Book club titles
Name ______________________________________ fantasy _____ The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman: This is the story of Lyra, a girl who lives in Oxford, England in a parallel Earth. The story tells of her exciting adventures as she journeys to the far north to rescue kidnapped children, meeting armored bears and gypsies as she goes. _____ Eragon by Christopher Paolini: My student sources tell me the book is much better than the movie! It’s the story of Eragon, a poor farm boy who ends up with a dragon and a mission to fight the power of an Empire ruled by an evil king. _____ Inkheart by Cornelia Funke: Similar in concept to Jumanji. The main character, Meggie, wonders why she and her dad are always moving to live in a new place – and what happened to her mother? It turns out that through the power of his voice reading books aloud, Meggie’s dad brought badst guy book characters to life in the 21 century, and accidentally sent her mom into a book. Meggie needs to figure out how to eliminate or send the bad guys back where they belong. _____ The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan: What if the gods of Olympus were alive in the 21 Century? What if they had children who might become great heroes - like Hercules? What if you were one of those children, like Percy Jackson, age 12, who goes on the most dangerous quest of his life? With the help of a satyr and a daughter of Athena, Percy crosses the United States to catch a thief who has stolen the original weapon of mass destruction – Zeus’ master bolt. _____The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer: Matt is a young child who is a clone, though he doesn't know it at the beginning of this powerful novel. Set in the future in Dreamland, a drug empire that took over parts of today's Mexico, Matt still has the normal concerns and fears that other children have. He wants friends and the freedom to do what he wants. Being a clone of the powerful El Patron gives Matt safety that other clones, despised by his world, do not enjoy. Most clones are grown for horrible reasons and their intelligence is removed with a drug at birth. But he has been spared; he is highly intelligent and loves music. Only a few befriend him: a bodyguard, a cook from the estate, and the daughter of a U.S. Senator who visits the house. Many others taunt and shun him, even some who seemed to be friends. When he has to leave the estate to save his life, new enemies appear. _____ Uglies by Scott Westerfeld: Tally can't wait the three months until she's sixteen and her surgery transforms her into a pretty. She is so sick of being an ugly. Tally buys the party line taught in school: a world of pretties is the only way to make everyone equal. It solves the long-ago problems of judging people by appearances and waging wars based on skin color. Besides, everyone wants to go through the rite of passage. As Tally approaches her sixteenth birthday and her transformation, her friend Shay invites her to travel to David's home, the Smoke --- a place where everyone lives together in freedom, where there are no uglies and no pretties. Naturally, Tally refuses to go. But when her long-anticipated operation day arrives, she is confronted with the frightening Special Circumstances team. Her life takes an unexpected turn when she learns that she must spy on runaway Shay in order to become pretty. biography _____ The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls: This is the author’s memoir of growing up with her three brothers and sisters and her parents. This is the story of how the kids raise themselves living with irresponsible parents and become successful adults. The author’s life turned out well in spite of her difficult childhood. However, because of the irresponsible way her parents raised her and her siblings, a lot of the memories Jeanette tells about are unhappy ones. She describes these memories as she remembers things happening, using the language she remembers.
st
Hour ____________________
realistic fiction _____ Stuck in Neutral by Terry Trueman: Shawn cannot move – not even his eyes. His family doesn’t know if he is suffering, in pain, or even aware of anything around him. This unusual story is written from Shawn’s point of view, because his brain is active and he knows everything that is going on. ______ Drums, Girls and Dangerous Pie by Jordan Sonnenblink: What if you're a middle school kid who is passionate about the drums, struggling to relate to girls, and then your five year old pesky younger brother is diagnosed with cancer? This book feels like it was written by a thirteen year old. The story is sad but funny, too. _____ The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom: The story of Eddie, who dies in an accident and wakes up in heaven where he meets five people who explain his life to him. _____ Dairy Queen by Catherine Gilbert Murdock: D.J. Schwenk is running her family’s Wisconsin dairy farm while her father recovers from surgery. Her best friend is isn’t so friendly any more, her younger brother isn’t talking, and her mom is gone at work all the time. Meanwhile, D.J. starts training Brian Nelson, from the neighboring school’s football team, and gets him (and herself) so fit she starts thinking maybe she should play football herself! _____ Code Orange by Caroline Cooney: Walking around New York City was what Mitty Blake did best. He loved the city, and even after 9/11, he always felt safe. Mitty was a carefree guy–he didn’t worry about terrorists or blackouts or grades or anything, which is why he was late getting started on his Advanced Biology report on a disease. He considers it good luck when he finds some old medical books in his family’s weekend house. When he discovers an old envelope with two smallpox scabs in one of the books, his report is no longer about his grade, it’s about life and death - his own. Historical Fiction _____ Fever 1793 by Laurie Halse Anderson: In 1793, Philadelphia was the capitol of the United States and George Washington was president. In the hot end of summer, an epidemic of yellow fever hit the city and devastated the people – this is the true part of the story. Mattie, the fictional daughter of a coffee shop owner, has to figure out how to survive when her mother gets sick and is separated from her. If you like historical fiction, this is a great read. _____ The Sacrifice by Kathleen Benner Duble: The story is set in seventeenth century Andover, Massachusetts during the time of the Salem Witch Trials. Abigail Faulkner, age 10, is publicly punished for raising her skirts to run. She goes to church the next day, expecting her preacher grandfather to spend the entire time lecturing her from the pulpit. Instead he speaks about bearing false witness and lying. This is how Abigail learns about the Salem Witch hysteria. When it is announced that the girls involved in the Salem Trials will come to Andover to seek for witches, Abigail is immediately worried about her father who suffers from mental illness. No one in Abigail's family is accused at first, until her grandfather continues to speak out against the accusations of others in the community. Then her beloved aunt is accused and jailed in Salem. Abigail and her older sister are accused by their former servant. Can they prove their innocence?