City in 1960 to find a life far different from the genteel existence of maids, manicures, and extended family they left behind. What they have lost - and what they find - is revealed in the fifteen interconnected stories that make up this exquisite novel from one of the premier novelists of our time.
*Also by this author: In the Time of the Butterflies
When Elizabeth Bennet meets Fitzwilliam Darcy for the first time at a ball, she writes him off as an arrogant and obnoxious man. He not only acts like an insufferable snob, but she also overhears him rejecting the very idea of asking her for a dance! As life pits them against each other again and again, Darcy begins to fall for Elizabeth's wit and intelligence and Elizabeth begins to question her feelings about Darcy. But when Darcy saves her youngest sister Lydia from a scandal, Elizabeth starts to wonder if her pride has prejudiced her opinion of Darcy. Through this tale about two warring hearts, Jane Austen weaves a witty satire about life in eighteenth century England. And though it was published more than two centuries ago, Pride and Prejudice continues to enthrall readers to this very day.
*Also by this author: Emma
A successful lawyer remembers his boyhood in Nebraska and his friendship with an immigrant Bohemian girl named Antonia.
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens is a timeless holiday classic that has been enjoyed for generations. It tells the tale of Ebenezer Scrooge, a miserly old man who is visited by three ghosts on Christmas Eve. Through this spiritual journey, Scrooge learns to let go of his past and embrace the joys of the holiday season.
Marcellus, a Roman soldier, wins Christ's robe as a gaming reward. He then embarks on a journey to discover the truth about the Nazarene's garment, a journey that takes him to the very heart and roots of Christianity, all set against the vibrant backdrop of ancient Rome. A timeless tale of adventure, faith, and romance, a tale of spiritual longing and ultimate redemption is told here.
Tess of the d’Ubervilles is a heartbreaking tale of a woman going to every length to try and do what is right, only to have fate tease her at each turn.
This book is an American classic about a young black woman and her coming to an understanding about love and happiness.
The train taking nineteen-year-old teacher Christy Huddleston from her home in Asheville, North Carolina, might as well be transporting her to another world. The Smoky Mountain community of Cutter Gap feels suspended in time, trapped by poverty, superstitions, and century-old traditions.
But as Christy struggles to find acceptance in her new home, some see her--and her one-room school--as a threat to their way of life. Her faith is challenged and her heart is torn between two strong men with conflicting views about how to care for the families of the Cove.
Yearning to make a difference, will Christy's determination and devotion be enough?
Samantha “Sam” Hughes is in her senior year of high school in rural Kentucky. Her father, whom she never knew, was killed in Vietnam before she was born. Sam lives with her uncle Emmett, a veteran who appears to be suffering from exposure to Agent Orange. Amidst worrying about her uncle and yearning to figure out who she is and learn about the father she never knew, Sam develops feelings for Tom, one of Emmett's veteran buddies. Tom and Emmett attempt to shield Sam from the truth of what they endured, but she has become convinced that her life is bound to the war in Vietnam.
Teenager John Grady Cole, the last of a long line of Texas ranchers, has nothing left to stay for. Across the border Mexico beckons—beautiful and desolate, rugged and cruelly civilized. With neighbor Rawlins, and scruffy boy, he rides toward an idyllic, sometimes comic adventure, to a place where dreams are paid for in blood.
After the Civil War sweeps away the genteel life to which she has been accustomed, Scarlett O'Hara sets about to salvage her plantation home.
“A stranger could drive through Miguel Street and just say ‘Slum!’ because he could see no more.” But to its residents this corner of Trinidad’s capital is a complete world, where everybody is quite different from everybody else. There’s Popo the carpenter, who neglects his livelihood to build “the thing without a name.” There’s Man-man, who goes from running for public office to staging his own crucifixion, and the dreaded Big Foot, the bully with glass tear ducts. There’s the lovely Mrs. Hereira, in thrall to her monstrous husband. This tender, funny early novel is a work of mercurial mood shifts, by turns sweetly melancholy and anarchically funny. It overflows with life on every page.
It is the now-classic story of two fathers and two sons and the pressures on all of them to pursue the religion they share in the way that is best suited to each. And as the boys grow into young men, they discover in the other a lost spiritual brother, and a link to an unexplored world that neither had ever considered before. In effect, they exchange places, and find the peace that neither will ever retreat from again. . . .
The timeless tale continues... The most popular and beloved American historical novel ever written, Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind is unparalleled in its portrayal of men and women at once larger than life but as real as ourselves. Now bestselling writer Alexandra Ripley brings us back to Tara and reintroduces us to the characters we remember so well: Rhett, Ashley, Mammy, Suellen, Aunt Pittypat, and, of course, Scarlett. As the classic story, first told over half a century ago, moves forward, the greatest love affair in all fiction is reignited; amidst heartbreak and joy, the endless, consuming passion between Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler reaches its startling culmination. Rich with surprises at every turn and new emotional, breathtaking adventures, Scarlett satisfies our longing to reenter the world of Gone With the Wind, and like its predecessor, Scarlett will find an eternal place in our hearts.
This treasured historical satire, played out in two very different socioeconomic worlds of 16th-century England, centers around the lives of two boys born in London on the same day: Edward, Prince of Wales and Tom Canty, a street beggar. During a chance encounter, the two realize they are identical and, as a lark, decide to exchange clothes and roles--a situation that briefly, but drastically, alters the lives of both youngsters. The Prince, dressed in rags, wanders about the city's boisterous neighborhoods among the lower classes and endures a series of hardships; meanwhile, poor Tom, now living with the royals, is constantly filled with the dread of being discovered for who and what he really is.
*Also by this author: Innocents Abroad
A tiny footbridge in Peru breaks, and five people hurtle to their deaths. For Brother Juniper, a humble monk who witnesses the catastrophe, the question is: Why those five?
*Also by this author: Ides of March
MYSTERY
Imagined dangers become very real as a quest for intrigue leads to a disturbing discovery. . . . Fifteen-year-old Constantine Rea is bored with life in Vienna Austria, since it seems nothing that exciting ever happens there. But then an acquaintance tells Con that the old city has always been a center of international espionage. In fact, one out of ten adults living in Vienna is a spy! Con knows at least ten adults . . . but could one be a spy? Con and his best friend, Hannah, devise a plan to unmask the identity of the spy in their midst, but their plan is put on hold when Con and his mother make a trip to visit their old landlord, Herr Donner. While there, Con receives a curious gold object called a mezuzah, a symbol of Jewish faith. Then Donner has a chance to rethink the gift, and he angrily demands its return-but Con refuses. What is so important about the mezuzah, and why did Donner have it in the first place?
REALISTIC FICTION
Ninth grader Philip Malloy is forbidden to join the track team because of his failing grades in English class. Convinced that the teacher just doesn't like him, Philip concocts a plan to get transferred into a different homeroom. Instead of standing silently during the national anthem, he hums along. And ends up on trial.
Go Tell It On The Mountain, first published in 1953, is Baldwin's first major work, a semi-autobiographical novel that has established itself as an American classic. With lyrical precision, psychological directness, resonating symbolic power, and a rage that is at once unrelenting and compassionate, Baldwin chronicles a fourteen-year-old boy's discovery of the terms of his identity as the stepson of the minister of a storefront Pentecostal church in Harlem one Saturday in March of 1935. Baldwin's rendering of his protagonist's spiritual, sexual, and moral struggle of self-invention opened new possibilities in the American language and in the way Americans understand themselves.
The House on Mango Street is one of the most cherished novels of the last fifty years. Readers from all walks of life have fallen for the voice of Esperanza Cordero, growing up in Chicago and inventing for herself who and what she will become. “In English my name means hope,” she says. “In Spanish it means too many letters. It means sadness, it means waiting."
Told in a series of vignettes—sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes joyous—Cisneros’s masterpiece is a classic story of childhood and self-discovery and one of the greatest neighborhood novels of all time. Like Sinclair Lewis’s Main Street or Toni Morrison’s Sula, it makes a world through people and their voices, and it does so in language that is poetic and direct. This gorgeous coming-of-age novel is a celebration of the power of telling one’s story and of being proud of where you're from.
Kai Ting is the only American-born son of a Shanghai family that fled China during Mao’s revolution. Growing up in a San Francisco multicultural, low-income neighborhood, Kai is caught between two worlds—embracing neither the Chinese nor the American way of life. After his mother’s death, Kai is suddenly plunged into American culture by his stepmother, who tries to erase every vestige of China from the household.
Fourteen-year-old Henry, wishing to honor his brother Franklin's dying wish, sets out to hike Maine's Mount Katahdin with his best friend and dog. But fate adds another companion--the Cambodian refugee accused of fatally injuring Franklin--and reveals troubles that predate the accident.
When Jack meets his new foster brother, he already knows three things about him:
Joseph almost killed a teacher.
He was incarcerated at a place called Stone Mountain.
He has a daughter. Her name is Jupiter. And he has never seen her.
What Jack doesn’t know, at first, is how desperate Joseph is to find his baby girl.
Or how urgently he, Jack, will want to help.
But the past can’t be shaken off. Even as new bonds form, old wounds reopen. The search for Jupiter demands more from Jack than he can imagine.
In the bustling neighborhood of Williamsburg, Francie learns to navigate the complexities of life through the lens of her tight-knit family and the enduring wisdom of her immigrant parents. From the enchanting tales of her father to the steadfast determination of her mother, Francie draws strength from the roots of her family tree, blossoming into a young woman of remarkable courage and resilience.
Friends George and Lennie yearn for land of their own while working on a ranch in California's Salinas Valley.
SCIENCE FICTION
In a futuristic world, teenaged Nailer scavenges copper wiring from grounded oil tankers for a living, but when he finds a beached clipper ship with a girl in the wreckage, he has to decide if he should strip the ship for its wealth or rescue the girl.
In this futuristic novel, the main character struggles with excessive controls on individual liberty, especially the banning and burning of books.
A kind and well-respected doctor is transformed into a murderous madman by taking a secret drug of his own creation.
DRAMA
Soon after Rosalind and Orlando meet and fall in love, the princesses and Touchstone go into exile in the Forest of Arden, where they find new conversational partners. Duke Frederick, younger brother to Duke Senior, has overthrown his brother and forced him to live homeless in the forest with his courtiers, including the cynical Jaques. Orlando, whose older brother Oliver plotted his death, has fled there, too.
Hero and Claudio fall in love almost at first sight, but an outsider, Don John, strikes out at their happiness. Beatrice and Benedick are kept apart by pride and mutual antagonism until others decide to play Cupid.
Troy Maxson is a strong man, a hard man. He has had to be to survive. Troy Maxson has gone through life in an America where to be proud and black is to face pressures that could crush a man, body and soul. But the 1950s are yielding to the new spirit of liberation in the 1960s, a spirit that is changing the world Troy Maxson has learned to deal with the only way he can, a spirit that is making him a stranger, angry and afraid, in a world he never knew and to a wife and son he understands less and less. This is a modern classic, a book that deals with the impossibly difficult themes of race in America, set during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s.
NONFICTION: AUTOBIOGRAPHY/ MEMOIR
Long regarded as Africa's preeminent Francophone novelist, Laye (1928-1980) herein marvels over his mother's supernatural powers, his father's distinction as the village goldsmith, and his own passage into manhood, which is marked by animistic beliefs and bloody rituals of primeval origin. Eventually, he must choose between this unique place and the academic success that lures him to distant cities. More than an autobiography of one boy, this is the universal story of sacred traditions struggling against the encroachment of a modern world.
Mark Mathabane was weaned on devastating poverty and schooled in the cruel streets of South Africa's most desperate ghetto, where bloody gang wars and midnight police raids were his rites of passage. Like every other child born in the hopelessness of apartheid, he learned to measure his life in days, not years. Yet Mark Mathabane, armed only with the courage of his family and a hard-won education, raised himself up from the squalor and humiliation to win a scholarship to an American university.
Frank McCourt and his siblings grow up in the slums of Limerick, Ireland, with an alcoholic father and a mother who wishes she could just feed her children.
In 1962, Don and Carol Richardson risked their lives to share the gospel with the Sawi people of New Guinea. Peace Child tells their unforgettable story of living among these headhunters and cannibals.
NONFICTION: BIOGRAPHY
A Chance to Die is a biography of Amy Carmichael, an Irish missionary and writer who spent fifty-three years in south India without furlough. There she became known as ''Amma,'' or ''mother,'' as she founded the Dohnavur Fellowship, a refuge for underprivileged children.
Reformation-era England—John Foxe recounts the lives, sufferings, and triumphant deaths of dozens of Christian martyrs. Some were people of rank and influence. Some were ordinary folk. Some were even his friends. Four centuries later, these deeply moving accounts of faith and courage mark a path for modern Christians to measure the depth of their commitment.
David Kherdian re-creates his mother's voice in telling the true story of a childhood interrupted by one of the most devastating holocausts of our century. Vernon Dumehjian Kherdian was born into a loving and prosperous family. Then, in the year 1915, the Turkish government began the systematic destruction of its Armenian population.
Imprisoned by the Romanian Communists for his work in the Christian Underground, and subjected to medieval torture, Wurmbrand kept his faith—and strengthened it. For fourteen years, he shared that faith with suffering cellmates and gave them solace. In solitary confinement, he tapped out his message of hope and Christian love. In Room Four, the “death room”, he helped dying patients even though his lungs were riddled with tuberculosis and his body lacerated and bloody from whips and kicks. Anguished over the fate of his wife and son, he could still tell jokes and stories to make despairing prisoners laugh. Sorely tempted by the promise of release and reprieve, he refused to become a Communist collaborator.
And the miracle is that he survived.
With humble gratitude to God and Christ, he tells his personal story. It’s an inspiring drama of triumphant faith.
Months of solitary confinement, years of periodic physical torture, constant suffering from hunger and cold, the anguish of brainwashing and mental cruelty—these are the experiences of a Romanian pastor during his 14 years in Communist prisons.
His crime, like that of thousands of others, was his fervant belief in Jesus Christ and his public witness concerning that faith.
Meeting in homes, in basements, and in woods—sometimes daring to preach in public on street corners—these faithful souls persisted in their Christian witness knowing full well the ultimate cost of their actions.
This is their story—a classic account of courage, tenacious faith, and unbelievable endurance. This history of the Underground Church reflects the continuing struggle in many parts of the world today.
NONFICTION: CHRISTIAN
An authoritative answer to the great questions raised by the moral and spiritual crises of our time.
In the classic Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis, the most important writer of the 20th century, explores the common ground upon which all of those of Christian faith stand together. Bringing together Lewis’ legendary broadcast talks during World War Two from his three previous books The Case for Christianity, Christian Behavior, and Beyond Personality, Mere Christianity provides an unequaled opportunity for believers and nonbelievers alike to hear this powerful apologetic for the Christian faith.
NONFICTION: GREEK MYTHOLOGY
Edith Hamilton's Mythology succeeds like no other book in bringing to life for the modern reader the Greek, Roman, and Norse myths that are the keystone of Western culture--the stories of gods and heroes that have inspired human creativity from antiquity to the present. We meet the Greek gods on Olympus and Norse gods in Valhalla. We follow the drama of the Trojan War and the wanderings of Odysseus. We hear the tales of Jason and the Golden Fleece, Cupid and Psyche, and mighty King Midas. We discover the origins of the names of the constellations. And we recognize reference points for countless works of art, literature, and cultural inquiry--from Freud's Oedipus complex to Wagner's Ring Cycle of operas to Eugene O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra. Praised throughout the world for its authority and lucidity, Mythology is Edith Hamilton's masterpiece--the standard by which all other books on mythology are measured.
NONFICTION: HISTORY
At first, no one but the lookout recognized the sound. Passengers described it as the impact of a heavy wave, a scraping noise, or the tearing of a long calico strip. In fact, it was the sound of the world’s most famous ocean liner striking an iceberg, and it served as the death knell for 1,500 souls. In the next two hours and forty minutes, the maiden voyage of the Titanic became one of history’s worst maritime accidents. As the ship’s deck slipped closer to the icy waterline, women pleaded with their husbands to join them on lifeboats. Men changed into their evening clothes to meet death with dignity. And in steerage, hundreds fought bitterly against certain death. At 2:15 a.m. the ship’s band played “Autumn.” Five minutes later, the Titanic was gone. Based on interviews with sixty-three survivors, Lord’s moment-by-moment account is among the finest books written about one of the twentieth century’s bleakest nights