2009 Senior Reading Olympics

Author

Title

Description

Adams, Douglas

Life, the Universe and Everything

Sequel to: The hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy and The restaurant at the end of the universe. The people of Krikkit are planning to destroy the rest of the universe.

Albom, Mitch

Tuesdays with Morrie

The author, an alumnus of Brandeis University, tells of his meetings with a former professor suffering from Lou Gehrig's disease and of the lessons he learned about life and death from his college mentor.

Alexie, Sherman

Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian, The

Budding cartoonist Junior leaves his troubled school on the Spokane Indian Reservation to attend an all-white farm town school where the only other Native American is the school mascot.

Alvarez, Julia

In the Time of the Butterflies

Gives a fictionalized account of four sisters in the Dominican Republic under the dictatorship of General Trujillo.

Andersen, Laurie

Twisted

After finally getting noticed by someone other than school bullies and his ever-angry father, seventeen-year-old Tyler enjoys his tough new reputation and the attentions of a popular girl, but when life starts to go bad again, he must choose between transforming himself or giving in to his destructive thoughts.

Austen, Jane

Sense and Sensibility

Two sisters of opposing temperaments share the pangs of tragic love. Their mutual suffering brings a closer understanding between the two sisters, and true love finally triumphs.

Beah, Ishmael

Long Way Gone

Ishmael Beah describes his experiences after he was driven from his home by war in Sierra Leone and picked up by the government army at the age of thirteen, serving as a soldier for three years before being removed from fighting by UNICEF and eventually moving to the United States.

Bennett, Cherie

Life in the Fat Lane

Sixteen-year-old Lara, winner of beauty pageants and Homecoming Queen, is distressed and bewildered when she starts gaining weight and becomes overweight.

Black, Holly

Tithe: A Modern Fairy Tale

Sixteen-year-old Kaye, who has been visited by faeries since childhood, discovers that she herself is a magical faerie creature with a special destiny.

Brooks, Kevin

Road of the Dead, The

Two brothers, sons of an incarcerated gypsy, leave London traveling to an isolated and desolate village, in search of the brutal killer of their sister.

Brooks, Martha

True Confessions of a Heartless Girl

A confused seventeen-year-old girl, a single mother and her young son, two elderly women, and a sad and lonely man, with their own individual tragedies to bear, come together in a small Manitoba town and find a way to a better future.

Cather, Willa

My Antonia

A successful lawyer remembers his boyhood in Nebraska and his friendship with an immigrant Bohemian girl named Antonia.

Crowe, Chris

Getting Away with Murder

Presents a true account of the murder of fourteen-year-old, Emmett Till, in Mississippi, in 1955.

Donwham, Jerry

Before I Die

A terminally ill teenaged girl makes and carries out a list of things to do before she dies.

DuMaurier, Daphne

Rebecca

For months after her death, the memory of Rebecca de Winter continues to dominate everyone at her former home, Manderley, one of the most famous English country houses.

Fitzgerald, F. Scott

Great Gatsby

The tragic story of the wealthy Jay Gatsby and his attempt to win back the love of Daisy Buchanan.

Haddon, Mark

Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Despite his overwhelming fear of interacting with people, Christopher, a mathematically-gifted, autistic fifteen-year-old boy, decides to investigate the murder of a neighbor's dog and uncovers secret information about his mother.

Hansberry, Lorraine

Raisin in the Sun, A

A three-act play concerned with the tensions in a middle- class African American family living on Chicago's Southside in the 1950s.

Hemingway, Ernest

Old Man and the Sea

An old fisherman battles the sea and sharks to bring home the giant marlin he caught.

Hidier, Tanuja Desal

Born Confused

As Dimple Lala turns seventeen, she realizes that life is about to become more complex as her best friend starts pulling away and her parents try to find a suitable boyfriend for Dimple, despite the fact that she is not interested.

Hopkins, Ellen

Crank

Kristina Georgia Snow's life is turned upside-down, when she visits her absentee father, gets turned on to the drug "crank", becomes addicted, and is led down a desperate path that threatens her mind, soul, and her life.

Hudson, Jan

Sweetgrass

Living on the western Canadian prairie in the nineteenth century, Sweetgrass, a fifteen-year-old Blackfoot Indian girl, saves her family from a smallpox epidemic and proves her maturity to her father

Jenkins, A. M.

Repossessed

A fallen angel, tired of being unappreciated while doing his pointless, demeaning job, leaves Hell, enters the body of a seventeen-year-old boy, and tries to experience the full range of human feelings before being caught and punished, while the boy's family and friends puzzle over his changed behavior.

Johnson, Angela

First Part Last

Bobby's carefree teenage life changes forever when he becomes a father and must care for his adored baby daughter.

Kerr, M. E.

Deliver Us from Evie

Sixteen-year-old Parr Burrman and his family face some difficult times when word spreads through their rural Missouri town that his older sister is a lesbian, and she leaves the family farm to live with the daughter of the town's banker.

Kingsolver, Barbara

Bean Trees

Taylor, a poor Kentuckian, makes her way west with an abandoned baby girl and stops in Tucson. There she finds friends and discovers resources in apparently empty places.

Klause, Annette

Blood and Chocolate

Having fallen for a human boy, a beautiful teenage werewolf must battle both her packmates and the fear of the townspeople to decide where she belongs and with whom.

Koontz, Dean

Watchers

Relates the adventures of two creatures which have escaped from a secret, sinister government laboratory where experiments in genetic engineering are conducted.

Letts, Billie

Where the Heart is

Novalee Nation, seventeen, pregnant, and living in a Wal-Mart store discovers friendship, encouragement, direction and love with a group of caring people in Sequoyah, Oklahoma.

Lynch, Chris

Inexcusable

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.

Mikaelsen, Ben

Touching Spirit Bear

After his anger erupts into violence, fifteen year-old Cole, in order to avoid going to prison, agrees to participate in a sentencing alternative based on the Native American Circle Justice, and he is sent to a remote Alaskan Island which changes his life.

Myers, Walter Dean

Malcolm X: By Any Means Necessary

Chronicles the life of controversial militant leader Malcolm X.

Myers, Walter Dean

Monster

While on trial as an accomplice to a murder, sixteen-year-old Steve Harmon records his experiences in prison and in the courtroom in the form of a film script as he tries to come to terms with the course his life has taken.

Nolan, Han

Born Blue

Janie was four years old when she nearly drowned due to her mother's neglect. Through an unhappy foster home experience, and years of feeling that she is unwanted, she keeps alive her dream of someday being a famous singer.

 Animal Farm

 A political satire in which the animals take over running the farm, but find their utopian state turning into a dictatorship.

Peck, Richard

River Between Us

During the early days of the Civil War, the Pruitt family takes in two mysterious young ladies who have fled New Orleans to come north to Illinois.

Pfeffer, Susan Beth

Life as We Knew It

Through journal entries sixteen-year-old Miranda describes her family's struggle to survive after a meteor hits the moon, causing worldwide tsunamis, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions.

Richter, Hans

Friedrich

A young German boy recounts the fate of his best friend, a Jew, during the Nazi regime.

Runyon, Brent

Burn Journals, The

Presents the true story of Brent Runyon, who at fourteen set himself on fire and sustained burns over eighty percent of his body and describes the months of physical and mental rehabilitation that followed as he attempted to pull his life together.

Sebold, Alice

Lovely Bones

Fourteen-year-old Susie Salmon, the victim of a sexual assault and murder, looks on from the afterlife as her family deals with their grief, and waits for her killer to be brought to some type of justice.

Shusterman, Neal

Everlost

When Nick and Allie are killed in a car crash, they end up in Everlost, or limbo for lost souls, where, although Nick is satisfied, Allie will stop at nothing--even skinjacking--to break free.

Steinbeck, John

Pearl

Terrible events follow the discovery of a magnificent pearl by a poor Mexican fisherman.

Strasser, Todd

Can't Get There from Here

Tired of being hungry, cold, and dirty from living on the streets of New York City with a tribe of other homeless teenagers who are dying, one by one, a girl named Maybe ponders her future and longs for someone to care about her.

Yang, Gene Luen

American Born Chinese

Alternates three interrelated stories about the problems of young Chinese Americans trying to participate in the popular culture. Presented in comic book format.

Zevin, Gabrielle

Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac

After a nasty fall, Naomi realizes that she has no memory of the last four years and finds herself reassessing every aspect of her life.