2007 Summer Reading - Eleventh Grade
(printable format)
Students are to choose THREE books to read. For ONE book, the student will make an 8 1/2 x 11 poster that contains the following information:
TITLE
AUTHOR
ARTISTIC REPRESENTATION OF ONE IMPORTANT ASPECT OF THE BOOK
An artistic representation means a
drawing, magazine cut outs that represent your thoughts or perhaps even a
3-D representation of some important aspect of the book. The poster should
be cardboard or poster board but not to exceed 8 1/2 x 11" size poster. The
English teacher will tell you the type of assessment style for the other two
books during the second week of September. This project will be due during
the second week of school.
Summer Reading 2007 Book List
Auch,
Mary Jane - Ashes of Roses
Sixteen-year-old Margaret Rose
Nolan, newly arrived from Ireland, finds work at New York City's Triangle
Shirtwaist Factory shortly before the 1911 fire in which 146 employees died.
Angelou, Maya
-
I
Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Autobiography covering the childhood of a woman who has been a professional
dancer, actress, poet, journalist, and television producer.
Bradford, Richard
-
Red
Sky at Morning
Coming-of-age story of a teenage boy sitting out World War II with his
mother in a small town in New Mexico while his father volunteers his
services to the navy.
Brooks, Terry
-
The
Sword of Shannara
In spite of his
protests that he is only an ordinary man and not a hero,
Shea Ohmsford
eventually accepts his role as the leader of his people in the struggle
against the Lord of Evil.
Clarke,
Breena
-
River,
Cross My Heart
Alice and Willie
Bynum, having moved from rural North Carolina to Georgetown in search of a
better life for themselves and their children, must find a way to cope when
their six-year-old daughter Clara drowns in the Potomac River.
Colton, Larry -
Counting
Coup: A True Story of Basketball and Honor on the Little Big Horn
Profiles the life and career of basketball player Sharon
LaForge, discussing how she overcame her
troubled youth to become a professional basketball player.
Davis, Sampson -
The Pact: Three Young Men
Make a Promise and Fulfill la Dream
As teenagers from a rough part of Newark, New Jersey, these three boys
had nothing- special going for them except loving mothers and above-average
intelligence. Their first stroke of luck was testing into University High,
and their second was finding each other. This is the true story of their
journey from the Ghetto to medical school.
Ehrenreich, Barbara – Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in
America
Barbara Ehrenreich spent
months laboring as a cleaning woman; as a waitress; and as a Wal-Mart sales
clerk. Her revelations about these hard, supposedly "unskilled" jobs and the
difficulty of making ends meet in the U.S. gives this book a powerful,
personal edge.
Gaines, Ernest J.
-
A
Lesson Before Dying
Tells the story of
a young African-American man sentenced to death for a murder he did not
commit, and a teacher who tries to impart to him his learning and pride
before the execution.
Hemingway, Ernest
-
In
Our Time
A
collection of short stories and vignettes by Ernest Hemingway, first
published in 1925, marking his American debut.
King, Laurie R.
-
The
Beekeeper's Apprentice
A chance meeting
with an elderly beekeeper turns into a pivotal, personal transformation when
fifteen- year-old Mary Russell discovers that the beekeeper is the reclusive
Sherlock Holmes, who soon takes on the role of mentor and teacher.
Kingston, Maxine Hong
-
The
Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts
A memoir of the
American-born daughter of Chinese immigrants who lived within the traditions
and fears of the Chinese past as well as the realities of the alien modern
American culture.
Korman, Gordon – Son of the Mob
Seventeen-year-old Vince's life is constantly
complicated by the fact that he is the son of a powerful Mafia boss, a
relationship that threatens to destroy his romance with the daughter of an
FBI agent.
Kurson,
Robert – Shadow Divers
In Shadow Divers,
Kurson descends to the depths of the ocean to tell the story of two
courageous divers who made a stunning discovery.
Nix, Garth
-
Sabriel
Sabriel,
daughter of the necromancer Abhorsen, must
journey into the mysterious and magical Old Kingdom to rescue her father
from the Land of the Dead.
Obama, Barack - Deams from My Father: A Story of Race and Independence
Obama, the son of a white
American mother and a black African father, writes an elegant and compelling
biography that powerfully articulates America's racial battleground and
tells of his search for his place in America.
Preston, Richard
-
The
Cobra Event
An officer with
the Epidemic Intelligence Service branch of the Centers for Disease Control
goes to New York to investigate the hideous and mysterious death of a
seventeen-year-old girl, and uncovers a terrorist plot involving the use of
biological weapons.
Rawles, Nancy – My Jim
Sadie Watson, an ex-slave who helps her
granddaughter confront a decision. She mines her memory
for the tale of the love of her life, Jim. Sadie's Jim was an
ambitious young slave and seer who, when faced with the prospect of being
sold, escaped down the Mississippi with a boy named Huck.
Rodriguez, Luis J.
-
Always
Running: La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A.
Rodriguez's memoir explores the motivations of gang life and cautions
against the death and destruction that inevitably claim its participants.
Senna,
Danzy
-
Caucasia
Two sisters, one light-skinned like their mother, the other
dark like their father, are separated after their parents divorce and go on
to lead very different lives while hoping for a reunion with each other.
Sherwood, Ben
-
The
Man Who Ate the 747
J.J. Smith, the Keeper of the Records for "The Book of Records" has
witnessed many extraordinary things in the course of his job, but he has
never witnessed true love, until he meets a man who is attempting to eat an
entire Boeing 747 to prove his love for a woman.
Steinbeck, John
-
Cannery
Row
Recounts the adventures and misadventures of cannery workers
living in the run-down waterfront section of Monterey, California.
Urrea,
Luis Alberto
- By
the Lake of Sleeping Children: The Secret Life of
the Mexican Border
Explores the lives of people living along the border of Mexico and the
United States, focusing on conditions there since the enactment of NAFT A
and Proposition 187.
Woodson, Jacqueline
-
If
You Come Softly
After meeting at a
private school in New York, fifteen-year-old Jeremiah, who is black and
whose parents are separated, and Ellie, who is white, and whose mother has
twice abandoned her, fall in love and then try to cope with peoples'
reactions.
Yolen,
Jane -
Briar
Rose
Haunted by the tales of the Holocaust, a young American woman begins a
search for her grandmother's World War II past. The latest in the Fairy
Tales series begins with a provocative premise: retelling the story of
Sleeping Beauty as a Holocaust memoir.