High Interest Series

Check for these books in our new library section: 372.41

 Choices series:

The Choices series is for teens who are emerging readers. They are not complete stories. They set up situations that require teens to make a choice. The choice is one that teens might have had to make in the past or will make in the future.

 The books are about 50 pages long. They work best for teens who are learning English. If you can already read at the 4th grade level or above, you might find Choices too easy. It may bore you. If you are learning to read English, you might like the Choices series. You might enjoy thinking about what you would do in the same situation.

 Sample title:

 Friend or Foe?

Two friends are running for class president. A third friend (Jazz) tells one of them (Cory) that he will vote for Cory. But Jazz would make a better class president. Should he keep his promise or should he run for class president?

 Orca Soundings series

The books in Orca Soundings vary a lot. They cover a lot of situations. They are written for teens who read below grade level. Most of the books have a 2.5-6 grade level of reading, but they have a lot of action. The pace is really quick. The topic are sometimes for mature readers—teenage sexuality, underage drinking, bullying. These are not books for students in grades 2-6.

I found the Orca Soundings books that I read to be interesting. I wanted to know how things would turn out. They are the same number of pages as the shorter books in the Bluford series. (I discuss the Bluford series next—see below.) Still, Orca Soundings books are a little shorter than Bluford books. The print is bigger.

Since the books aren’t connected as they are in most series, I’ve got three sample titles to give you an idea:

Comeback

Ria is rich, pretty, popular, and has a great boyfriend. Her problem is that her parents are getting a divorce. She blames her mother because her mother wanted the divorce. Ria enjoys her father’s positive attitude about life. She enjoys how he is always doing something fun.

I liked this book because I wasn’t able to guess what would happen. When Ria’s father won’t take her on a plane trip, I thought Ria would find out that her father was having an affair—and that she had misjudged her mother. But Ria’s father is very bad in another way, one right out of today’s headlines. He’s bad in a way that affects a lot more people than just his family.

Charmed

Charmed is for the very mature student.

Izzy is embarrassed of her mom’s boyfriend, Rob the Slob. He’s a racist. In fact, he’s a jerk in a lot of ways. The man of Izzy’s dreams is Cody Dillon. Cody’s a good-looking high school dropout and he’s popular with some girls. But Izzy thinks the “bada#$” boys are the best ones. And even with Rob the Slob as proof that she’s wrong, Izzy won’t listen to anyone about Cody.

When Izzy’s mom chooses Rob the Slob over Izzy, Izzy thinks Cody Dillon is her ticket out of the mess of her life. Bad choice.

Chill

Although Chill has a disability, he doesn’t let it affect him. He’s a great artist and he works on his strengths. He stood up to bullies when he was a kid in elementary school, so by high school, people respect him. But then a new teacher comes to town. And he truly is a bully, not just to Chill, but also to all of the students in his class. He seems to want to break their spirits. But he acts like a completely different person around other teachers, so the staff has no clue.

Through his talent in painting, Chill is able to stand up to Mr. Sfinkter. (Yes, ha, ha. Great name.) His story s also the story of friendship and how to learn to forgive friends when they let you down.

The Bluford Series

The books in the Bluford series are connected. They all take place at Bluford High, and some of the same characters appear in various books. Some are sequels, but the series isn’t one continuous story. If you want to know which books are sequels, check the link here or look under “Readers’ Advisory” on Colony Library Lady. It has a list of all the books and a quick blurb about each one, which tells you which are sequels.

The Bluford books are a little longer—150-180 pages—so they are able to more fully develop the characters. You feel like you get to know some of them. They have very real high school problems. They have a subplot, or second story line so the world of Bluford High seems real, with multiple problems. If you read one, you may get hooked. (And that’s a good thing.)

Sample title:

Pretty Ugly

Jamee Wills feels like she can never live up to her parents’ expectations because her older sister, Darcy, is the smart one. Darcy studies hard and plans to get a scholarship to college next year when she is a senior.

Jamee loves cheerleading because she’s a talented athlete, good at jumps, dance steps and tumbling. But of she doesn’t keep up her grades, she’s going to fail math—and then it won’t matter if she makes the cheer squad. But in order to go to practice, she lies to her parents about staying after school to get help from her math teacher.

In cheer practice, it becomes obvious which girls are the school’s queen bees. Particularly awful is Vanessa Pierce. Vanessa makes fun of Angel, a shy girl who is trying out. She goes on to bully Angel. When Jamee stands up for Angel—and for what is right—she also becomes the target of Vanessa’s attacks. With all the girls afraid to stand up to Vanessa (or they will be next), the attacks become worse and include cyber-bullying.

I particularly liked Pretty Ugly because it shows how hard being an outsider in high school can be.

195 pp.

Brian’s parents have divorced and he is going to visit his father in Canada, flying in a small Cessna with a middle-age pilot whose name escapes him (Jim or Jake) The trip is alternately exciting and boring until the pilot has a heart attack and dies. Brian tries to call for help over the radio, but he does not know his flight number or location. Eventually his cries are not heard. When the plane runs out of gas, Brian has been preparing mentally to land as close to the edge of the lake as he can manage to steer.

Brian’s survival in the wilderness is never a certain bet. The book depicts the difficulty of his situation. The only useful tool he has is a hatchet his mother insisted he take. Things that work in the movies don’t work for him; whenever something does work, it is though patience and persistence. Lighting a fire or gathering food can take all day. Mosquitoes nearly eat Brian alive; he is sunburned and blistered and always hungry.

Some of Brian’s first food is raw snapping turtle eggs, and the details of his eating them provide a context for understanding what true hunger is. However, he learns new survival techniques each day and become more aware of his environment. Eventually he is able to spear fish and shoot ruffed grouse with a bow and arrow. When a tornado strikes, Brian’s “house” is ruined, and it’s easy to understand how basic live can become.

This is a good tale of maturing, of survival. It is a detailed description of all that Brian must do to continue to exist and seems very realistic. Many students read this one before they get to high school. If you haven’t read it, do so, just so that you have same experience in reading a good adventure book as the rest of your classmates. (It’s a ‘cultural literacy’ thing.) I don’t like when Paulsen seems to imitate Hemingway’s style, but it may appeal to others—and who knows? Maybe there’s a literary criticism essay on ‘style’ just waiting to be written.

180 pp.

Jonas lives in a future utopia in which everyone seems to behave well and apologizes when they hurt someone’s feelings or do something wrong. In the evenings, families share their days, expressing their happiness and frustrations. In the morning, they dutifully report their dreams to one another.

There are many indicators that children are growing up. All children are presented with jobs or tools at the yearly Ceremony. Jonas’ sister, at 8, will start her volunteer hours and at the age of 12, Jonas receives his assignment for life. Rather then become the usual such as an engineer or nurturer, Jonas is to be the receiver, the most important job in the community. He will go to the current Receiver to be given communal memories which individuals don’t know about. Memory is considered too powerful and painful for the general population. The communities, encased in an artificial and perfect environment, know nothing of the heat of the sun or the cold of the winter snow. Jonas is disturbed by many of the memories he receives–of war especially. But he also receives a memory of love that that is more deep and binding than possible in the rational world of his community.

Jonas’ father is a nurturer. He accepts babies from the birth-givers, and works in a nurturing center where babies are kept until they turn one year old. One baby, Gabriel, is not very healthy, and Jonas’ father gets special permission to bring him home to sleep at night, hoping the extra care will help him gain a little weight. If Gabriel does not do better, he will be “Released”. Jonas helps Gabriel sleep by giving him memories, which is strictly forbidden.

Gabriel does not do as well as Jonas’ father had hoped and is scheduled for Release. Jonas and the Giver hatch a plan to bring memory back to the community, but to do so, Jonas must flee “elsewhere.”

I know that many people read this novel before they get to high school, but if you haven’t read it, do so. It is often censored and would make a good read for “Banned Books Week.”

“Stargirl” by Jerry Spinelli

Mrs. M. tells me that some of her students in READ 180 classes have completed some of the novels available in the course and might like to comment on them. I hope that if you’re in the class, you’ve chosen to read “Stargirl.” I love this book.

Stargirl is a true nonconformist, a deeply compassionate one. Unlike the ‘nonconformists’ in most books I’ve read who are secretly cool or quite disturbed, Stargirl is a sweet girl whose quirky behavior makes her, by turns, loved and then hated by her classmates at Mica Area High in Mica, Arizona.

The novel’s narrator, Leo Borlock, is fascinated by Stargirl—the way she carries a ukulele to the cafeteria and sings “Happy Birthday” to classmates, cheerleads for her own basketball team and for the opponents as well, and meditates in the desert. He can overlook the fact that she dresses in a very weird way and has a pet rat. When he starts to fall in love with Stargirl, Leo begins to wish that she would just be normal so that he doesn’t have to be an outcast for dating her. He has to decide whether to be loyal to her (and thus to himself) or to fit in with other students.

If you have read “Stargirl,” then follow it up with “Love, Stargirl.” This is a sequel, but the point of view is Stargirl’s rather than Leo’s. “Love, Stargirl” is touching as well because it details the musings of a broken heart, as Stargirl writes “the world’s longest letter” to Leo. As she baby-sits a clever neighbor child and befriends an agoraphobic townswoman, Stargirl shows us that it’s possible to get to the other side of love-grief–and still be kind.

It’s funny because, usually, this sort of lighthearted whimsy is not my thing. I think that says something about the author’s ability to tell Stargirl’s story.

Life under a repressive dictator is hard for some of us to imagine. “Before We Were Free” shows us such a life—in the 1960s Dominican Republic—from the point-of-view of a twelve-year-old girl.

Anita de la Torre is the youngest child in an upper-middle class family. Although relatively safe and well-off, Anita’s family hungers for freedom, and both her father and her uncle are involved in a plot to overthrow “El Jefe”—General Trujillo, the dictator of the Dominican Republic. The influence of the dictator is seen in Anita’s daily routine at school as well as in the social and political fabric of the country.

At the same time that Anita tries to understand the situation in her country, she worries as do most twelve-year-old girls: how does she succeed in school, which boy does she love, when will her period arrive? Anita’s beautiful older sister, Lucinda, has been singled out by El Jefe as a future romantic interest. In order to avoid the fate of becoming his mistress, Lucinda must flee the country.

As Trujillo’s regime becomes more repressive, the secret police are watching the de la Torre family and their American diplomatic friends move into the family compound as a measure to protect them. Spies are everywhere and torture is routine for prisoners. The schools close and Anita’s father and uncle are arrested. Anita’s brother must hide in the Italian Embassy. She and her mother go into hiding in a friend’s bedroom closet, where Anita keeps a diary. (The situation will remind you of Anne Frank’s life if you’ve read her diary.)

“Before We Were Free” is realistic—and that means that the book does not close with ‘happily ever after.’ But it does help us appreciate our own freedom and right of free speech.

In trying to kill himself, Brent causes an accident that kills Lea Zamora, a high school senior whose life is very promising. Brent was drunk and had just been humiliated at a party by the girl he is lusting after. His actions were thoughtless and now a wonderful person is dead. How can Brent atone—how does he seek forgiveness?

Lea’s mom, though grieving, is the person who helps him, oddly enough, by asking him to make reparations. As part of a program for victim’s families, Lea’s mom requests that Brent make whirligigs and place them in the four corners of the United States—Maine, Florida, Washington, and California. She asks this because Lea loved whirligigs and seeing these blown by the wind would make people happy. Brent is not required by law to do what Mrs. Zamora asks, and his parents raise all sorts of objections, as if to protect him. But Brent is very sorry about what he’s done. He NEEDS to repent and so agrees to the request. Mrs. Zamora gives him a 45-day bus pass good all over the country and a disposable camera to take pictures of the whirligigs when he finishes them.

The story shows how Brent’s odyssey changes him into a better person as he endures physical fatigue and becomes more skilled in carpentry. It also shows, through interspersed chapters, the effect that Brent’s whirligigs (all of them have Lea in them in some way) have on people who see and enjoy them.

This is a beautiful story about the need for forgiveness as well as about growing up and accepting responsibility for one’s actions–and the journey there. If you’ve read Homer’s “The Odyssey,” I wonder if you see a connection.

“Lie down with dogs; wake up with fleas.” I remembered reading this ‘aphorism’—a witty little statement by Benjamin Franklin—as I read the novel “Monster.”

The main character of the novel, Steve Harmon, is in just such a position. He appears to be a good guy in general—he has no criminal record and he’s a talented cinematographer. Yet he has somehow gotten involved with other guys who are accused of murdering a Harlem drugstore owner. Steve is accused of being the lookout for a robbery that ended in the murder. Now, at sixteen, he is on trial for that murder.

The story is told through Steve’s journal entries and through a screenplay he is writing about his experience. The journal gives the reader insight into Steve’s experience in jail and his feelings about his experience. The drama is more objective—people speak for themselves—lawyers, the four accused boys, the officers, the judge. The truly interesting thing about this format is that it is not clear whether Steve has willfully participated in the drugstore robbery. As you read and try to figure it out for yourself, you’ll be swayed by the evidence, by your sympathy for Steve and his parents, and by your own experiences with the law and prejudice—whatever those experiences are.

As a parent of teenage boys, I wanted to hand all three this book as a cautionary tale—read this so that you can see what happens when a good kid hangs around the wrong people.

What do you think? Were you sympathetic with Steve? Is it true that if you ‘lie down with dogs’ you will ‘wake up with fleas’?

This is the first book I’ve read from “The Royal Diaries” series. If you’ve read books from the “American Girl” series or, better yet, the “Dear America” (“My Name is America”) series, you will be right at home with the format. This ‘diary’ of Cleopatra’s early teen years, is, of course historical fiction. The author, Kristiana Gregory has taken some known historical fact and mixed it with what she imagines a young princess in ancient Egypt would do and think.

As the diary tells it, Cleopatra flees Egypt with her father, Ptolemy XII, when enemies threaten his life (a puff adder, a poison snake, is set in his room and his wine is also poisoned.) Once in Rome, seeking the protection and military help of Caesar, the two find out that Cleopatra’s oldest sister has taken over the throne and later has been strangled. The second sister then takes over. Cleopatra herself is third in line to be pharaoh, but she is certain she would be a better ruler than her shallow sister, whose heart is more concerned with jewelry. However, she also fears that her father could have her killed if he suspects that she wants to usurp his authority. From this point forward, the diary tells of events back in Egypt and those in Rome as father and daughter wait for Rome’s help and the good weather required for a return trip to Alexandria.

Many of the details here bring the ancient world to life. The filth and stench that ordinary people had to deal with on a daily basis is an eye opener. There is much of interest that can be researched—what about the Alexandrian Great Library? Or the 400-foot-high Pharos Lighthouse, considered one of the wonders of the ancient world? Did Cicero make those speeches indicating that Rome should not help Egypt? Did Cleopatra really learn several languages with ease? Did she actually have a pet leopard (a character in this book)? Was Ptolemy XII, Cleopatra’s father, truly an alcoholic?

The interaction between Cleopatra and Marc Antony sets up the future romance between them. You should read the historical note at the end of the novel to see how their relationship turns out. The illustrations at the end are also interesting and enlightening.

When I was studying literature in college, I remember being told a story about a Southern writer, Flannery O’Connor. Asked why Southern writers always have freaks in their novels, she responded:

“Whenever I’m asked why Southern writers particularly have a penchant for writing about freaks, I say it is because we are still able to recognize one. To be able to recognize a freak, you have to have some conception of the whole man, and in the South the general conception of man is still, in the main, theological.”

Reading “Zachery Beaver” reminded me of this quote. It’s 1971 in Antler, Texas, where nothing much happens until a trailer pulls into the parking lot of the Diary Maid. Inside is a sideshow attraction—Zachary Beaver, the “fattest boy in the world” at 643 pounds. Antler folks line up to pay $2 each to have a look at Zachary. Thirteen-year-old Toby Wilson and his best friend Cal are among the gawkers, but soon become curious, and then concerned about Zachary when they realize that his manager and guardian has apparently abandoned him in the parking lot.

Toby and Cal aren’t the only folks in Antler to notice what’s happening. For all the boredom available in this small town, there is a lot of deeply felt human kindness as well, and the ‘freaks’—actually misfits–of Antler work to help Zachary by bringing him food and protecting him from vandals. But Zachary is wary of people—after all, he lives as a sideshow attraction, being made fun of. When Toby and Cal arrange a trip to a drive-in movie, they see how Zachary must shut down in order to get through the staring and whispering of strangers.

This novel says a lot about dreams and life’s disappointments. Toby is somewhat ashamed of his father who is the town postmaster but also raising worms to sell to bait shops. Toby’s mom, who is a waitress at the Bowl-a-Rama Cafe wants to be the next Tammy Wynette (a famous country singer) and leaves her husband and son to try her luck in Nashville, home of the Grand Ole Opry. Miss Myrtie Mae, the town historian and librarian, gave up her chance for love to care for her brother, the judge, who is now senile. And the girl of Toby’s dreams, Scarlett, wants to be a model (if only she had better teeth) and is in love with someone else. Everyone—not just Zachary–is vulnerable.

The benefit of a small town is that people know each other—and when they do, they accept each other’s quirks as well as help one another in times of need. One of the most moving scenes of the novel is a mother receiving the news that her son has been killed in Vietnam. Moving, too, is the fact that the entire town shuts down and everyone attends the funeral—except Toby and the town drunk—their absence caused by more vulnerability that must be resolved.

The blank verse form of this novel brings lyrical beauty to the story of two inner-city teen girls—fourteen-year-old LaVaughn and seventeen-year-old Jolly. Though LaVaughn lives in ‘the projects,’ she has a strong widowed mother looking out for her, one who insists that college is a must. LaVaughn is focused on her future and works hard at school to make the grade. On the other hand, Jolly is a lost and desperate mother of two. Functionally illiterate, Jolly works in a factory until she is fired after she refuses sexual advances from her boss. She has no life skills and this includes her ability to parent—her apartment is filthy with odd bits of smelly old food left about, meals for the roaches. She runs out of diapers and clean clothes and LaVaughn describes her as doing everything ‘half-way.’

We learn that Jolly’s inability to deal with every day life, to “take hold” as LaVaughn’s mother keeps saying, is rooted in her lack of family support. The only parent she’s ever known is an elderly foster mom, ‘Gram,’ who died shortly after Jolly comes to live with her. LaVaughn has taken a job babysitting Jolly’s two kids while Jolly works, hoping to save money for college. But when Jolly, loses her job, LaVaughn babysits for free—that is until she realizes that she is only providing a sort of welfare for Jolly and not helping her ‘take hold.’ It is only when Jolly decides to go back to school—and includes parenting classes—that she has any hope of taking the lemons that life has given her and making lemonade.

If you have any doubt that high school matters—that working hard on becoming educated matters—reading this book is a MUST!