mhs book chat book club selections -...
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MHS BOOK CHAT
BOOK CLUB
SELECTIONS
The Morton High
School Book Club highly recommends
the following reading selections…
HOMEBOYZ BY ALAN LAWRENCE SITOMER
When Teddy Anderson's little sister Tina is
gunned down randomly in a drive-by shooting, the
“gangstas” who rule the streets in the Anderson
family's rapidly deteriorating neighborhood
dismiss the incident as just another case of RP, RT
(wrong place, wrong time.) According to gangsta
logic, Tina doesn't even count as a statistic.
Each member of the Anderson family took the
news of Tina’s murder in a different way, but they
were all devastated. Teddy, however, the youngest
brother in the family, shared none of his parents’
or siblings’ emotions. At 17, sadness wasn’t his
style. T-Bear, Teddy’s a.k.a. on the streets, only
cared about one thing: revenge.
RED RIDING HOOD
BY SARAH BLAKELY-CARTWRIGHT
Valerie's sister was kind and sweet. Now she is
dead. Henry, the handsome son of the blacksmith,
tries to console Valerie, but her wild heart beats fast
for another: the outcast woodcutter, Peter, who offers
Valerie another life far from home.
After her sister's death, Valerie's world begins to
unravel. For generations, the Wolf has been kept at
bay with a monthly sacrifice. But now no one is safe.
When a Wolf hunter arrives, the villagers learn that
the creature lives among them. Valerie is the only one
who can hear the voice of the creature. The Wolf says
she must surrender herself before the blood moon
wanes...or everyone she loves will die.
SON OF THE MOB BY GORDON KORMAN
Vince Luca is just like any other high school guy. His
best friend, Alex, is trying to score vicariously through
him; his brother is a giant pain; and his father keeps
bugging him to get motivated. There is just one thing
that really sets him apart from other kids. His father
happens to be the head of a powerful crime
organization.
While Vince's family's connections can be handy for
certain things, how is he supposed to explain to a girl
what his father does for a living? When Vince finally
meets one girl who seems to be worth the trouble, her
family turns out to be the biggest problem of all. Because
her father is an FBI agent—the one who wants to put
his father away for good.
THE HUNGER GAMES TRILOGY
BY SUZANNE COLLINS
Follow the adventures of Katniss
Everdeen, Peeta Mellark, and Gale
Hawthorne as they fight for their lives in
this exciting futuristic trilogy. Panem’s
Hunger Games, an annual competition in
which young people between the ages of
twelve and eighteen engage in a
televised fight to the death, set the stage
for some serious, page-turning action.
Who will survive the deadly match and
live to take on the Capitol? And just
how does victory change the victor?
CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN
THE NIGHT-TIME BY MARK HADDON
Christopher John Francis Boone knows all the
countries of the world and their capitals and
every prime number up to 7,057. He relates well
to animals but has no understanding of human
emotions. He cannot stand to be touched. And
he detests the color yellow.
This improbable story of Christopher's quest
to investigate the suspicious death of a
neighborhood dog makes for one of the most
captivating, unusual, and widely heralded novels in
recent years.
GLASS CASTLE BY JEANNETTE WALLS Jeannette Walls grew up with parents whose ideals and
nonconformity were both their curse and their salvation. Rex and
Rose Mary Walls had four children. In the beginning, they lived like
nomads. Rex was a charismatic man who, when sober, captured his
children’s imagination, teaching them physics, geology, and how to
embrace life fearlessly. Rose Mary painted and wrote, yet couldn’t
stand the responsibility of providing for her family. Cooking a meal
that would be consumed in fifteen minutes had no appeal when
she could make a painting that might last forever.
Astonishingly, Jeannette Walls not only had the tenacity and
intelligence to get out, but she also describes her parents with
deep affection and generosity. Hers is a story of triumph against all
odds, but also a tender, moving tale of unconditional love in a
family that despite its profound flaws gave her the fiery
determination to carve out a successful life on her own terms.
STITCHES BY DAVID SMALL
One day David Small awoke from a supposedly harmless operation to discover that he had been transformed into a virtual mute. A vocal cord removed, his throat slashed and stitched together like a bloody boot, the fourteen-year-old boy had not been told that he had cancer and was expected to die.
In Stitches, the author re-creates this terrifying event in a life story that might have been imagined by Kafka. As the images painfully tumble out, one by one, we gain a ringside seat at a gothic family drama where David—a highly anxious, yet supremely talented child—all too often became the unwitting object of his parents’ buried frustration and rage.
WHEN YOU REACH ME BY REBECCA STEAD By sixth grade, Miranda and her best friend, Sal, know how to
navigate their New York City neighborhood. They know where
it’s safe to go, like the local grocery store, and they know whom
to avoid, like the crazy guy on the corner.
But then, Sal gets punched by a new kid for what seems like no
reason, and he shuts Miranda out of his life. The apartment key
that Miranda’s mom keeps hidden for emergencies is stolen.
And then Miranda finds a mysterious note:
I am coming to save your friend’s life, and my own.
I must ask two favors. First, you must write me a letter.
The notes keep coming, and Miranda slowly realizes that whoever is leaving them
knows all about her, including things that have not even happened yet. Each
message brings her closer to believing that only she can prevent a tragic death.
Until the final note makes her think she’s too late.
THE KNIFE OF NEVER LETTING GO
BY PATRICK NESS
Prentisstown isn't like other towns. Everyone can
hear everyone else's thoughts in an overwhelming,
never-ending stream of Noise. Just a month away from
the birthday that will make him a man, Todd and his dog,
Manchee (whose thoughts Todd can hear too, whether
he wants to or not) stumble upon an area of complete
silence. They find that, in a town where privacy is
impossible, something terrible has been hidden—a
secret so awful that Todd and Manchee must run for
their lives.
But how do you escape when your pursuers can hear
your every thought?
THE MONSTRUMOLOGIST
BY RICK YANCEY
These are the secrets I have kept. This is the trust I never betrayed.
But he is dead now and has been for more than forty years, the one
who gave me his trust, the one for whom I kept these secrets. The one
who saved me . . . and the one who cursed me.
So starts the diary of Will Henry, orphaned assistant to
Dr. Pellinore Warthorpe, a man with a most unusual specialty:
monstrumology, the study of monsters. In his time with the
doctor, Will has met many a mysterious late-night visitor and
seen things he never imagined were real. But when a grave
robber comes calling in the middle of the night with a gruesome
find, he brings with him their most deadly case yet.
A gothic tour de force that explores the darkest heart of man
and monster and asks the question: When does man become
the very thing he hunts?
MEMOIRS OF A TEENAGE AMNESIAC
BY GABRIELLE ZEVIN If Naomi had picked tails, she would have won the coin toss.
She wouldn’t have had to go back for the yearbook camera,
and she wouldn’t have hit her head on the steps. She wouldn’t
have woken up in an ambulance with amnesia. She certainly
would have remembered her boyfriend, Ace. She might even
have remembered why she fell in love with him in the first
place. She would understand why her best friend, Will, keeps
calling her “Chief.” She’d know about her mom’s new family.
She’d know about her dad’s fiancée. She never would have met
James, the boy with the questionable past and the even fuzzier
future, who tells her he once wanted to kiss her. She wouldn’t
have wanted to kiss him back.
But Naomi picked heads.
THE MAZE RUNNER BY JAMES DASHNER
When Thomas wakes up in the lift, the only thing he can
remember is his first name. His memory is blank. But he’s
not alone. When the lift’s doors open, Thomas finds
himself surrounded by kids who welcome him to the
Glade—a large, open expanse surrounded by stone walls.
Just like Thomas, the Gladers don’t know why or how
they got to the Glade. All they know is that every
morning the stone doors to the maze that surrounds
them have opened. Every night they’ve closed tight. And
every thirty days a new boy has been delivered in the lift.
Thomas was expected. But the next day, a girl is sent
up—the first girl to ever arrive in the Glade. And more
surprising yet is the message she delivers. Thomas might
be more important than he could ever guess. If only he
could unlock the dark secrets buried within his mind.
PERFECT CHEMISTRY BY SIMONE ELKELES
When Brittany Ellis walks into chemistry class on the first
day of senior year, she has no clue that her carefully created
“perfect” life is about to unravel before her eyes. She's
forced to be lab partners with Alex Fuentes, a gang member
from the other side of town, and he is about to threaten
everything she's worked so hard for: her flawless reputation,
her relationship with her boyfriend, and the secret that her
home life is anything but perfect.
Alex is a bad boy and he knows it. So, when he makes a
bet with his friends to lure Brittany into his life, he thinks
nothing of it. But soon Alex realizes Brittany is a real person
with real problems, and suddenly the bet he made in
arrogance turns into something much more.
In a passionate story about looking beneath the surface,
Simone Elkeles breaks through the stereotypes and barriers
that threaten to keep Brittany and Alex apart.
WINTER’S BONE BY DANIEL WOODRELL
The sheriff's deputy at the front door brings hard news to
Ree Dolly. Her father has skipped bail on charges that he ran
a meth lab, and the Dollys will lose their house if he doesn't
show up for his next court date. Ree's father has disappeared
before. The Dolly clan has worked the shadowy side of the
law for generations, and arrests (and attempts to avoid them)
are part of life in Rathlin Valley.
With two young brothers depending on her and a mother
who's entered a kind of second childhood, sixteen-year-old
Ree knows she has to bring her father back, dead or alive.
She has grown up in the harsh poverty of the Ozarks and
learns quickly that asking questions of the rough Dolly clan
can be a fatal mistake. But along the way to a shocking
revelation, Ree discovers unforeseen depths in herself and in
a family network that protects its own at any cost.
THE OTHER WES MOORE BY WES MOORE
Two kids with the same name lived in the same decaying city. One went on to be a Rhodes Scholar, decorated combat veteran, White House Fellow, and business leader. The other is serving a life sentence in prison. Here is the story of two boys and the journey of a generation.
FEED BY M.T. ANDERSON
For Titus and his friends, it started out like
any ordinary trip to the moon—a chance to
party during spring break and play with some
stupid “low-grav” at the Ricochet Lounge. But
that was before the crazy hacker caused all
their feeds to malfunction, sending them to the
hospital to lie around with nothing inside their
heads for days. And it was before Titus met
Violet, a beautiful, brainy teenage girl who has
decided to fight the feed and its omnipresent
ability to categorize human thoughts and
desires.
THE CITY OF EMBER BY JEANNE DUPRAU
Many hundreds of years ago, the city of Ember
was created by the Builders to contain everything
needed for human survival. It worked…but now
the storerooms are almost out of food, crops are
blighted, corruption is spreading through the city
and worst of all—the lights are failing. Soon
Ember could be engulfed by darkness….
But when two children, Lina and Doon, discover
fragments of an ancient parchment, they begin to
wonder if there could be a way out of Ember.
Can they decipher the words from long ago and
find a new future for everyone? Will the people of
Ember listen to them?
DRUMS, GIRLS & DANGEROUS PIE
BY JORDAN SONNENBLICK
Thirteen-year-old Steven has a totally normal
life: he plays drums in the All-Star Jazz band, has
a crush on the hottest girl in the school, and is
constantly annoyed by his five-year-old brother
Jeffrey. But when Jeffrey is diagnosed with
leukemia, Steven's world is turned upside down.
He is forced to deal with his brother's illness
and his parents' attempts to keep the family in
one piece.
Salted with humor and peppered with
devastating realities, Drums, Girls & Dangerous Pie
is a heartwarming journey through a year in the
life of a family in crisis.
HEIST SOCIETY BY ALLY CARTER
When Katarina Bishop was three, her parents
took her on a trip to the Louvre…to case it.
For her seventh birthday, Katarina and her Uncle
Eddie traveled to Austria…to steal the crown
jewels. When Kat turned fifteen, she planned a
con of her own—scamming her way into the
best boarding school in the country, determined
to leave the family business behind.
Unfortunately, leaving “the life” for a normal life
proves harder than she’d expected.
Stop by your Library
Media Center with your
student ID to check out
any of these books.
With the exception of 3rd
hour, the Library Media
Center is open from
7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday
through Friday.
Book summaries are adapted from www.goodreads.com
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