Title: Dead is the New Black
Author: Marlene Perez
ISBN: 9780152064082
Other Books in Series: Dead is a State of Mind, Dead is So Last Year, Dead is Just a Rumor, Dead is Not an Option.
Plot Summary: Daisy Giordano, a teenager growing up in the quirky California town of Nightshade, is the only "normal" member of a family with psychic and telekinetic powers. When Samantha Devereaux, a classmate of hers, starts looking distinctly vampirish, Daisy comes to realize that there is far more supernatural activity going on in her little town than she previously realized. Even worse, though, is when young women start turning up dead and severely wounded, the victims of a frightening new breed of vampire. Daisy must solve this mystery, along with her friends and would-be boyfriend, while simultaneously dealing with romance, sibling rivalry, her own suddenly extant powers, school cliques, and the unspeakable horror that is being on the cheerleading squad.
Showing posts with label Grades 7-12. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Grades 7-12. Show all posts
The Crucible
Title: The Crucible
Author: Arthur Miller
ISBN: 0142437336
Plot Summary: In Colonial-Era Salem, Massachusetts, trouble is brewing when a group of adolescent girls accuse various members of the community of practicing witchcraft. Accusations fly of lying, land-grabbing, adultery, and even being in league with Satan. In the midst of it all, John Proctor, a decent if imperfect member of the community, attempts to repair his marriage and help justice be done while protecting himself from Abigail Williams, his charismatic former mistress and ringleader of the girls, who is determined to bring him down along with the people accused of witchcraft.
Author: Arthur Miller
ISBN: 0142437336
Plot Summary: In Colonial-Era Salem, Massachusetts, trouble is brewing when a group of adolescent girls accuse various members of the community of practicing witchcraft. Accusations fly of lying, land-grabbing, adultery, and even being in league with Satan. In the midst of it all, John Proctor, a decent if imperfect member of the community, attempts to repair his marriage and help justice be done while protecting himself from Abigail Williams, his charismatic former mistress and ringleader of the girls, who is determined to bring him down along with the people accused of witchcraft.
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 Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things
Title: The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things
Author: Carolyn Mackler
ISBN: 0763620912
Plot Summary: Virginia is a blonde, overweight ugly ducking born into a family of over-achieving swans. She deals with her negative emotions by either eating them away or engaging in various forms of self-injury. She carries on a romance with a classmate, Froggy, but hides it for fear of public ridicule, and misses her best friend, Shannon, a chronic stutterer, who has moved across the country with her parents. When her golden-boy brother is toppled off his pedestal, Virginia tries to find better ways of coping with her feelings about his mistakes, her life, and the world in general. In doing so, she must confront not only her family's bad habit of denial, but her own feelings of inadequacy and low self-worth, if she is to finally become more comfortable in her own skin.
Author: Carolyn Mackler
ISBN: 0763620912
Plot Summary: Virginia is a blonde, overweight ugly ducking born into a family of over-achieving swans. She deals with her negative emotions by either eating them away or engaging in various forms of self-injury. She carries on a romance with a classmate, Froggy, but hides it for fear of public ridicule, and misses her best friend, Shannon, a chronic stutterer, who has moved across the country with her parents. When her golden-boy brother is toppled off his pedestal, Virginia tries to find better ways of coping with her feelings about his mistakes, her life, and the world in general. In doing so, she must confront not only her family's bad habit of denial, but her own feelings of inadequacy and low self-worth, if she is to finally become more comfortable in her own skin.
Clueless
Title: Clueless
Author/Director: Amy Heckerling
Cast: Alicia Silverstone (Cher), Stacey Dash (Dionne), Paul Rudd (Josh), Donald Faison (Murray), Elisa Donovan (Amber), Breckin Myer (Travis), Jeremy Sisto (Elton), Dan Hedaya (Mr. Horowitz), Wallace Shawn (Mr. Hall), Twink Caplan (Miss Geist), Brittany Murphy (Tai).
ASIN: B00001MXXE (DVD)
Plot Summary: Cher Horowitz, a rich, spoiled Beverly Hills teen, enjoys shopping, hanging out with her friend Dionne, and playing matchmaker to all the people in her life. However, she's not as good at it as she thinks. Although Cher successfully matches two of her teachers together, when she tries to get Tai, the new girl in town, together with Elton, an obnoxious rich kid with a famous father, she finds out too late that Elton is interested in her instead, and Tai only has eyes for Travis, a good-hearted if slightly dim slacker. When Cher tries to pick out a love interest for herself, Christian, the object of her affections, turns out not to be as interested in her - or in her gender - as she had hoped. Throughout Cher's matchmaking misadventures, Josh, her ex-stepbrother who is living with Cher and her lawyer father, provides sardonic commentary, often provoking Cher into arguments in the process. However, it is not until Tai sets her sights on Josh that Cher realizes two things: first, that she has less of a clue than she thought about matchmaking, and second, that she may not hate Josh so much after all.
Author/Director: Amy Heckerling
Cast: Alicia Silverstone (Cher), Stacey Dash (Dionne), Paul Rudd (Josh), Donald Faison (Murray), Elisa Donovan (Amber), Breckin Myer (Travis), Jeremy Sisto (Elton), Dan Hedaya (Mr. Horowitz), Wallace Shawn (Mr. Hall), Twink Caplan (Miss Geist), Brittany Murphy (Tai).
ASIN: B00001MXXE (DVD)
Plot Summary: Cher Horowitz, a rich, spoiled Beverly Hills teen, enjoys shopping, hanging out with her friend Dionne, and playing matchmaker to all the people in her life. However, she's not as good at it as she thinks. Although Cher successfully matches two of her teachers together, when she tries to get Tai, the new girl in town, together with Elton, an obnoxious rich kid with a famous father, she finds out too late that Elton is interested in her instead, and Tai only has eyes for Travis, a good-hearted if slightly dim slacker. When Cher tries to pick out a love interest for herself, Christian, the object of her affections, turns out not to be as interested in her - or in her gender - as she had hoped. Throughout Cher's matchmaking misadventures, Josh, her ex-stepbrother who is living with Cher and her lawyer father, provides sardonic commentary, often provoking Cher into arguments in the process. However, it is not until Tai sets her sights on Josh that Cher realizes two things: first, that she has less of a clue than she thought about matchmaking, and second, that she may not hate Josh so much after all.
The Golden Compass
Title: The Golden Compass
Author: Philip Pullman
ISBN: 0345413350
Other Books in Series: The Subtle Knife, The Amber Spyglass
Plot Summary: Lyra Belacqua, a young orphan, lives at the Oxford University of an alternate universe, one in which all people have Daemons, animal familiars with supernatural powers who are extensions of peoples' souls. While exploring Jordan College, the fictional Oxford college where she lives and her uncle works, Lyra overhears information she was not meant to know. Along with her Daemon, Pantalaimon, she decides to explore based on what she has heard, despite the danger. Her quest will ultimately lead her to explore an assassination attempt against her uncle, a mysterious entity known as Dust, intriguing and sometimes dangerous people, and a magical device that, once she learns how to use it, will lead her to adventures she never before dreamed possible.
Author: Philip Pullman
ISBN: 0345413350
Other Books in Series: The Subtle Knife, The Amber Spyglass
Plot Summary: Lyra Belacqua, a young orphan, lives at the Oxford University of an alternate universe, one in which all people have Daemons, animal familiars with supernatural powers who are extensions of peoples' souls. While exploring Jordan College, the fictional Oxford college where she lives and her uncle works, Lyra overhears information she was not meant to know. Along with her Daemon, Pantalaimon, she decides to explore based on what she has heard, despite the danger. Her quest will ultimately lead her to explore an assassination attempt against her uncle, a mysterious entity known as Dust, intriguing and sometimes dangerous people, and a magical device that, once she learns how to use it, will lead her to adventures she never before dreamed possible.
A Wrinkle in Time
Title: A Wrinkle in Time
Author: Madeleine L'Engle
ISBN: 0440498058
Other Books in Series: A Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, Many Waters
Plot Summary: Meg Murry and her brother Charles Wallace, the children of scientists, are both misfits: Meg does not fit in socially with her peers, and Charles Wallace, although a genius, mystifies his teachers. Their father is currently missing; before he left, he was working on a theoretical concept known as a tesseract. Together with Meg's friend Calvin O'Keefe, also a social outcast, they make the acquaintance of an eccentric old woman, Mrs. Whatsit. Along with her "sisters" Mrs. Who and Mrs. Which, they transport the three through space and time via tesseract, which they explain as a "folding" of the space-time continuum. During their travels, they find out that the universe is being threatened by a malicious force, known as the Black Thing or IT, which is holding their father captive on a planet called Camazotz. The Earth, as revealed to them by the Happy Medium, is also in danger of being engulfed by the Black Thing's darkness. Partial exposure to IT injures Meg, who is nursed back to health by a friendly, telepathic creature she comes to call Aunt Beast. Once Meg, Calvin and Charles Wallace reach Camazotz, they find a "Stepford Planet," a suburban hell inhabited by people all like each other, leading identical lives, under IT's thrall. In order to free her brother and father from IT, who takes them both captive, Meg must confront IT with all the things IT cannot stand: love, liberty, freedom, and the pursuit of individual happiness.
Author: Madeleine L'Engle
ISBN: 0440498058
Other Books in Series: A Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, Many Waters
Plot Summary: Meg Murry and her brother Charles Wallace, the children of scientists, are both misfits: Meg does not fit in socially with her peers, and Charles Wallace, although a genius, mystifies his teachers. Their father is currently missing; before he left, he was working on a theoretical concept known as a tesseract. Together with Meg's friend Calvin O'Keefe, also a social outcast, they make the acquaintance of an eccentric old woman, Mrs. Whatsit. Along with her "sisters" Mrs. Who and Mrs. Which, they transport the three through space and time via tesseract, which they explain as a "folding" of the space-time continuum. During their travels, they find out that the universe is being threatened by a malicious force, known as the Black Thing or IT, which is holding their father captive on a planet called Camazotz. The Earth, as revealed to them by the Happy Medium, is also in danger of being engulfed by the Black Thing's darkness. Partial exposure to IT injures Meg, who is nursed back to health by a friendly, telepathic creature she comes to call Aunt Beast. Once Meg, Calvin and Charles Wallace reach Camazotz, they find a "Stepford Planet," a suburban hell inhabited by people all like each other, leading identical lives, under IT's thrall. In order to free her brother and father from IT, who takes them both captive, Meg must confront IT with all the things IT cannot stand: love, liberty, freedom, and the pursuit of individual happiness.
Luna
Title: Luna
Author: Julie Anne Peters
ISBN: 0316733695
Plot Summary: Regan, a high school student, lives in a troubled household: her father, himself the victim of physical abuse as a child, bullies Regan's brother Liam into accepting traditional gender roles; her mother, a prescription drug addict, uses denial as a coping mechanism; and Liam himself is transgender, attempting to make the slow, painful transformation from his male body to the female person he believes he truly is. Regan attempts to help Liam/Luna as much as she can, but this often comes at the expense of her own time, effort, sanity, and even social life. In the process, both she and the reader learn not only what being transgender truly means, but also the effect it has on the family unit, how society reacts, and what effect this has on the transgender individual.
Author: Julie Anne Peters
ISBN: 0316733695
Plot Summary: Regan, a high school student, lives in a troubled household: her father, himself the victim of physical abuse as a child, bullies Regan's brother Liam into accepting traditional gender roles; her mother, a prescription drug addict, uses denial as a coping mechanism; and Liam himself is transgender, attempting to make the slow, painful transformation from his male body to the female person he believes he truly is. Regan attempts to help Liam/Luna as much as she can, but this often comes at the expense of her own time, effort, sanity, and even social life. In the process, both she and the reader learn not only what being transgender truly means, but also the effect it has on the family unit, how society reacts, and what effect this has on the transgender individual.
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