Vacation Reads

One of my delights every year is to peruse suggested reading lists for summer. These are from Houston, Texas for 11-12 graders, and although some of the fiction is Young Adult (teen characters and issues), the range of issues and topics merits a try for something different.
The synopses are from the list.

Fiction

Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice
PR4034.P7 1945

Baldwin, James. Go Tell It on the
Mountain. PS3552.A45 G5

Ellison, Ralph. Invisible Man
PS3555.L625 I6

Eugenides, Jeffrey. Middlesex
PS3555.U4 M53 2002
“In order to understand why she is not like other girls, Calliope must uncover a guilty family secret and the astonishing genetic history that turns Callie into Cal.”

Flinn, Alex Breathing Underwater.
PZ7.F6935 Br 2001

Frank, F. R. America PZ7.F84913 Am
2002
“The enduring love of his foster mother and a dedicated therapist are fifteen-year-old America’s only positive life forces in this disturbing, powerful story of forgiveness and “against the odds” survival.”

Heinlein, Robert. Stranger in a Strange
Land PS3515.E288 S7

Heller, Joseph. Catch-22. PS3558.E476
C17

James, Henry. Washington Square PS2116.W3 1959

Jones, Edward P. The Known World
PS3560.O4813 K58 2003
“Henry Townsend, a black farmer and former slave, is befriended by the most powerful man in antebellum Virginia’s Manchester County and becomes proprietor of his own plantation, as well as of his own slaves.”

McMurtry, Larry. Lonesome Dove
PS3563.A319 L6 1995
“Augustus McCrae and W.F. Call...face danger and hardships during a cattle drive from Texas to Montana…”

Picoult, Jodi. My Sister’s Keeper
PS3566.I372 M9 2004
“Thirteen-year-old Anna, a product of preimplantation genetic diagnosis has undergone countless surgeries, transfusions, and shots so that her older sister, Kate, can fight leukemia. She begins a legal procedure to stop her parents fro using her body to keep Kate alive.”

Roth, Philip. The Plot Against
America PS3568.O855 P58 2004

Sijie, Dai. Balzac and the Little
Chinese Seamstress PQ2664.A437
B3513 2001
“During the Chinese Cultural Revolution, two boys exiled to the countryside for “reeducation” are distracted first by a violin, then by a beautiful young seamstress and a stash of Western classics.”

Steinbeck, John. The Grapes of Wrath PS3537.T3234 G7 1939

Nonfiction

Capote, Truman. In Cold Blood
HV6533.K3 C3


Corwin, Miles. And Still We Rise:
The Trials and Triumphs of
Twelve Gifted Inner-City High
School Students LC3993.9.C678
2000
“...chronicles the incredible challenges faced by high school seniors in a South-Central Los Angeles gifted program.”

Greenblatt, Stephen. Will in the
World: How Shakespeare Became
Shakespeare PR 2894.G74 2004

Hawking, Stephen. A Brief History
of Time QB981.H377 1988

Levitt, Stevin D. & Dubner,
Stephen J. Freakonomics
HB74.P8 L479 2005

Thoreau. Walden PS3042.A7 1950

Tucker, Jonathan B. Scourge: The
Once and Future Threat of
Smallpox RC183.1.T83 2001

Wilson, Edward O. The Future of
Life QH75.W535 2002


Biography/Autobiography

Dylan, Bob. Chronicles: Volume One
ML420.D98 A3 2004 v.1

Malcolm X Autobiography
E 185.97.L5 A3

McBride, James. The Color of Water: A Black
Man’s Tribute to his White Mother F130.N4
M38 1996

Markham, Beryl. West With the Night
TL540.M345 A3 1983.
“The British Aviator first to fly west across the Atlantic Solo describes her childhood in British East Africa and her unconventional life.”

Plath, Sylvia. The Bell Jar PS3566.L27 B45

Welty, Eudora. One Writer’s Beginnings
PS3545.E6Z475 1985

from
HAISLN Recommended Reading List 2006
http://www.haisln.org/ReadingLists.htm