Choose 1 & Plan to read at least 16 pages per day
PID: Book Review Assignment
Book Tasting Menu
By M.T. Anderson
The Astonishing Life
of Octavian Nothing: The Pox Party
Young Octavian, a Black boy in pre-revolution America,
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.
By Elizabeth Wein
Code Name Verity
(Book #1)
When Verity is arrested by the Gestapo, shes sure
she doesnt stand a chance. As a secret agent captured
in enemy territory, shes living a spys worst nightmare.
Her Nazi interrogators give her a simple choice: reveal
her mission or face a grisly execution. They'll get the
truth out of her. But it wont be what they expect.
By Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston, James D. Houston
Farewell to Manzanar:
A True Story of Japanese American Experience
During and After the World War II Internment
Jeanne Wakatsuki was seven years old in 1942 when her family was
uprooted from their home and sent to live at Manzanar internment
camp--with 10,000 other Japanese Americans. Along with searchlight
towers and armed guards, Manzanar ludicrously featured cheerleaders,
Boy Scouts, sock hops, baton twirling lessons and a dance band called
the Jive Bombers who would play any popular song except the nation's
#1 hit: "Don't Fence Me In."
By Ishmael Beah
A Long Way Gone:
Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
In A Long Way Gone, Beah, now twenty-five years old, tells
a riveting story: how at the age of twelve, he fled attacking
rebels and wandered a land rendered unrecognizable by
violence. By thirteen, he'd been picked up by the
government army, and Beah, at heart a gentle boy, found
that he was capable of truly terrible acts.
By Laurie Halse Anderson
Fever
1793
During the summer of 1793, when yellow fever breaks out,
Matties world is turned upside-down. At her feverish
mother's insistence, Mattie flees the city with her
grandfather. But she soon discovers that the sickness is
everywhere, and Mattie must learn quickly how to survive in
a city turned frantic with disease.
By Elizabeth Wein
The Book Thief
new foster parents. During her time there, she is exposed
After her brother's death, Liesel arrives in the home of her
to the horror of the Nazi regime and struggles to find a way
to the innocence of her childhood. Her foster parents hide a
Jewish man named Max, putting the family in danger.
Recognizing the power of writing and sharing the written
word, Liesel begins to not only steal books the Nazi party is
looking to destroy, but also write her own stories and share
the power of language with Max.
By Sue Monk Kidd
The Secret Life of
Bees
Set in South Carolina in 1964, The Secret Life of Bees tells the story of Lily
Owens, whose life has been shaped around the blurred memory of the
afternoon her mother was killed. When Lily's fierce-hearted black "stand-in
mother," Rosaleen, insults three of the deepest racists in town, Lily decides
to spring them both free. They escape to Tiburon, South Carolina--a town
that holds the secret to her mother's past. Taken in by an eccentric trio of
black beekeeping sisters, Lily is introduced to their mesmerizing world of
bees and honey, and the Black Madonna.
Assignment Details
As you read your book of choice, you
will be completing a reading log. This
log is designed to help you identify
ways you can link the book to the
course material for your analysis.
Reading Logs will be due each morning
out on your desk as you enter class.