Members Only

Reading Circle Program

SENIOR 9-12

Ask Me No Questions, by Marina Budhos. Simon and Schuster, ©2006. Sisters Nadira and Aisha live in New York City after their family leaves Bangladesh. They stay there quietly after their visas expire, but the events of Sept 11, 2001, and the immigration crack-down that follows bring frustration, sorrow and terror to the family. (Booklist starred)

Black Duck, by Janet Taylor Lisle. Penguin, ©2006. Ruben Harts recounts how he and a childhood friend found a corpse on a Newport, Rhode Island, beach. They then became ensnared in the violent competition between mob groups to control the rum-smuggling trade during Prohibition. (SLJ starred)

Brunettes Strike Back, by Kieran Scott. Penguin, ©2006. Still the only non-blonde on her Florida cheerleading squad, Annisa considers how far she will go to fit in with her team while staying true to herself.

Burned, by Ellen Hopkins. Simon and Schuster, ©2006. Written in poetic verse, this is the tale of a young woman trapped in a life, family and religion she didn’t choose, doesn’t want to accept and can’t escape.

But I Don’t Want to be a Movie Star, by Margaret Pinder. Penguin, ©2006. When Kat spends the summer in California with her movie-star grandmother, she reluctantly agrees to impersonate the aging actress in the hopes of helping her land an important movie role.

Club Dread, by Walter Sorrells. Penguin, ©2006. When Chastity witnesses the murder of a pop star, her hopes of settling down with her mother in San Francisco seem to disappear.

Copper Sun, by Sharon Draper. Simon and Schuster, ©2006. A teenage girl is captured from her African home and finds herself a slave at a Carolina plantation. There, she befriends another teenage girl who is a white indentured servant, and they escape to try to make their way to Fort Mose, Fla., a Spanish colony that gives sanctuary to slaves. Draper describes the inhumanity of slavery in graphic detail, including rape and a child being used as alligator bait. (Corretta Scott King Award, SLJ starred, Booklist starred)

Crunch Time, by Mariah Fredericks. Simon and Schuster, ©2006. Four students, who have formed a study group to prepare for the SAT, sustain one another through the emotional highs and lows of their junior year in high school.

Escaping into the Night, by D. Dina Friedman. Simon and Schuster, ©2006. Halina Rudowski flees the Polish ghetto for the forest, where she finds an encampment of Jews trying to survive the war. Though Halina’s story is fictional, the camps did exist and saved the lives of thousands from the Nazis.

Firestorm, by David Klass. Farrar, Straus and Giroux ©2006. After learning that he has been sent from the future for a special purpose, Jack receives help from an unusual dog and shape-shifting female fighter. This is Book 1 of the Caretaker Trilogy. (SLJ starred)

Forbidden, by Judy Waite. Simon and Schuster, ©2006. Elinor has lived in a cult her entire life, but when she meets a boy who looks strangely familiar, she begins to question what she has been taught.

Freaks: Alive on the Inside! by Annette Curtis Klause, Simon and Schuster, ©2006. Abel, the “normal” son of freak-show entertainers, is haunted by a mysterious spirit after he leaves home in search of adventure, romance and riches. (Booklist starred)

Freshman, by Michael Gerber. Hyperion ©2006. Hart Fox may not have the pedigree to be a shoo-in at a prestigious Ivy League college, but he has the grades and the resume. His acceptance is hijacked by Burlington Darlington III, a wealthy alum so desperate to get his son, Trip, into the school that he funds a new chemistry building. He also offers to get Hart a spot and pay his way, if Hart will take all Trip’s classes for him. A satire of all that is quirky and bizarre about the Ivy League.

Heat, by Mike Lupica. Penguin, ©2006. Michael Arroyo dreams of pitching in the Little League World Series, and it seems his dream will come true. Then he is benched until he can produce his birth certificate.

Julep O’Toole: Miss Independent, by Trudi Trueit. Penguin, ©2006. Eleven-year-old Julep O’Toole wants to convince her mom that she is old enough to wear makeup, have a cell phone, and choose her own clothes, but it takes a creative idea from the preteen to put mother and daughter on the same wavelength.

Listening at the Gate, by Betsy James. Simon and Schuster, ©2006. Kat returns to her childhood home of Downshore, hoping to reunite with her beloved Nall. Violence caused by the ruling Leaguemen causes them to escape to Nall’s homeland of Rigi, which tests their bond in this epic, mythological adventure. The conclusion to the Seeker Chronicles series. (SLJ starred)

Magic Lessons, by Justine Larbalestier. Penguin, ©2006. When Reason is pulled through a magical door from her grandmother’s Australian home to New York City, she encounters an impossibly ancient man who seems to have some purpose in mind for her. Book 2 of the Magic and Madness trilogy.

The Manny Files, by Christian Burch. Simon and Schuster, ©2006. A shy young boy learns to be more outgoing and self-confident from his male nanny.

Monkey Town: The Summer of the Scopes Trial, by Ronald Kidd. Simon and Schuster, ©2006. Frances’ father hatches a plan to bring publicity to their small Tennessee town by arresting a high school teacher for teaching evolution. The resulting Scopes trial prompts Frances to rethink her beliefs about religion and truth, as well as her relationship with her father. (SLJ starred)

The Night of the Burning: Devorah’s Story, by Linda Press Wulf. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, ©2006. Devorah Lehrman and her younger sister are the only survivors of the pogrom on their Polish village. Along with other Jewish orphans, they travel to South Africa to make a new start.

Pretty Little Devils, by Nancy Holder. Penguin, ©2006. Life seems rosy for the Pretty Little Devils, the most popular girls’ clique in high school, until its members begin to experience threats and assaults.

Raisin Rodriguez and the Big-Time Smooch, by Judy Goldschmidt. Penguin, ©2006. Raisin corresponds through her blog with her friends who live across the country. Her entries detail her hopes and worries as she tries to obtain her first kiss from the long-lashed and cinnamon-scented C.J. Mullen.

The Rise of Lubchenko, by Michael Simmons. Penguin, ©2006. When Evan Macalister gets word that his father’s business partner plans to murder him, his father and two friends, he decides to take off for Europe and save the day. This is the stand-alone sequel to Finding Lubchenko.

Samurai Shortstop, by Alan Grantz. Penguin, ©2006. Toyo undergoes traditional Samurai training while obtaining a Western education at a prestigious Japanese boarding school in 1890. The training has profound effects on both his baseball game and his relationship with his father. (Booklist starred)

The Secret Country: The Eidolon Chronicles, by Jane Johnson. Simon and Schuster, ©2006. Ben Arnold learns from a talking cat that he and his sisters are the half-elfin royalty of a parallel world called Eidolon. He then attempts to stop his evil uncle from smuggling magical creatures between the two worlds to sell on the black market.

The Shadow Thieves, by Anne Ursu. Simon and Schuster, ©2006. Charlotte’s cousin Zee arrives from England, where his friends are becoming mysteriously ill. The two venture to Hades to save humankind from denizens of the Underworld, and a really nasty guy named Philonecron. Book 1 of the Cronus Chronicles.

Shock Point, by April Henry. Penguin, ©2006. Cassie Streng is determined to expose her stepfather after learning that he is giving a dangerous experimental drug to his teenage psychiatric patients. To keep her quiet, he sends her to a boot camp for troubled teens in Mexico.

Shug, by Jenny Han. Simon and Schuster, ©2006. Annemarie, or “Shug”, as her family calls her, learns about friendship, first loves and self-worth in a small town in the South.

Standing Against the Wind, by Traci L. Jones. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, ©2006. Shy and studious Patrice tries to escape her poor Chicago neighborhood by winning a scholarship to a prestigious boarding school. She then discovers she has more options in life than she had realized. (Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe New Talent Award)

Surrender, by Sonya Hartnett. Candlewick Press, ©2006. As he is dying, a 20-year-old man recounts his troubled childhood and his strange relationship with a dangerous counterpart named Finnigan.

Thicker Than Water, by Carla Jablonski. Penguin, ©2006. Kia feels out of place as she copes with her mother’s cancer. That changes when the 17-year-old is drawn into the goth-vampire club scene, where she finds acceptance and one gorgeous, popular guy who might offer escape.

The Treasure of Savage Island, by Lenore Hart. Penguin, ©2006. Molly becomes friends with a shipwrecked runaway slave named Rafe. Can he trust her not to turn him in, but to help find the treasure? (SLJ starred)

Twice Told: Original Stories Inspired by Original Artwork, by Scott Hunt. Penguin, ©2006. A collection of 18 original stories inspired by fine-artist Scott Hunt’s haunting charcoal drawings. (Booklist starred)

Two Steps Forward, by Rachel Cohn. Simon and Schuster, ©2006. Annabel’s extended family gathers in Los Angeles for several weeks over the summer, where she must contend with step- and half-siblings and her mother’s failing marriage. Four narrators share the telling of this light-hearted look into serious matters. This is the sequel to The Steps.

The Wand in the World: Conversations with Writers of Fantasy, compiled by Leonard S. Marcus. Candlewick Press, ©2006. Interviews with 13 authors of fantasy along with photographs. A rich collection of stories. (Horn Book starred, SLJ starred, Booklist starred)

The Warrior Heir, by Cinda Williams Chima. Hyperion, ©2006. After Jack learns about his magical ancestry and his own warrior powers, he embarks on a training program to fight enemy wizards.

Weedflower, by Cynthia Kadohata. Simon and Schuster, ©2006. Sumiko and her Japanese-American family are relocated from their flower farm in Southern California to an internment camp on an Mohave reservation in Arizona. In the desert, she helps her family and neighbors, becomes friends with a Mohave boy, and tries to hold onto her dream of owning a flower shop.

The Weight of the Sky, by Lisa Ann Sandell. Penguin, ©2006. A 16-year-old girl leaves her high school and marching-band geekdom behind and travels to Israel to spend the summer on a kibbutz. There, she discovers who she is and what she wants out of life.

What Are You Afraid Of? Stories About Phobias, edited by Donald Gallo. Candlewick Press, ©2006. Ten well-known authors present 10 short stories featuring teenagers with phobias, including fear of gaining weight, fear of clowns and fear of cats.

Your Eyes in Stars, by M.E. Kerr. HarperCollins, ©2006. Jessie and Elisa continue their friendship when one leaves their small New York town for her native Germany in the years before World War II. After the war, Jessie learns the real reason for Elisa’s abrupt departure. (Booklist starred)