last first name pub. recommended second us or (author ... · memoir free press 2008mrs. hutcheson...

Last Name (author)

First Name (author) Title Book Cover Summary category/genre Publisher

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AdichieChimamanda Ngozi Americanah

Ifemelu and Obinze are young and in love when they depart military-ruled Nigeria for the West. Beautiful, self-assured Ifemelu heads for America, where despite her academic success, she is forced to grapple with what it means to be black for the first time. Quiet, thoughtful Obinze had hoped to join her, but with post-9/11 America closed to him, he instead plunges into a dangerous, undocumented life in London. Fifteen years later, they reunite in a newly democratic Nigeria, and reignite their passion—for each other and for their homeland.

fiction, global fiction, Africa, National Book Critics Circle Award Knopf 2013 Ms. Krassin

US 11th/12th

Adiga Arivand White Tiger, The

The white tiger of this novel is Balram Halwai, a poor Indian villager whose great ambition leads him to the zenith of Indian business culture, the world of the Bangalore entrepreneur. On the occasion of the president of China’s impending trip to Bangalore, Balram writes a letter to him describing his transformation and his experience as driver and servant to a wealthy Indian family, which he thinks exemplifies the contradictions and complications of Indian society.

fictionalized memoir Free Press 2008 Mrs. Hutcheson US

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Ambrose Stephen Band of Brothers

In chronicling the history of an American airborne unit in World War II, Ambrose shows how the boys of E (Easy) Company represented the best the U.S. had to offer: citizen soldiers, buoyant, brave, unself-consciously patriotic, who went to war not because they wanted to, but because they felt duty bound to serve their country in a just cause.

NON-FICTION, World War II Ms. Ostendarp US

AndersonLaurie Halse Speak Fiction Ms. Ostendarp US

Anderson M.T.

Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, The

Young Octavian is being raised by a group of rational philosophers known only by numbers -- but it is only after he opens a forbidden door that learns the hideous nature of their experiments, and his own chilling role them. Set in Revolutionary Boston, M. T. Anderson’s mesmerizing novel takes place at a time when Patriots battled to win liberty while African slaves were entreated to risk their lives for a freedom they would never claim.

historical fiction, African American, Revolutionary War, Printz Prize, National Book Award Candlewick 2006 Ms. Trabulsi

US 9th or MS 8th

Last Name (author)


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Ariel Dorfman

Chile: The Other September 11: An Anthology of Reflections on the 1973 Coup (Radical History)

A personal look at the military coup in Chile in 1973. Provides historical context about Latin America and what many people in Chile think when they hear the date September, 11th.

nonfiction, history, Chile, South America, Latin America, essays Ocean Press 2006 Ms. Levheim US

Aslam NadeemMaps for Lost Lovers

Jugnu and Chanda have disappeared. Like thousands of people all over England, they were lovers and living together out of wedlock. To Chanda’s family, however, the disgrace was unforgivable. Perhaps enough so as to warrant murder. fiction

Vintage International 2004

Mrs. Hsiao (via Salman Rushdie) US

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Austen Jane Sense and Sensibility Fiction Ms. Ostendarp Ms. Trabulsi US

Bach Richard Illusions

In the cloud-washed airspace between the cornfields of Illinois and blue infinity, a man puts his faith in the propeller of his biplane. Fiction Ms. Ostendarp US

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Bach Richard Jonathan Livingston Seagull Fiction Ms. Ostendarp US

Barrett Andrea Ship Fever

Beautiful short stories about the wonder and work of science. Botany nerds, rejoice! Do you like Biology? Mendel’s edible peas? The littoral zone? This book is for you.

fiction, short stories, science, National Book Award winner

W.W. Norton & Co 1996 Ms. Levheim US

Last Name (author)


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Barry Max Lexicon

Emily is a teen runaway working as a magician-cum-street hustler when she gets recruited by a shadowy elite boarding school run by Poets - people who are “good with words” - to learn how to sharpen her persuasion skills. Wil is kidnapped by Eliot, a Poet and teacher at the boarding school, to help him kill Wolff, a Poet who’s gone rogue. These two disparate storylines cross time and continents to ultimately conjoin in a unique and satisfying way. Part etymological history and inspection, part action-packed thrill ride, part atypical love story, part sci-fi/fantasy, this smart, dystopian novel has something for everyone.

fiction, science fiction, boarding school, fantasy Penguin Books 2014 Ms. Trabulsi US

Bill Bryson

A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail

The Appalachian Trail stretches from Georgia to Maine and covers some of the most breathtaking terrain in America–majestic mountains, silent forests, sparking lakes. If you’re going to take a hike, it’s probably the place to go. And Bill Bryson is surely the most entertaining guide you’ll find.

narrative nonficton, memoir, nature Broadway Books 1998 Ms. Levheim Mr. Moran

US 11th grade

Last Name (author)


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Boyd, Danah

It's Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens.

Many of today's youth have access to tools that allow them to connect to people and information in unprecedented ways. Yet this is not actually the most salient difference between now and the past. Teens today are also more heavily constrained in their mobility, more regulated in terms of their time and activities, and under more pressure than those from previous generations. This means that they have fewer opportunities to socialize in unstructured, face-to-face settings. Technology often serves as a relief valve, allowing teens to hang out with friends when getting together isn't otherwise possible. Most conversations that focus on teens' use of social media—and their lives more generally—center on the risks youth face. While it's important to protect youth from dangers, a society based on fear-mongering is not healthy. Let's instead talk about how we can help youth be passionate, engaged, constructive members of society rather than how we can protect them from statistically anomalous dangers. Let's understand those teens who are truly at risk; these teens often have the least support.

nonfiction, technology, identity, privacy, addiction, danger, bullying, inequality, literacy.

Yale University Press 2015 Ms. Levheim US

BradleyMarion Zimmer

Mists of Avalon, The

Mrs. Mitchell-Kelly US

Last Name (author)


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BradleyKimberly Brubaker

War That Saved My Life, The

Since she was born with a twisted foot, 10-year-old Ada has never been allowed to leave the one-room London apartment she shares with her mother and younger brother, Jamie. Mam physically and emotionally abuses Ada, withholding food, locking her in a cupboard, and forcing Ada to crawl on the floor instead of giving her crutches. But when Ada learns Jamie will be shipped out of London in case the city is bombed, Ada sneaks away with him, freeing herself from her mother's cruelty and discovering a new life. The two children are sent to live in the country with Susan Smith, who initially isn't keen on taking them in. As the story progresses, however, Ada and Jamie slowly begin to trust Susan, and Susan opens her heart to them.

historical fiction, World War II, disability rights, Newbery Honor Book, Middle School Dial Books 2015 Ms. Trabulsi

MS or US

Bragg RickAll Over but the Shoutin'

This haunting, harrowing, gloriously moving recollection of a life on the American margin is the story of Rick Bragg, who grew up dirt-poor in northeastern Alabama, seemingly destined for either the cotton mills or the penitentiary, and instead became a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for The New York Times. It is the story of Bragg's father, a hard-drinking man, and his mother, who went eighteen years without a new dress so that her sons could have school clothes and picked other people's cotton so that her children wouldn't have to live on welfare alone. Evoking these lives--and the country that shaped and nourished them--with artistry, honesty, and compassion, Rick Bragg brings home the love and suffering that lie at the heart of every family.

autobiography, nonfiction Vintage 1998 Mrs. Ernst US

Last Name (author)


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US or MS

Bronte Emily Wuthering Heights Ms. Ostendarp US

Brown

Daniel James Brown

Boys in the Boat, The

The #1 New York Times–bestselling story about American Olympic triumph in Nazi Germany and now the inspiration for the forthcoming PBS documentary “Boys of ‘36”.

narrative nonfiction, World War II, Olympics, biography Penguin group 2013 Ms. Fontaine US

Last Name (author)


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Burton Jessie Miniaturist, The

Nella is a country naïf who, after marrying Johannes Brandt, finds herself captive in a forbidding household ruled by an uncommunicative sister-in-law. While the dollhouse, a thoughtless gift from the withdrawn Johannes, silently mocks Nella — “a monument to her powerlessness” — the young wife strives to become a street-smart matron. The sole figure to aid her quest is an anonymous and uncanny “miniaturist” whose exquisitely crafted work not only arrives to fill Nella’s cabinet unbidden but also hides enigmatic, prophetic messages. historical fiction Ecco 2014 Mrs. Hutcheson US

Butler Octavia Kindred

Dana, a modern black woman, is celebrating her twenty-sixth birthday with her new husband when she is snatched abruptly from her home in California and transported to the antebellum South. Rufus, the white son of a plantation owner, is drowning, and Dana has been summoned to save him. Dana is drawn back repeatedly through time to the slave quarters, and each time the stays grow longer, more arduous, and more dangerous until it is uncertain whether or not Dana's life will end, long before it has a chance to begin.

historical fiction, science fiction, classic, African American, feminism

Beacon Press 1981 Ms. Ostendarp Ms. Trabulsi US

Last Name (author)


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Carr and Halsey

Rosamond Halsey, Ann Howard

Land of a Thousand Hills: My Life in Rwanda

If you enjoyed Out of Africa and West with the Night, here's another amazing woman's story of her adventurous African life. Rosamond Halsey Carr left her job as a young New York City fashion illustrator in the 1940s to join her hunter-explorer husband in the Belgian Congo; after their divorce, she decided to stay on in neighboring Rwanda as the manager of a flower plantation. For the next 50 years she lived an extraordinary life, witnessing the fall of colonialism, the loss of her friend Dian Fossey, and the relentless clashes between the Hutus and the Tutsis.

narrative nonfiction, Rwanda, biography Penguin group 1999

Carl Hobert and Dr. Gorski Ms. Fontaine US

Chabon Michael

Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, The

Pulitzer Prize winder. A young escape artist and budding magician named Joe Kavalier arrives on the doorstep of his cousin, Sammy Clay. While the long shadow of Hitler falls across Europe, America is happily in thrall to the Golden Age of comic books, and in a distant corner of Brooklyn, Sammy is looking for a way to cash in on the craze.

fiction, historical fiction, comic books, World War II Random House 2000 Ms. Levheim Ms. Trabulsi US

Last Name (author)


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US or MS

Coates Ta-NehisiBetween the World and Me,

In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation’s history and current crisis. Americans have built an empire on the idea of “race,” a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men—bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden?

nonfiction, African American, biography, history, civil rights, social justice, National Book Award winner, Pulitizer Prize finalist, NAACP Image Award Spiegel & Grau 2015 Ms. Dziura Ms. Trabulsi US

Col Teju Every Day is For the Thief

After living in America for 15 years, a Nigerian writer returns to his homeland. Reunited with a beloved aunt, with whom he stays, he reconnects with a boyhood friend, now a struggling doctor, and visits the woman who was his first love, now married with a daughter, as he contemplates staying in Lagos

Random House trade paperbacks 2007


Last Name (author)


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US or MS

Conroy PatPrince of Tides, The historical fiction, classic, French Revolution Fiction Ms. Ostendarp US

Conroy PatLords of Discipline, The Fiction Ms. Ostendarp US

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US or MS

Courtnay Bryce Power of One, The

The book opens with a white British 5-year-old being sent from his home (and his black nanny, who provides him with a lifelong understanding of black South African culture) to a rural, barely-civilized boarding school where all the other kids are Afrikaans. It's the late 1930s, and the Afrikaaners (Boers) hate the British, so the boy comes in for an enormous amount of physical and mental abuse - and acquires his nickname, Pisskop, which he later co-opts, calling himself 'Peekay’. From there, we follow Peekay as he grows up over the next 12 years, becoming a successful scholar and a boxer. In the process we learn a great deal about the political and racial situation in South Africa as it existed between about 1938-1950.

historical fiction, South Africa, classic Random House 1989 Ms. Ostendarp US

Dallaire Romeo A.

Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda

For the first time in the United States comes the tragic and profoundly important story of the legendary Canadian general who "watched as the devil took control of paradise on earth and fed on the blood of the people we were supposed to protect."

nonfiction, Rwanda Da Capo Press 2004


Last Name (author)


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US or MS

Dickens Charles A Tale of Two Cities

A Tale of Two Cities is set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution. The novel depicts the plight of the French peasantry demoralized by the French aristocracy in the years leading up to the revolution, the corresponding brutality demonstrated by the revolutionaries toward the former aristocrats in the early years of the revolution, and many unflattering social parallels with life in London during the same period. It follows the lives of several characters through these events.

historical fiction, classic, French Revolution 1859 Ms. Ostendarp US

Didion Joan White Album, TheMrs. Mitchell-Kelly US

Last Name (author)


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US or MS

Didion Joan Slouching Towards Bethlehem

Mrs. Mitchell-Kelly

US 11th/12th

Doerr AnthonyAll The Light We Cannot See

Marie Laure is a blind 14-year-old French girl who flees to the countryside when her father disappears from Nazi-occupied Paris. Werner is a gadget-obsessed German orphan whose skills admit him to a brutal branch of Hitler Youth. Never mind that their paths don’t cross until very late in the novel, this is not a book you read for plot (although there is a wonderful, mysterious subplot about a stolen gem). This is a book you read for the beauty of Doerr’s writing-- “Abyss in her gut, desert in her throat, Marie-Laure takes one of the cans of food…”--and for the way he understands and cherishes the magical obsessions of childhood. Marie Laure and Werner are never quaint or twee. Instead they are powerful examples of the way average people in trying times must decide daily between morality and survival.

fiction, World War II, Pulitzer Prize winner, National Book Award finalist Scribner 2014 Mr. Lombard US

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Dorris Michael Broken Cord , The

The controversial national bestseller that received unprecedented media attention, sparked the nation's interest in the plight of children with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, and touched a nerve in all of us. Winner of the 1989 National Book Critics Circle Award.

nonfiction, science, medicine, National Book Critics Circle Award winner Harper 1990 Mrs. Ernst

US 10th grade

Dweck Carol Mindset

Dweck explains why it’s not just our abilities and talent that bring us success—but whether we approach them with a fixed or growth mindset. She makes clear why praising intelligence and ability doesn’t foster self-esteem and lead to accomplishment, but may actually jeopardize success. With the right mindset, we can motivate our kids and help them to raise their grades, as well as reach our own goals—personal and professional. Dweck reveals what all great parents, teachers, CEOs, and athletes already know: how a simple idea about the brain can create a love of learning and a resilience that is the basis of great accomplishment in every area. non-fiction Ballantine Books 2007 Mrs. Hutcheson US

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Eggers Dave What is the What

What Is the What is the epic novel based on the life of Valentino Achak Deng who, along with thousands of other children —the so-called Lost Boys—was forced to leave his village in Sudan at the age of seven and trek hundreds of miles by foot, pursued by militias, government bombers, and wild animals, crossing the deserts of three countries to find freedom. When he finally is resettled in the United States, he finds a life full of promise, but also heartache and myriad new challenges. Moving, suspenseful, and unexpectedly funny, What Is the What is an astonishing novel that illuminates the lives of millions through one extraordinary man. fiction Vintage 2007 Mrs. Hutcheson US

Esquivel Laura Like Water for Chocolate Fiction Ms. Ostendarp Ms. Trabulsi US

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Fadiman Anne

Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, The

The book tells the story of the family's second youngest and favored daughter, Lia Lee, who was diagnosed with severe epilepsy and the culture conflict that obstructs her treatment. Through miscommunications about medical dosages and parental refusal to give certain medicines due to mistrust, misunderstandings, and behavioral side effects, and the inability of the doctors to develop more empathy with the traditional Hmong lifestyle or try to learn more about the Hmong culture, Lia's condition worsens. The dichotomy between the Hmong's perceived spiritual factors and the Americans' perceived scientific factors comprises the overall theme of the book.

nonfiction, National Book Critics Circle Award

Farrar, Straus and Giroux 1997 Mrs. Ernst US

Farmer PaulTo Repair the World

Here, for the first time, is a collection of short speeches by the charismatic doctor and social activist Paul Farmer. One of the most passionate and influential voices for global health equity and social justice, Farmer encourages young people to tackle the greatest challenges of our times. Engaging, often humorous, and always inspiring, these speeches bring to light the brilliance and force of Farmer’s vision in a single, accessible volume.

nonfiction, speeches, social justice

U of California Press 2013


Last Name (author)


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Flagg Fannie

Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café

Folksy and fresh, endearing and affecting, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe is the now-classic novel of two women in the 1980s; of gray-headed Mrs. Threadgoode telling her life story to Evelyn, who is in the sad slump of middle age. The tale she tells is also of two women--of the irrepressibly daredevilish tomboy Idgie and her friend Ruth--who back in the thirties ran a little place in Whistle Stop, Alabama, a Southern kind of Cafe Wobegon offering good barbecue and good coffee and all kinds of love and laughter, even an occasional murder. Fiction Ms. Ostendarp US

Forster EM Room with a View Fiction Ms. Ostendarp US

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Fuller AlexandraDon't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight

Alexandra Fuller remembers her African childhood with visceral authenticity. Though it is a diary of an unruly life in an often inhospitable place, it is suffused with Fuller’s endearing ability to find laughter, even when there is little to celebrate. Fuller’s debut is unsentimental and unflinching but always captivating. In wry and sometimes hilarious prose, she stares down disaster and looks back with rage and love at the life of an extraordinary family in an extraordinary time.

autobiography, Rhodesia, Africa, nonfiction Random House 2011 Mrs. Ernst US

Gaiman Neil Ocean at the End of the Land, The

Forty years ago, our narrator, who was then a seven-year-old boy, unwittingly discovered a neighboring family’s supernatural secret. What happens next is an imaginative romp through otherwordly adventure that could only come from Gaiman's magical mind. Childhood innocence is tested and transcended as we see what getting between ancient, mystic forces can cost, as well as what can be gained from the power of true friendship. The result is a captivating tale that is equal parts sweet, sad, and spooky.

fiction, fantasy, British National Book Awards Book of the Year William Morrow 2013 Ms. Trabulsi US

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Gaines ErnestAutobiography of Miss Jane Pittman

The story depicts the struggles of African Americans as seen through the eyes of the narrator, a woman named Jane Pittman. She tells of the major events of her life from the time she was a young slave girl in the American South at the end of the Civl War through the Civil rights struggles of the 1950s and ’60s.

historical fiction, classic, African American Gk Hall 1971 Ms. Ostendarp US

Garcia Marquez Gabriel

One Hundred Years of Solitude

One Hundred Years of Solitude tells the story of the rise and fall, birth and death of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendia family. Inventive, amusing, magnetic, sad, and alive with unforgettable men and women -- brimming with truth, compassion, and a lyrical magic that strikes the soul -- this novel is a masterpiece in the art of fiction.

Fiction, magical realism, Columbia Harper & Row 1970


Gourevitch Philip

We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda

In April 1994, the Rwandan government called upon everyone in the Hutu majority to kill each member of the Tutsi minority, and over the next three months 800,000 Tutsis perished in the most unambiguous case of genocide since Hitler's war against the Jews.

nonfiction, history, Rwanda, National Book Critics Circle Award winner

Farrar Strauss and Giroux 1998


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Gunther John Death Be Not Proud

Johnny Gunther was only seventeen years old when he died of a brain tumor. During the months of his illness, everyone near him was unforgettably impressed by his level-headed courage, his wit and quiet friendliness, and, above all, his unfaltering patience through times of despair. This deeply moving book is a father's memoir of a brave, intelligent, and spirited boy. NON-FICTION Ms. Ostendarp US

Haddon Mark

Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

The hero of Haddon’s debut novel is 15-year-old Christopher Boone, an autistic math genius who has just discovered the dead body of his neighbor’s poodle, Wellington. Wellington was killed with a garden fork, and Christopher decides that, like his idol Sherlock Holmes, he’s going to find the killer. Fiction Ms. Ostendarp Ms. Trabulsi US

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Hannah Kristen Nightingale, The

With courage, grace and powerful insight, bestselling author Kristin Hannah captures the epic panorama of WWII and illuminates an intimate part of history seldom seen: the women's war. The Nightingale tells the stories of two sisters, separated by years and experience, by ideals, passion and circumstance, each embarking on her own dangerous path toward survival, love, and freedom in German-occupied, war-torn France--a heartbreakingly beautiful novel that celebrates the resilience of the human spirit and the durability of women. It is a novel for everyone, a novel for a lifetime.

fiction, World War II

St. Martin's Press 2015 Mrs. Hutcheson US

Hugo Victor Les Miserables*

Beginning in 1815 and culminating in the 1832 June Rebellion in Paris, the novel follows the lives and interactions of several characters, particularly the struggles of ex-convict Jean Valjean and his experience of redemption.

historical fiction, classic 1862 Ms. Ostendarp ]US

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James P.D. Children of Men, The Fiction Ms. Ostendarp US

Johnson Charles Middle Passage

In this savage parable of the African American experience, Rutherford Calhoun, a newly freed slave eking out a living in New Orleans in 1830, hops aboard a square rigger to evade the prim Boston schoolteacher who wants to marry him. But the Republic turns out to be a slave clipper bound for Africa. Calhoun, whose master educated him as a humanist, becomes the captain's cabin boy, and though he hates himself for acting as a lackey, he's able to help the African slaves recently taken aboard to stage a revolt before the rowdy, drunken crew can spring a mutiny.

historical fiction, African American, National Book Award Picador 1990 Ms. Ostendarp US

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Johnson AdamOrphan Master's Son, The

Pulitzer Prize for Fiction-- An epic novel and a thrilling literary discovery, The Orphan Master’s Son follows a young man’s journey through the icy waters, dark tunnels, and eerie spy chambers of the world’s most mysterious dictatorship, North Korea.

fiction, historical fiction, global fiction, Pulitzer Prize winner


Mrs. Hsiao (via Salman Rushdie) Ms. Trabulsi US

Juster NortonPhantom Tollbooth, The

"It seems to me that almost everything is a waste of time," Milo laments. "[T]here's nothing for me to do, nowhere I'd care to go, and hardly anything worth seeing." This bored, bored young protagonist who can't see the point to anything is knocked out of his glum humdrum by the sudden and curious appearance of a tollbooth in his bedroom. Since Milo has absolutely nothing better to do, he dusts off his toy car, pays the toll, and drives through. What ensues is a journey of mythic proportions, during which Milo encounters countless odd characters who are anything but dull.

Middle School, fiction, classic Bullseye Books 1961 Ms. Levheim Ms. Trabulsi

MS or US

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Kidd Sue MonkSecret Life of Bees, The Fiction Ms. Ostendarp Ms. Trabulsi US

King Stephen Body, The Fiction Ms. Ostendarp Ms. Trabulsi US

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Kingsolver Barbara Poisonwood Bible

The Poisonwood Bible is a story told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They carry with them everything they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it—from garden seeds to Scripture—is calamitously transformed on African soil. What follows is a suspenseful epic of one family's tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction over the course of three decades in postcolonial Africa. fiction, Africa Harper 1999 Mrs. Ernst US

Klay Phil Redeployment

Phil Klay's Redeployment takes readers to the frontlines of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, asking us to understand what happened there, and what happened to the soldiers who returned. Winner of the 2014 National Book Award for Fiction.

Fiction, short stories, Iraq war, National Book Award winner Penguin 2014


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Krakauer Jon Into Thin Air

Jon Krakauer, a climber and journalist for Outside magazine, writes of the commercialization of climbing Mt. Everest and the tragedy of the 1996 climbing season, that claimed 12 lives. This book is a page turner. NON-FICTION 1999 Ms. Ostendarp US

Lahiri JumpaInterpreter of Maladies

Navigating between the Indian traditions they've inherited and the baffling new world, the characters in Jhumpa Lahiri's elegant, touching stories seek love beyond the barriers of culture and generations.

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 1999


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Lalami Laila Moor's Account, The

This is the imagined memoir of the first black explorer of America: Mustafa al-Zamori, called Estebanico. The slave of a Spanish conquistador, Estebanico sails for the Americas with his master, but within a year, Estebanico is one of only four crew members to survive. As he journeys across America with his Spanish companions, the Old World roles of slave and master fall away, and Estebanico remakes himself as an equal, a healer, and a remarkable storyteller. His tale illuminates the ways in which our narratives can transmigrate into history—and how storytelling can offer a chance at redemption and survival.

fiction, historical fiction, global fiction, PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST, NOMINATED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE, AMERICAN BOOK AWARD WINNER

Penguin Random house 2014


Lansky Aaron

Outwitting History: The Amazing Adventures of a Man Who Rescued a Million Yiddish Books Bookworms (or Book dragons) rejoice!

Narrative non-fiction Algonquin Books 2005 Ms. Levheim US

Larson Erik The Devil in the White City

Mrs. Mitchell-Kelly US

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Le Nam Boat, The

Short Stories. From a Colombian slum to the streets of Tehran, seven characters in seven stories struggle with very particular Swords of Damocles in Pushcart Prize winner Le's accomplished debut.

short stories, Columbia, Iran, fiction Knopf 2008


Lewis & Aydin Powell

John, Andrew, Nate March, Book One

Congressman John Lewis is one of the key figures of the civil rights movement. His commitment to justice and nonviolence has taken him from receiving beatings from state troopers to receiving the Medal of Freedom from the first African-American president. March: Book One spans John Lewis' youth on an Alabama sharecropper's farm, his life-changing meeting with Martin Luther King, Jr., the birth of the Nashville Student Movement, and their battle to tear down segregation through nonviolent lunch counter sit-ins, building to a stunning climax on the steps of City Hall.

autobiography, graphic nonfiction, civil rights, history, African American

Top Shelf Productions 2013 Ms. Trabulsi

MS or US

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Li YiyuanKinder Than Solitude

A profound mystery is at the heart of this magnificent new novel by Yiyun Li. Moving back and forth in time, between America today and China in the 1990s, fiction



Mathabane Mark

Kaffir Boy and Kaffir Boy in America

Kaffir Boy in America is the sequel to Mark Mathabane's extraordinary autobiography, Kaffir Boy. The story begins with Mathabane's escape from South Africa to the United States, and recounts his coming of age in a country overwhelming in its immensity, luxuriousness, poverty, and despair. From his early college days when he first discovered the great black American writers, to his emergence as the voice of a new generation, from his reflections on America's racial and social injustice to his celebration of its basic freedoms, Kaffir Boy in America is a moving saga of hardship and determination, insight and inspiration, informed, above all, by Mark Mathabane's compassion for his fellow man.

memoir, autobiography, immigrant

New Millennium Books 2010 Mrs. Ernst US

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US or MS

McMillen Sally G.Lucy Stone: An Unapologetic Life

Lucy Stone was raised in a middle-class Massachusetts farm family, and became convinced at an early age that education was key to women's independence and selfhood. When she graduated Oberlin Collegiate Institute in 1847 as one of the first women in the US to earn a college degree, she was drawn into the public sector as an activist and quickly became one of the most famous orators of her day. Lecturing on anti-slavery and women's rights, she was instrumental in organizing and speaking at several annual national woman's rights conventions throughout the 1850s. She played a critical role in the organization and leadership of the American Equal Rights Association during the Civil War, and, in 1869, cofounded the American Woman Suffrage Association, one of two national women's rights organizations that fought for women's right to vote. Encompassing Stone's marriage to Henry Blackwell and the birth of their daughter Alice, as well as her significant friendships with Frederick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony, and others, McMillen's biography paints a complete picture of Stone's influential and eminently important life and work.

women's rights, anti-slavery, Civil War, education, biography, nonfiction, WMA alumnus, feminism

Oxford University Press 2015 Mrs. Hutcheson US

Mo Timothy Sour Sweet Fiction Ms. Ostendarp US

Last Name (author)


Pub. Year

Recommended by

Second Teacher Rec

US or MS

Morgenstern Erin NIght Circus, The fiction Ms. Decker US

Otsuka JulieWhen the Emperor Was Divine

Written by Poet laureate of Sacramento and friend of Mrs. Hsaio. On a sunny day in Berkeley, California, in 1942, a woman sees a sign in a post office window, returns to her home, and matter-of-factly begins to pack her family's possessions. Like thousands of other Japanese Americans they have been reclassified, virtually overnight, as enemy aliens and are about to be uprooted from their home and sent to a dusty internment camp in the Utah desert.

Darfur Anchor Books 2003 Mrs Hsiao Ms. TrabulsiMS or US

Last Name (author)


Pub. Year

Recommended by

Second Teacher Rec

US or MS

Ottaviani & Wicks

Jim & Maris Primates,

Jim Ottaviani gives us an action-packed account of the three greatest primatologists of the last century: Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Biruté Galdikas. These three ground-breaking researchers were all students of the great Louis Leakey, and each made profound contributions to primatology―and to our own understanding of ourselves.

graphic nonfiction, science, nature, biography, history, feminism, Africa First Second 2013 Ms. Trabulsi

MS or US

Picoult Jodi Storyteller, The

Recommended to me by Mrs. McCormack. It was an engaging read. Protagonist Sage Singer is scarred and tries to keep away from most other humans. She is the granddaughter of a holocaust survivor and befriends a local German teacher. The teacher admits to her a secret he’s been hiding for decades.

Historical Fiction (sort of)

Atria/Emily Bestler Books 2013 Ms. Levheim US

Read Pier Paul Alive

On October 12, 1972, a plane carrying a team of young rugby players crashed into the remote, snow-peaked Andes. Out of the forty-five original passengers and crew, only sixteen made it off the mountain alive. For ten excruciating weeks they suffered deprivations beyond imagining, confronting nature head-on at its most furious and inhospitable. Fiction Ms. Ostendarp Ms. Trabulsi US

Last Name (author)


Pub. Year

Recommended by

Second Teacher Rec

US or MS

Ripley AmandaSmartest Kids in the World, The

How do other countries create “smarter” kids? What is it like to be a child in the world’s new education superpowers? The Smartest Kids in the World “gets well beneath the glossy surfaces of these foreign cultures and manages to make our own culture look newly strange....The question is whether the startling perspective provided by this masterly book can also generate the will to make changes.”

nonfiction, educaiton

Simon & Schuster 2013 Mrs. Ernst US

Rushdie Salman Luka and the Fire of Life FICTION Ms. Ostendarp US

Sandberg Sheryl Lean In

Thirty years after women became 50 percent of the college graduates in the United States, men still hold the vast majority of leadership positions in government and industry. This means that women’s voices are still not heard equally in the decisions that most affect our lives. In Lean In, Sheryl Sandberg examines why women’s progress in achieving leadership roles has stalled, explains the root causes, and offers compelling, commonsense solutions that can empower women to achieve their full potential.

non-fiction, self help, feminism Knopf 2013 Mrs. Hutcheson US

Last Name (author)


Pub. Year

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Second Teacher Rec

US or MS

Savage and Miller

Dan and Terry

It Gets Better: Coming Out, Overcoming Bullying, and Creating a Life Worth Living

It Gets Better is a collection of original essays and expanded testimonials written to teens from celebrities, political leaders, and everyday people, because while many LGBT teens can't see a positive future for themselves, we can.

nonfiction, essays, LGBTQ Penguin Books 2012 Ms. Levheim US

Sebold Alice Lovely Bones, The Fiction Ms. Ostendarp Ms. Trabulsi

US grade 9 or older

Last Name (author)


Pub. Year

Recommended by

Second Teacher Rec

US or MS

Simmons RachelThe Curse of the Good Girl Mrs. Alrefae

US 9th grade

Skloot Rebecca

Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, The

Just the simple facts are hard to believe: that in 1951, a poor black woman named Henrietta Lacks dies of cervical cancer, but pieces of the tumor that killed her--taken without her knowledge or consent--live on, first in one lab, then in hundreds, then thousands, then in giant factories churning out polio vaccines, then aboard rocket ships launched into space. The cells from this one tumor would spawn a multi-billion dollar industry and become a foundation of modern science--leading to breakthroughs in gene mapping, cloning and fertility and helping to discover how viruses work and how cancer develops (among a million other things). All of which is to say: the science end of this story is enough to blow one's mind right out of one's face.

nonfiction, African American, biography, science, history, American Association for the Advancement of Science's Young Adult Science Book award, Heartland Award Crown 2010 Ms. Trabulsi US

Last Name (author)


Pub. Year

Recommended by

Second Teacher Rec

US or MS

Soli Tatjana Lotus Eaters, The historical fiction Ms. Decker US

Spiegelman Art

Maus, vol. 1: My Father Bleeds History

A story of a Jewish survivor of Hitler's Europe and his son, a cartoonist who tries to come to terms with his father's story and history itself.

graphic memoir, World War II Pantheon 1986 Ms. Levheim

MS or US

Last Name (author)


Pub. Year

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US or MS

Steinbeck JohnGrapes of Wrath, The

The Grapes of Wrath chronicles the Dust Bowl migration of the 1930s and tells the story of one Oklahoma farm family, the Joads, driven from their homestead and forced to travel west to the promised land of California. Out of their trials and their repeated collisions against the hard realities of an America divided into haves and have nots evolves a drama that is intensely human yet majestic in its scale and moral vision, elemental yet plainspoken, tragic but ultimately stirring in its human dignity.

historical fiction, Great Depression, classic, Pulitzer Prize Viking Press 1939 Ms. Ostendarp US

Steinbeck JohnTravels with Charley

With Charley, his French poodle, Steinbeck drives the interstates and the country roads, dines with truckers, encounters bears at Yellowstone and old friends in San Francisco. Along the way he reflects on the American character, racial hostility, the particular form of American loneliness he finds almost everywhere, and the unexpected kindness of strangers.

memoir, travelogue, nonfiction, autobiography Penguin Books 1968 Ms. Levheim US

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US or MS

Stevenson Bryan Just Mercy

Bryan Stevenson was a young lawyer when he founded the Equal Justice Initiative, a legal practice dedicated to defending those most desperate and in need: the poor, the wrongly condemned, and women and children trapped in the farthest reaches of our criminal justice system. One of his first cases was that of Walter McMillian, a young man who was sentenced to die for a notorious murder he insisted he didn’t commit. The case drew Bryan into a tangle of conspiracy, political machination, and legal brinksmanship—and transformed his understanding of mercy and justice forever.

nonfiction, African American, social justice, Carnagie Medal for Nonfiction, NAACP Image Award Spiegel & Grau 2014 Ms. Fontaine US

Suskind RonA Hope in the Unseen

It is 1993, and Cedric Jennings is a bright and ferociously determined honor student at Ballou, a high school in one of Washington D.C.’s most dangerous neighborhoods. Cedric has almost no friends. He eats lunch in a classroom most days, plowing through the extra work he has asked for, knowing that he’s really competing with kids from other, harder schools. Cedric Jennings’s driving ambition–which is fully supported by his forceful mother–is to attend a top-flight college. In September 1995, he realizes that ambition when he begins as a freshman at Brown University.

biography, narrative nonfiction, African American, Pulitzer Prize

Perfection Learning 1999 Mrs. Ernst

US 9th grade

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US or MS

ThoreauHenry David Walden

Nature was a form of religion for naturalist, essayist, and early environmentalist Henry David Thoreau (1817–62). In communing with the natural world, he wished to "live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and … learn what it had to teach." Toward that end Thoreau built a cabin in the spring of 1845 on the shores of Walden Pond — on land owned by Ralph Waldo Emerson — outside Concord, Massachusetts. There he observed nature, farmed, built fences, surveyed, and wrote in his journal.

memoir, nonfiction Empire Books 1854 Ms. Levheim US

Vonnegut Kurt Slaughterhouse Five

Kurt Vonnegut's absurdist classic Slaughterhouse-Five introduces us to Billy Pilgrim, a man who becomes unstuck in time after he is abducted by aliens from the planet Tralfamadore. In a plot-scrambling display of virtuosity, we follow Pilgrim simultaneously through all phases of his life, concentrating on his (and Vonnegut's) shattering experience as an American prisoner of war who witnesses the firebombing of Dresden.

historical fiction, science fiction, World War II, classic Dell 1970 Ms. Ostendarp Ms. Trabulsi US

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US or MS

Vowell SarahPartly Cloudy Patriot, The

Humorist and This American Life fixture Sarah Vowell tackles the intertwined worlds of politics, popular culture, and her own life with a compulsively readable blend of wit, candor, and heart. Both a professional cynic and an unabashed idealist, Vowell, like fellow This American Life all-stars David Sedaris and David Rakoff, roots her work in the quirks and eccentricities of her own upbringing,. Vowell's essay collection, The Partly Cloudy Patriot, is primarily concerned with what it means to be a patriot and an American in complicated times.

Nonfiction, essays

Simon & Schuster 2003 Ms. Levheim US

Vowell SarahAssassination Vacation

Sarah Vowell exposes the glorious conundrums of American history and culture with wit, probity, and an irreverent sense of humor.

Nonfiction, history, humorous

Simon & Schuster 2006 Ms. Levheim US

Last Name (author)


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US or MS

Waugh Colin M.

Paul Kagame and Rwanda: Power, Genocide and the Rwandan Patriotic Front

After the Rwandan genocide, Rwanda elected their first democratically elected president, Paul Kagame.

nonfiction, Rwanda McFarland & Co 2004


Yang Gene LuenAmerican Born Chinese

American Born Chinese tells the story of three apparently unrelated characters: Jin Wang, who moves to a new neighborhood with his family only to discover that he's the only Chinese-American student at his new school; the powerful Monkey King, subject of one of the oldest and greatest Chinese fables; and Chin-Kee, a personification of the ultimate negative Chinese stereotype, who is ruining his cousin Danny's life with his yearly visits. Their lives and stories come together with an unexpected twist in this action-packed modern fable.American Born Chinese is an amazing ride, all the way up to the astonishing climax.

graphic novel, fictional memoir, Asian American, Printz Award, Eisner Award First Second 2007 Ms. Trabulsi

MS or US

Last Name (author)


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US or MS

Yang Gene Luen Boxers & Saints

In two volumes, Boxers & Saints tells two parallel stories. The first is of Little Bao, a Chinese peasant boy whose village is abused and plundered by Westerners claiming the role of missionaries. But in the second volume, Yang lays out the opposite side of the conflict. A girl whose village has no place for her is taken in by Christian missionaries and finds, for the first time, a home with them. Graphic novel First Second 2013 Ms. Levheim

US grade 9

Youszafsai Malala I am Malala

I AM MALALA is the remarkable tale of a family uprooted by global terrorism, of the fight for girls' education, of a father who, himself a school owner, championed and encouraged his daughter to write and attend school, and of brave parents who have a fierce love for their daughter in a society that prizes sons. NON-FICTION Ms. Ostendarp

MS or US

last first name pub. recommended second us or (author ... · memoir free press 2008mrs. hutcheson...

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