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Need to Read? Try One of These!
Book Recommendations for September 2007
All titles are available in the High School Library.
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Boot Camp by Todd Strasser
"In the middle of the night Garrett is taken from his home to Harmony Lake, a book camp for troubled
teens. Maybe some kids deserve to be sent there, but Garrett know he doesn't. Subjected to brutal physical and psychological abuse, he tries to fight back, but the battle is futile. He won't be allowed to leave until he's admitted his mistakes and conformed to Harmony Lakes' standards of behavior. And there's no way to fake it. . ."
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Three Cups of Tea by Gregd Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
"On a 1993 expedition to climb K2 in honor of his sister Christa, who had died of epilepsy at 23, Mortenson stumbled upon a remote mountain village in Pakistan. Out of gratitude for the villagers'assistance when he was lost and near death, he vowed to build a school for the children who were scratching lessons in the dirt. Raised by his missionary parents in Tanzania, Mortenson was used to dealing with exotic cultures and developing nations. Still, he faced daunting challenges of raising funds, death threats from enraged mullahs, separation from his family, and a kidnapping to eventually build 55 schools in Taliban territory. Award-winning journalist Relin recounts the slow and arduous task Mortenson set for himself, a one-man mission aimed particularly at bringing education to young girls in Pakistan and Afghanistan."
-- Booklist, March 2006 |
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Plainsong by Kent Haruf
"This saga of seven residents of Holt, CO, details the problems they face and how they come together to solve them. Their divergent stories begin with Tom Guthrie, a high school teacher whose wife suffers a breakdown and abandons him and their two young sons. The Guthrie boys are often on their own while their stressed-out father struggles to keep the family together. Next are Victoria Roubideaux, 17 years old, alone, and pregnant; and Harold and Raymond McPheron, two elderly brothers who know nothing about "real life" outside their farm. It is Maggie Jones, Tom's colleague, who provides him with solace and brings resolution to these many dilemmas. Maggie talks the McPheron brothers into taking the pregnant teenager in, even though they have some reservations about this arrangement. Victoria and the two lonely men adjust to one another and form a family unit that none of them has known before. All of them are struggling but it is their caring, kindness, and forgiving spirits that help them support one another. "
-- School Library Journal, June 2000
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The Memory Keepers Daughter by Kim Edwards
"Dr. David Henry, forced to deliver his own twins during a snowstorm in 1964 with only a nurse to help him, makes a decision that has far-reaching effects on his life, and the lives of his wife and son, when his infant daughter is born with Down Syndrome, and in a vain attempt to protect his wife, he orders the nurse to take the baby to an institution. " |
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A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
"A novel set against the three decades of Afghanistan's history shaped by Soviet occupation, civil war, and the Taliban, which tells the stories of two women, Mariam and Laila, who grow close despite their nineteen-year age difference and initial rivalry as they suffer at the hand of a common enemy: their abusive husband. " |
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