AHS+Summer+2006

Young Tristan Thorn, having lost his heart to the lovely but cold Victoria Forester, leaves the safe English town of Wall and sets out into a strange world on a quest to retrieve a fallen star he has promised to his beloved. Young dwarf Corporal Carrot and Edward, the 37th Lord d’Eath, a new graduate of the School for Assassins, find themselves in the midst of a raucous adventure in Ankh-Morpork, the greatest city in Discworld. White House intelligence analyst Rachel Sexton is thrust into a life-or-death situation when she travels to the Arctic to investigate the discovery of a rare meteorite that might prove the existence of extraterrestrial life, and finds instead evidence of scientific trickery. When a young girl finds herself lost in the woods, she tunes her Walkman to a Boston Red Sox game and imagines her hero, relief pitcher Tom Gordon, walking beside her. But a hulking beast silently and ruthlessly stalks her, waiting until she runs out of strength, determination, and hope. Hunter Braque, a New York City teenager who is paid by corporations to spot what is “cool,” combines his analytical skills with his girlfriend Jen’s creative talents to find a missing person and thwart a conspiracy directed at the heart of consumer culture. Rachel Simons chronicles the experiences she had and shares the lessons she learned during the year she spent riding the bus, which her mentally handicapped sister rides on each day. Jack Gantos relates how, as a young adult, he became a drug user and smuggler, was arrested, did time in prison, and eventually got out and went to college, all the while hoping to become a writer. Ella Baker worked tirelessly for the Civil Rights movement during a tumultuous time in the 1960s. She was a force to be reckoned with, both respected and revered, yet hampered by a time in history that didn’t recognize women’s contributions, much less the fight for African Americans’ civil rights. After meeting at their 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 twice abandoned her, fall in love and then try to cope with people’s reactions. After a car accident in the Adirondacks leaves her older sister, Ivy brain-dead, seventeen-year-old Rose struggles with her grief and guilt as she slowly learns to let her sister go. In 1911, Turner Buckminster hates his new home of Phippsburg, Maine, but things improve when he meets Lizzie Bright Griffin, a girl from a poor, nearby island community founded by former slaves that the town fathers - and Turner’s - want to change into a tourist spot. Fourteen-year-old Shawn McDaniel, who suffers from sever cerebral palsy and cannot function, relates his perceptions of his life, his family, and his condition, especially as he believes his father is planning to kill him. In alternating passages, two Mohawk sisters describe their lives at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, established in 1879 to educate Native Americans, as they try to assimilate into white culture and one of them is falsely accused on stealing. Chandra Kabelo, a sixteen-year-old in a small South African town, faces down shame and stigma in her efforts to help friends and family members who are dying of AIDS. Written in first-person format, that follows Emma, the slave of Pierce Butler, through a series of events in her life as her master hosts the largest slave auction in American history in Savannah, Georgia in 1859 in order to pay off his mounting gambling debts. When Thomas Peaceful’s older brother is forced to join the British Army, Thomas decides to sign up as well, although he is only fourteen-years-old, to prove himself, to his country, his family, his childhood love, Molly, and himself. Mara’s niece, who is only one-year-younger, moves in bringing conflict between the two teenagers because of their opposite personalities. Eighteen-year-old Ash wants nothing to do with senior prom, but when disaster strikes and her desperate friend, Nat, needs her help to get it back on track, Ash’s involvement transforms her life. The saga of teenager Georgia Nicholson continues in diary entries about her life after her boyfriend goes off to Kiwi-agogoland, leaving her to make do without him. Todd Noland and Joel Kasten, two high school seniors fed up with adult hypocrisy, launch a scheme to disrupt the political and social control of the recording, cigarette, and junk food industry.
 * ADVENTURE **
 * Stardust – Neil Gaiman **
 * Men at Arms – Terry Pratchett **
 * Deception Point – Dan Brown **
 * The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon – Stephen King **
 * So Yesterday – Scott Westerfeld **
 * BIOGRAPHY/AUTOBIOGRAPHY **
 * Riding the Bus With My Sister – Rachel Simon **
 * Hole in My Life – Jack Gantos **
 * Freedom Cannot Rest: Ella Baker and the Civil Rights Movement – Lisa F. Bohannon **
 * FAMILY MATTERS **
 * If You Come Softly – Jacqueline Woodson **
 * All the Rivers Flow to the Sea – Alison McGhee **
 * Lizzi Bright and the Buckminster Boy – Gary D. Schmidt **
 * Stuck in Neutral – Terry Trueman **
 * HISTORICAL FICTION **
 * Sweetgrass Basket – Marlene Carvell **
 * Chanda’s Secrets – Allan Stratton **
 * Day of Tears – Julius Lester **
 * Private Peaceful – Michael Morpurgo **
 * HUMOR **
 * Vegan Virgin Valentine – Carolyn Mackler **
 * Prom – Laurie Halse Anderson **
 * Away Laughing on a Fast Camel – Louise Rennison **
 * Like We Care – Tom Matthews **

The discovery of dead birds in a national forest leads the four teenaged members of Misfits, Inc. to investigate a mystery involving logging, militant environmental groups, congressional campaign contributions, and revenge. Thirteen-year-old Anna, conceived specifically to provide blood and bone marrow for her sister Kate who was diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia at the age of two, decides to sue her parents for control of her body when her mother wants her to donate a kidney to Kate. Easy Rawlins agrees to help police find the murderer of a redheaded woman known as Little Scarlett, and, with the help of his friend Mouse, he finds himself on the path of a killer who is suffering from a rage inherent in the riots in Los Angeles in the summer of 1965. Macy and Danny, two teenage boys who have grown up under difficult circumstances, turn out very differently – one becomes a hero, the other a murderer. Two teenaged sisters, separated by death but still connected, work through their feelings of loss over the closeness they shared as children that was later destroyed by one’s mental illness, and finally make peace with each other. Feeling alienated from everyone around her, high school senior and cinephile Victoria Denton hides behind the identity of a favorite movie character until an interesting new boy arrives at school and helps her realize that there is more to life than just the movies. Sixteen-year-old Miles’ first year at Culver Creek Preparatory School in Alabama includes good friends and great pranks, but is defined by the search for answers about life and death after a fatal car crash. High school senior and football player Keir sets out to enjoy himself on graduation night, but when he attempts to comfort a friend whose date has left her stranded, things go terribly wrong.  Explores how human cadavers have been used throughout history, discussing how the use of dead bodies has benefited every aspect of human existence. Presents an account of the Civil War using photographs taken under the direction of Matthew B. Brady, a famous New York photographer of the day, and provides information on the life and times of Brady as well as the Civil War. Shares anecdotes from the childhoods, teen years, and young adult lives of three men from Newark, New Jersey, who made a pledge to each other in high school to stay safe from drugs, gangs and crime, and work to become doctors – a goal they have successfully achieved. In Aagaesia, a fifteen-year-old boy of unknown lineage called Eragon finds a mysterious stone that weaves his life into an intricate tapestry of destiny, magic, and power, peopled with dragons, elves, and monsters. After successfully evading an Urgal ambush, Eragon is adopted into the Ingeitum clan and sent to finish his training so he can further help the Varden in their struggle against the Empire. Val is a normal seventeen-year-old whose world is rocked when she stumbles upon her boyfriend and mother in an embrace. She runs away to New York and is befriended by other teens that live in tunnels under the subway and deliver potions made by faeries to other faeries. The precocious and often sinister Ariel uses her magic to cause joy and heartache for the characters shipwrecked on her island. Troube begins to brew in the tiny kingdom of Lancre when Granny Weatherwax and her spell sisters, disturbed during their monthly cauldron-stirring by murder, mayhem, and a royal birth, give the new prince away to a passing theatrical troupe. Three short stories, one that involves a trio of golfers who take on a fourth player – a girl, no less – with some surprises. Examines Title IX, the 1972 legislation which mandated that schools receiving federal funds could not discriminate on the basis of gender and focuses on its effects in schools, politics, sports and the culture as a whole. After he is cut from his travel basketball team – the very same team that his father once led to national prominence- twelve-year-old Danny Walker forms his own team of cast-offs that might have a shot at victory. Presents the story of Alia,a librarian who lives and works in Basra, and her desperate attempt to save the books in the central library at the start of the Iraqi War in 2003. Contains black and white comic strip images in which the author continues the story of her life, discussing her move from Iran to Vienna in 1984, her feelings of alienation in the foreign country, and her return home where she starts college, falls in love, and questions whether she can live in the repressive society. A continuation of the story in **Maus**, in which the author relates, in cartoon form, his father’s experiences as an inmate at Auschwitz during World War II.
 * MYSTERY/THRILLER **
 * The Kingfisher’s Tale – Mark Delaney **
 * My Sister’s Keeper – Jodi Piccoult **
 * Little Scarlett – Walter Mosley **
 * Shooting Monarchs – John Halliday **
 * LIVING TODAY **
 * Where I Want To Be – Adele Griffin **
 * Boy Proof – Cecil Castellucci **
 * Looking For Alaska – John Green **
 * Inexcusable – Chris Lynch **
 * NON-FICTION **
 * Stiff : The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers – Mary Roach **
 * Photo by Brady : A Picture of the Civil War – Jennifer Armstrong **
 * We Beat the Street : How a Friendship Pact Helped Us Succeed – Sampson Davis, George Jenkins and Rameck Hunt **
 * SCI-FI/FANTASY **
 * Eragon – Christopher Paolini **
 * Eldest – Christopher Paolini **
 * Valiant – Holly Black **
 * Ariel – Grace Tiffany **
 * Wyrd Sisters – Terry Pratchett **
 * SPORTS **
 * All That Remains – Bruce Brooks **
 * Let Me Play: The Story of Title IX, the Law that Changed the Future of Girls in America – Karen Blumenthal **
 * Travel Team – Mike Lupica **
 * GRAPHIC NOVEL **
 * Alia’s Mission : Saving the Books of Iraq – Mark Alan Stamaty **
 * Persepolis 2 – Marjane Satrapi **
 * Maus 2 : A Survivor’s Tale : And Here My Troubles Begin – Art Speigelman **