High School Book LIst - Federal Way Public Schools
High School Book LIst - Federal Way Public Schools
High School Book LIst - Federal Way Public Schools
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Title Author<br />
<strong>High</strong> <strong>School</strong> Supplementary Reading List<br />
Content<br />
Beloved Morrison, Toni At the center of Toni Morrison's fifth novel, which earned her the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for fiction,<br />
is an almost unspeakable act of horror and heroism: a woman brutally kills her infant daughter<br />
rather than allow her to be enslaved. The woman is Sethe, and the novel traces her journey<br />
from slavery to freedom during and immediately following the Civil War. Woven into this<br />
circular, mesmerizing narrative are the horrible truths of Sethe's past: the incredible cruelties<br />
she endured as a slave, and the hardships she suffered in her journey north to freedom. Just<br />
as Sethe finds the past too painful to remember, and the future just "a matter of keeping the<br />
past at bay," her story is almost too painful to read. Yet Morrison manages to imbue the<br />
wreckage of her characters' lives with compassion, humanity, and humor. Part ghost story,<br />
part history lesson, part folk tale, Beloved finds beauty in the unbearable, and lets us all see<br />
the enduring promise of hope that lies in anyone's future. Note: This book may contain<br />
offensive material.<br />
Beowulf This is the longest surviving Anglo-Saxon epic poem set in the sixth century of what is now<br />
Denmark and southwestern Sweden. It tells the story of a lonely and isolated hero who comes<br />
to save a kingdom from a monster Grendel. Both pagan and Christian elements are present in<br />
a section of the poem. Violence.<br />
Bible, The Excerpts of the bible are used throughout the study of literature to teach allusion.<br />
Billy Budd Melville, Herman If Melville had never written Moby Dick, his place in world literature would be assured by his<br />
short tales. "Billy Budd, Sailor," his last work, is the masterpiece in which he delivers the final<br />
summation in his "quarrel with God." It is a brilliant study of the tragic clash between social<br />
authority and individual freedom, human justice and abstract good. Note: This book may<br />
contain offensive material.<br />
Black Boy Wright, Richard A. Autobiography by Richard Wright, published in 1945 and considered to be one of his finest<br />
works. The book is sometimes considered a fictionalized autobiography or an autobiographical<br />
novel because of its use of novelistic techniques. Black Boy describes vividly Wright's often<br />
harsh, hardscrabble boyhood and youth in rural Mississippi and in Memphis, Tenn. The work is<br />
the story of Wright's coming of age and development as a writer whose race, though a primary<br />
component of his life, was but one of many that formed him as an artist. Frequent use of the<br />
"N" word.<br />
Black Like Me Griffin, John Howard John Howard Griffin's groundbreaking and controversial novel about his experiences as a<br />
white man who transforms himself with the aid of medication and dye in order to experience<br />
firsthand the life of a black man living in the Deep South in the late 1950s is a mesmerizing<br />
tale of the ultimate sociological experiment. Frequent use of the ―N‖ word.<br />
Black Rain Ibuse, Masuji Black Rain is centered around the story of a young woman who was caught in the radioactive<br />
"black rain" that fell after the bombing of Hiroshima. lbuse bases his tale on real-life diaries<br />
and interviews with victims of the holocaust; the result is a book that is free from sentimentality<br />
yet manages to reveal the magnitude of the human suffering caused by the atom bomb. The<br />
life of Yasuko, on whom the black rain fell, is changed forever by periodic bouts of radiation<br />
sickness and the suspicion that her future children, too, may be affected. There is some<br />
graphic material that reflects the violence and destruction of the dropping of the atom bomb.<br />
Bless Me, Ultima Anaya, Rudolfo Ultima, a curandera, one who cures with herbs and magic, comes to Antonio Marez's New<br />
Mexico family when he is six years old, and she helps him discover himself in the magical<br />
secrets of the pagan past. A wonderful introduction to the genre of magic realism, Anaya<br />
explores the enduring love a boy has for the members of his family.<br />
Bluest Eye, The Morrison, Toni In this novel about the nature of black identity, narrated by Pecola's friend Claudia, we learn<br />
that Pecola was raped by her father, and is plagued with a desire to be white. Use of the "N"<br />
word. Sexual references.<br />
Body, The King, Stephen In 1960s America, four young boys go on a journey to search for the body of a boy killed by a<br />
train. As they travel, they discover how cruel the world can be, but also how wondrous. Mild<br />
Profanity.<br />
Boys of Summer Kahn, Roger It is the mid-20th-century. The Brooklyn Dodgers, the team of Robinson and Snyder and<br />
Hodges and Reese, a team of great triumph and historical import composed of men whose<br />
fragile lives were filled with dignity and pathos. Roger Kahn, who covered that team for the<br />
New York Herald Tribune, makes understandable humans of his heroes as he chronicles the<br />
dreams and exploits of their young lives, beautifully intertwining them with his own, then<br />
recounts how so many of those sweet dreams curdled as the body of these once shining stars<br />
grew rusty with age and battered by experience.<br />
Brave New World Huxley, Aldous A fantasy of the future that sheds a blazing critical light on the present--considered to be<br />
Aldous Huxley's most enduring masterpiece.<br />
<strong>High</strong> <strong>School</strong> 2011-12