Title: Bridge to Terabithia
Author: Katherine Paterson
ISBN: 0064401847
Plot Summary: Jesse Oliver Aarons, Jr. is the lone boy in a family of girls, growing up in a small, rural Virginia community where change happens more slowly than elsewhere. Into this drab and predictable world comes Leslie Burke, a girl who doesn't dress, eat, walk, talk, act, or think like any of the others Jess knows. Intrigued by Leslie's free-spirited and nonconformist attitude, the two quickly become friends, ignoring the teasing of Jess's sisters and peers as they retreat together into Terabithia, a magical world of their own creation. But when tragedy strikes, shattering the mythical land they have created together, Jess must draw on the strength that knowing Leslie has given him in order to carry on.
Showing posts with label Fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fiction. Show all posts
Hacking Harvard
Title: Hacking Harvard
Author: Robin Wasserman
ISBN: 1416936336
Plot Summary: A group of intelligent yet rebellious Boston high school students come up with a plan for the ultimate "hack," or sophisticated prank: take a thoroughly below-average student, groom him properly for the job via any means necessary... and get him into Harvard. Doing this will not only prove that the system is beatable, but will also deny admission to someone the group feels deserves to be shut out of Harvard - preferably a particularly obnoxious classmate. They initiate a complicated and technology-heavy espionage method to find out exactly what Harvard's admission standards are, but get more than they bargain for when the Average Joe they select starts actually believing in his own ability to get in. Meanwhile, Lexi, the lone female member of the group and a chronic overachiever, is desperately trying to get into Harvard via honest means. Whether or not either he or she get into the world's most exclusive University will be a learning experience for all involved.
Author: Robin Wasserman
ISBN: 1416936336
Plot Summary: A group of intelligent yet rebellious Boston high school students come up with a plan for the ultimate "hack," or sophisticated prank: take a thoroughly below-average student, groom him properly for the job via any means necessary... and get him into Harvard. Doing this will not only prove that the system is beatable, but will also deny admission to someone the group feels deserves to be shut out of Harvard - preferably a particularly obnoxious classmate. They initiate a complicated and technology-heavy espionage method to find out exactly what Harvard's admission standards are, but get more than they bargain for when the Average Joe they select starts actually believing in his own ability to get in. Meanwhile, Lexi, the lone female member of the group and a chronic overachiever, is desperately trying to get into Harvard via honest means. Whether or not either he or she get into the world's most exclusive University will be a learning experience for all involved.
The Scarlet Letter
Title: The Scarlet Letter
Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne
ISBN: 1442140712
Plot Summary: The narrator of the story, living in what is then the present day in New England, comes across some old belongings of a woman who once lived in the community known as Hester Prynne. Hester, a married woman, had an affair with the Reverend Dimmesdale while her husband was away, and bore his illegitimate child. For this transgression, she was ostracized by the community and forced to wear a large scarlet "A" on her clothing at all times, to symbolize the sin of adultery. She attempts to regain the community's trust by leading a quiet and charitable life, but the reappearance of a mysterious stranger in town throws her world into turmoil. Although both she and her lover attempted to escape their current situation, they found that the ties of duty, obligation, and their mutual child are too great to let them go forever.
Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne
ISBN: 1442140712
Plot Summary: The narrator of the story, living in what is then the present day in New England, comes across some old belongings of a woman who once lived in the community known as Hester Prynne. Hester, a married woman, had an affair with the Reverend Dimmesdale while her husband was away, and bore his illegitimate child. For this transgression, she was ostracized by the community and forced to wear a large scarlet "A" on her clothing at all times, to symbolize the sin of adultery. She attempts to regain the community's trust by leading a quiet and charitable life, but the reappearance of a mysterious stranger in town throws her world into turmoil. Although both she and her lover attempted to escape their current situation, they found that the ties of duty, obligation, and their mutual child are too great to let them go forever.
Anastasia At Your Service
Title: Anastasia At Your Service
Author: Lois Lowry
ISBN: 0395328659
Other Books in Series: Anastasia Krupnik; Anastasia Again!; Anastasia, Ask Your Analyst; Anastasia on her Own; Anastasia Has the Answers; Anastasia's Chosen Career; Anastasia at This Address; Anastasia Absolutely.
Plot Summary: Anastasia is bored, lonely, and short on funds. Her best friend, Steve, has left for the summer, and she is stuck at home in Boston with her professor father, her artist mother, her little brother Sam, and an allowance of two dollars per week. She gets a summer job working for a rich older woman, thinking she will be her companion, but ends up performing mainly domestic work. When she accidentally destroys a piece of the woman's silver and has to pay for it out of her wages, Anastasia finds that the job she applied for and the job she has now are two entirely different things.
Author: Lois Lowry
ISBN: 0395328659
Other Books in Series: Anastasia Krupnik; Anastasia Again!; Anastasia, Ask Your Analyst; Anastasia on her Own; Anastasia Has the Answers; Anastasia's Chosen Career; Anastasia at This Address; Anastasia Absolutely.
Plot Summary: Anastasia is bored, lonely, and short on funds. Her best friend, Steve, has left for the summer, and she is stuck at home in Boston with her professor father, her artist mother, her little brother Sam, and an allowance of two dollars per week. She gets a summer job working for a rich older woman, thinking she will be her companion, but ends up performing mainly domestic work. When she accidentally destroys a piece of the woman's silver and has to pay for it out of her wages, Anastasia finds that the job she applied for and the job she has now are two entirely different things.
Harriet the Spy
Title: Harriet the Spy
Author: Louise Fitzhugh
ISBN: 0440416795
Other Books in Series: The Long Summer, Sport
Plot Summary: Harriet is 11 years old, the precocious daughter of well-to-do parents growing up in Manhattan in the early sixties. Her best friend, Sport, has become an adult before his time in his efforts to run life for himself and his struggling writer father. Janie, Harriet's best female friend, experiments with various chemical solutions in an effort to shock her overly jovial mother. All three resist efforts to make them conform to societal norms, particularly the girls, who have less interest than their peers in being "feminine." In addition to taking notes on her classmates, parents, cook, maid, and live-in caretaker, a stern woman she nicknames Ole Golly, Harriet has what she calls her regular "spy route": a motley collection of people she observes covertly, for no other reason but that she finds them interesting. However, Harriet's carefully constructed double life is about to come to an end. After Ole Golly and her new boyfriend take Harriet out for a night on the town, Harriet's outraged parents fire her on the spot; she subsequently marries the boyfriend and moves to Canada. She is discovered in the house of one of her regular spyees and sent packing, never to return again. To make matters even worse, Harriet's classmates discover and read her diary, an event which turns even Sport and Janie against her. Harriet must now figure out how to live without the woman who was her main support, conform to her parents' social expectations, deal with changes in her routine - and, most importantly, mend fences with her two best friends.
Author: Louise Fitzhugh
ISBN: 0440416795
Other Books in Series: The Long Summer, Sport
Plot Summary: Harriet is 11 years old, the precocious daughter of well-to-do parents growing up in Manhattan in the early sixties. Her best friend, Sport, has become an adult before his time in his efforts to run life for himself and his struggling writer father. Janie, Harriet's best female friend, experiments with various chemical solutions in an effort to shock her overly jovial mother. All three resist efforts to make them conform to societal norms, particularly the girls, who have less interest than their peers in being "feminine." In addition to taking notes on her classmates, parents, cook, maid, and live-in caretaker, a stern woman she nicknames Ole Golly, Harriet has what she calls her regular "spy route": a motley collection of people she observes covertly, for no other reason but that she finds them interesting. However, Harriet's carefully constructed double life is about to come to an end. After Ole Golly and her new boyfriend take Harriet out for a night on the town, Harriet's outraged parents fire her on the spot; she subsequently marries the boyfriend and moves to Canada. She is discovered in the house of one of her regular spyees and sent packing, never to return again. To make matters even worse, Harriet's classmates discover and read her diary, an event which turns even Sport and Janie against her. Harriet must now figure out how to live without the woman who was her main support, conform to her parents' social expectations, deal with changes in her routine - and, most importantly, mend fences with her two best friends.
Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth
Title: Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth
Author: E.L. Konigsburg
ISBN: 0689300077
Plot Summary: Elizabeth lives alone with her mother in an apartment building, in a neighborhood full of fancy houses. She is ill-at-ease at home and at school, but soon meets a girl who changes her life: Jennifer, a self-described witch who dresses, speaks and acts differently from any other person Elizabeth has met. The two become friends, performing "spells" together and bonding in their respective loneliness. A falling-out over a pet toad drives them apart briefly, but when they manage to make amends, they find their friendship, although different, has changed for the better.
Author: E.L. Konigsburg
ISBN: 0689300077
Plot Summary: Elizabeth lives alone with her mother in an apartment building, in a neighborhood full of fancy houses. She is ill-at-ease at home and at school, but soon meets a girl who changes her life: Jennifer, a self-described witch who dresses, speaks and acts differently from any other person Elizabeth has met. The two become friends, performing "spells" together and bonding in their respective loneliness. A falling-out over a pet toad drives them apart briefly, but when they manage to make amends, they find their friendship, although different, has changed for the better.
Monster
Title: Monster
Author: Walter Dean Myers
ISBN: 0060280778
Plot Summary: Steve Harmon is a 16-year-old African American teenager who has been arrested and is on trial for the murder of a shopkeeper. Before his arrest, he was active in his school's film club, and frequently fantasizes about making a movie about the trial, his experiences in jail, and his own inner thoughts. Although the reader is initially not sure whether Steve is guilty or not, we come to see through Steve's diary and "screenplay" of his experiences that there is more to the case that first meets the eye, and that Steve may not be a perpetrator of a heinous crime, but rather an unwitting victim of circumstance and a victim of a justice system whose scale is tipped against poor, young minority males.
Author: Walter Dean Myers
ISBN: 0060280778
Plot Summary: Steve Harmon is a 16-year-old African American teenager who has been arrested and is on trial for the murder of a shopkeeper. Before his arrest, he was active in his school's film club, and frequently fantasizes about making a movie about the trial, his experiences in jail, and his own inner thoughts. Although the reader is initially not sure whether Steve is guilty or not, we come to see through Steve's diary and "screenplay" of his experiences that there is more to the case that first meets the eye, and that Steve may not be a perpetrator of a heinous crime, but rather an unwitting victim of circumstance and a victim of a justice system whose scale is tipped against poor, young minority males.
The Kite Runner
Title: The Kite Runner
Author: Khaled Hosseini
ISBN: 1594480001
Plot Summary: Amir led a privileged life in Afghanistan prior to the Communist revolution: he and his father lived in a spacious villa with servants, and his father was a well-respected man in his community. Amir had an unequal yet genuine friendship with Hassan, the son of his father's servant. Yet when Hassan is brutally attacked by a group of boys, Amir stands by and does nothing, and later falsely accuses his friend of stealing, causing both him and his father to leave the estate, so that he will not have to feel guilty anymore. After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Amir and his father have to leave the country, eventually moving to Fremont, California, where Amir meets and falls in love with a young woman from the local Afghan community. After his father's death, Amir gets a telephone call from an old family friend, asking him to come back to Afghanistan to rescue Hassan's son. In the process, Amir comes face to face with parts of his past that he would rather forget, and slowly tries to help his best friend's son begin the healing process.
Author: Khaled Hosseini
ISBN: 1594480001
Plot Summary: Amir led a privileged life in Afghanistan prior to the Communist revolution: he and his father lived in a spacious villa with servants, and his father was a well-respected man in his community. Amir had an unequal yet genuine friendship with Hassan, the son of his father's servant. Yet when Hassan is brutally attacked by a group of boys, Amir stands by and does nothing, and later falsely accuses his friend of stealing, causing both him and his father to leave the estate, so that he will not have to feel guilty anymore. After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Amir and his father have to leave the country, eventually moving to Fremont, California, where Amir meets and falls in love with a young woman from the local Afghan community. After his father's death, Amir gets a telephone call from an old family friend, asking him to come back to Afghanistan to rescue Hassan's son. In the process, Amir comes face to face with parts of his past that he would rather forget, and slowly tries to help his best friend's son begin the healing process.
Holes
Title: Holes
Author: Louis Sachar
ISBN: 0439244196
Plot Summary: Stanley Yelnats, the son of a failed would-be inventor, comes from a long line of cursed individuals, all of whom bear the same name. The family curse dates back to an Eastern European ancestor who stole a pig from a a gypsy woman, Madame Zeroni. Stanley himself is wrongfully accused of stealing a valuable pair of sneakers, and is sentenced to a juvenile facility at which the Stanley and the other offenders have to dig holes all day, in search of a mysterious treasure sought by the woman who owns the land. In the process of meeting his fellow juvenile offenders, Stanley tries to figure out the mystery behind what it is they are searching for and the story behind it. In the process, the reader is shown flashbacks to the events leading up to the treasure's burial, and Stanley uncovers enough clues not only to change the situation at Camp Green Lake permanently, but possibly to lift his family curse once and for all.
Author: Louis Sachar
ISBN: 0439244196
Plot Summary: Stanley Yelnats, the son of a failed would-be inventor, comes from a long line of cursed individuals, all of whom bear the same name. The family curse dates back to an Eastern European ancestor who stole a pig from a a gypsy woman, Madame Zeroni. Stanley himself is wrongfully accused of stealing a valuable pair of sneakers, and is sentenced to a juvenile facility at which the Stanley and the other offenders have to dig holes all day, in search of a mysterious treasure sought by the woman who owns the land. In the process of meeting his fellow juvenile offenders, Stanley tries to figure out the mystery behind what it is they are searching for and the story behind it. In the process, the reader is shown flashbacks to the events leading up to the treasure's burial, and Stanley uncovers enough clues not only to change the situation at Camp Green Lake permanently, but possibly to lift his family curse once and for all.
Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging
Title: Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging
Author: Louise Rennison
ISBN: 0064472272
Other Books in Series: On the Bright Side, I'm Now the Girlfriend of a Sex God; Knocked Out by my Nunga-Nungas; Dancing in my Nuddy-Pants; Away Laughing on a Fast Camel; Then He Ate my Boy Entrancers; Startled by His Furry Shorts; Love is a Many-Trousered Thing; Stop in the Name of Pants!; Are These my Basoomas I See Before Me?; Further Confessions of Georgia Nicolson.
Plot Summary: Georgia Nicolson, a young British teenager, is dealing with many common teenage issues at once: embarrassing parents, a precocious younger sister, an insane pet cat, school rivalries, and of course, romance. In the process, she and her friends make up new words, find new and hilarious ways to deal with the problems they face, emerging more or less intact.
Author: Louise Rennison
ISBN: 0064472272
Other Books in Series: On the Bright Side, I'm Now the Girlfriend of a Sex God; Knocked Out by my Nunga-Nungas; Dancing in my Nuddy-Pants; Away Laughing on a Fast Camel; Then He Ate my Boy Entrancers; Startled by His Furry Shorts; Love is a Many-Trousered Thing; Stop in the Name of Pants!; Are These my Basoomas I See Before Me?; Further Confessions of Georgia Nicolson.
Plot Summary: Georgia Nicolson, a young British teenager, is dealing with many common teenage issues at once: embarrassing parents, a precocious younger sister, an insane pet cat, school rivalries, and of course, romance. In the process, she and her friends make up new words, find new and hilarious ways to deal with the problems they face, emerging more or less intact.
Jacob Have I Loved
Title: Jacob Have I Loved
Author: Katherine Paterson
ISBN: 0064403688
Plot Summary: Louise Bradshaw is a young woman growing up in the Chesapeake Bay area during the Second World War. Her twin sister, Caroline, has always been her parents' favorite: prettier, more talented, and initially in poorer health after their birth, which has garnered her far more attention throughout her life. Caroline, although never intentionally cruel to her sister, takes from Louise everything she wants in life. When Louise gets the opportunity to leave her small community and build her own future, a large part of this will be learning how to develop her own identity, separate from that of her sister.
Author: Katherine Paterson
ISBN: 0064403688
Plot Summary: Louise Bradshaw is a young woman growing up in the Chesapeake Bay area during the Second World War. Her twin sister, Caroline, has always been her parents' favorite: prettier, more talented, and initially in poorer health after their birth, which has garnered her far more attention throughout her life. Caroline, although never intentionally cruel to her sister, takes from Louise everything she wants in life. When Louise gets the opportunity to leave her small community and build her own future, a large part of this will be learning how to develop her own identity, separate from that of her sister.
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