Transcript CP 2 Booktalks - Zion-Benton Township High School

Fall 2011


Books checked out today are due _________
World Literature often contains themes of war and
oppression. By its very nature, literature derived
from cultures that are much different than ours may
contain some information and imagery that will shock
audiences in the US. If you have objections (or
believe your parents will have objections) to certain
types of materials, please be sure to let your teacher
and/or Mrs. Will know so that you can get a book that
will be just right for you. Please keep in mind that
what one student finds offensive might be perfectly
appropriate for another student.

One man's
campaign to build
schools in the most
dangerous, remote,
and anti-American
reaches of Asia.

Professor Rosa
Medina, a folklorist
researching the
ChupaCabra, goes to
Mexico to track down
recent sightings of
the creature which
kills its victims,
particularly goats, by
sucking their brains
out.

Escaping from Nazi
Germany to Cuba in
1939, a young Jewish
refugee dreams of
finding his parents
again, befriends a
local girl with painful
secrets of her own,
and discovers that
the Nazi darkness is
never far away.

In a story based on the
Shakespeare play,
sixteen-year-old
Roseline, who is studying
to be a healer, becomes
romantically entangled
with the Montague family
even as her beloved
young cousin, Juliet
Capulet, defies the family
feud to secretly marry
Romeo.

A fictionalized
account of a Biblical
story in which an
Egyptian princess
rescues a Hebrew
infant who becomes
a prophet of his
people while his
sister finds her true
self as a priestess to
the Egyptian gods..

Young David Kim
reunites with the
father he has not
seen in five years
while working in the
family strip-mall gift
shop, an endeavor
during which he
harbors a secret
shame about what he
believes to be his
father's character
flaws.

In 1990, thirteen-yearold John "Spud" Milton, a
prepubescent choirboy,
keeps a diary of his first
year at an elite, boysonly boarding school in
South Africa, as he deals
with bizarre housemates,
wild crushes,
embarrassingly
dysfunctional parents,
and much more..

Presents the story
of Odysseus's epic
journey through the
eyes of his faithful
wife Penelope, the
sorceress Circe, the
goddess Athena,
and his old nanny
Eurycleia.

Description: Lin
O'Neil, a talented
but shy girl growing
up in Providence,
Rhode Island,
develops a close
relationship with her
Japanese
grandmother, who
shares Lin's gift of
precognition.

When her mother
marries a man from
Greece and moves the
family onto an island in
the Aegean Sea,
Phoebe's life takes an
unexpected turn when
she discovers that her
new classmates at her
exclusive academy are
all descendants of real
Greek gods--and her
very real competition on
the track team!.

Two women born a
generation apart
witness the
destruction of their
home and family in
wartorn Kabul, losses
incurred over the
course of thirty years
that test the limits of
their strength and
courage


Books checked out today are due January 6th
World Literature often contains themes of war and
oppression. By its very nature, literature derived
from cultures that are much different than ours may
contain some information and imagery that will shock
audiences in the US. If you have objections (or
believe your parents will have objections) to certain
types of materials, please be sure to let your teacher
and/or Mrs. Will know so that you can get a book that
will be just right for you. Please keep in mind that
what one student finds offensive might be perfectly
appropriate for another student.

Hermes, Prince of
Thieves and son of
Zeus, relates why
the seasons change,
the history of the
Trojan War, his
friendship with
Pegasus, and many
more adventures.

The harrowing
consequences and
horrors of the Sudanese
civil war come to life in
an inspirational,
eyewitness account that
describes one man's
experiences, from the
terror and violence of
his homeland, to his
tortuous escape, to the
culture shock he
experienced as he
struggled to adjust to a
new life in America.

In the dangerous dark
of winter in an Eastern
European village during
the early seventeenth
century, Peter learns
from a gypsy girl that
the Shadow Queen is
behind the recent
murders and
reanimations, and his
father's secret past may
hold the key to stopping
her.

From 1939 to 1945, a
Jewish family struggles
to survive in occupied
China; young Ilse by
remaining optimistic,
her older brother by
joining a resistance
movement, her mother
by maintaining
connections to the past,
and her father by
playing the violin that
had been his livelihood.

Persephone runs off
to the Underworld
with Hades, with
whom she has fallen
in love, but when her
mother Demeter
threatens to destroy
the earth to save her,
Persephone finds a
way to come back
once a year, bringing
Spring

When fourteen-year-old
Liyanna, her younger
brother, and her parents
move from St. Louis to a
new home between
Jerusalem and the
Palestinian village where
her father was born,
they face many changes
and must deal with the
tensions between Jews
and Palestinians.

During the Argentine
struggle for independence,
national hero Manuel
Belgrano lives through
political and personal
intrigue amid racial
discrimination while
harboring his own
contempt for Rivas, a
wealthy Spanish
businessman who is
haunted by his lover
Maria's adoration for
Belgrano.

Alinda and her
family experience
fear, violence, and
terror when the
army invades their
town while trying to
escape rebel troops.

Determined to fend for
herself in a world where
only men have real
freedom, headstrong
Helen, who will be
called queen of Sparta
and Helen of Troy one
day, learns to fight,
hunt, and ride horses
while disguised as a
boy, and goes on an
adventure throughout
the Mediterranean
world.

Growing up with her
family in Mumbai,
India, sixteen-yearold Jeeta disagrees
with much of her
mother's traditional
advice about how to
live her life and tries
to be more modern
and independent.

When Anna, an
Australian art student,
moves to Shanghai for
her studies, she feels
alienated as a
foreigner until she
befriends Chenxi, her
fellow student and
guide, and becomes
entangled in his
political activism.

A story set against
seminal events in
twentieth-century
Mexican history follows
Jesusa Palancares de
Aguilar from her
childhood, through her
role in the Mexican
Revolution and difficult
marriage, to her postrevolutionary criminal
career.

Growing up in a
wealthy Nigerian
home with a
tyrannical father,
Kambili and her
brother, find
happiness during a
visit to their Aunty
Ifeoma, but as Kambili
enjoys her freedom
and falls in love, the
country begins to fall
under a military coup.

In late eighteenthcentury Calcutta,
half-Indian halfIrish Anila Tandy
finds herself alone
with nothing but her
artistic talent to rely
on, searching for her
father who is
presumed dead.


Books checked out today are due _________
World Literature often contains themes of war and
oppression. By its very nature, literature derived
from cultures that are much different than ours may
contain some information and imagery that will shock
audiences in the US. If you have objections (or
believe your parents will have objections) to certain
types of materials, please be sure to let your teacher
and/or Mrs. Will know so that you can get a book that
will be just right for you. Please keep in mind that
what one student finds offensive might be perfectly
appropriate for another student.

Although she is a
dutiful daughter,
Nefertiti's dancing
abilities, remarkable
beauty, and intelligence
garner attention near
and far, so much so that
her family is summoned
to the Egyptian royal
court, where Nefertiti
becomes a pawn in the
power play of her
scheming aunt, Queen
Tiye.

Follows the
experiences of a 23year-old member of
the Revolutionary
Association of the
Women of Afghanistan
who witnessed the rise
of the Taliban and
risked her life to
challenge the edicts
against women in her
country.

A portrait of
infectious disease
expert Dr. Paul Farmer
follows the efforts of
this unconventional
Harvard genius to
understand the
world's great health,
economic, and social
problems and to bring
healing to humankind.

Presents the story
of the search for an
ancient silk scroll
inscribed with a lost
Buddhist sutra, and
one woman's
search for her lost
love.

In 1986, when
seventeen-year-old
Daniel's father arrives in
Madison, Wisconsin, after
five years of torture as a
political prisoner in
Chile, Daniel and his
eighteen-year-old
"gringa" girlfriend,
Courtney, use different
methods to help this
bitter, self-destructive
stranger who yearns to
return home and
continue his work.

It is 1961 and Puerto
Rico is trapped in a tugof-war between those
who want to stay
connected to the United
States and those who are
fighting for
independence. Verdita
has always been safe and
secure in her sleepy
mountain town, but she
must find the strength to
decide what sort of
woman she'll become.

Losing her dream job as
a radio talk-show host,
New Yorker Alice
Fairweather takes a
spelunking vacation with
her family and ailing dog
but finds the venture
challenged by a family
friend's effort to get his
aunt canonized, a new
friendship with an
eccentric hagiographer,
and an impulsive trip to
Nicaragua.

Based on a true
story, Jameela, a
young girl living in
war-torn
Afghanistan, must
struggle to find her
place in the world
after her mother
dies and she is
moved to Kabul with
her drunken father

Jublio is a telegraph
operator and interpretor
until the telegraph
becomes obsolete. Now
Jublio lies on his
deathbed, mute and
estranged from his wife.
The daughter must
figure out how to begin
communication again
between her parents
and make them see that
keeping secrets always
leads to unhappiness.

In Renaissance Italy,
Elisabetta longs for
romance, and when
Leonardo da Vinci
introduces her to
Guiliano de Medici,
whose family rules
Florence but is about
to be deposed, she
has no inkling of the
romance--and
sorrow--that will
ensue.


Books checked out today are due _________
World Literature often contains themes of war and
oppression. By its very nature, literature derived
from cultures that are much different than ours may
contain some information and imagery that will shock
audiences in the US. If you have objections (or
believe your parents will have objections) to certain
types of materials, please be sure to let your teacher
and/or Mrs. Will know so that you can get a book that
will be just right for you. Please keep in mind that
what one student finds offensive might be perfectly
appropriate for another student.

A memoir offers a
portrait of the
author's family and
childhood in Iran,
centered around her
powerful mother and
her manipulative
fictions about herself,
as she reflects on
women's choices and
her own struggle to
free herself from her
mother's influence.

A naive fourteenyear-old prince
finds himself
unexpectedly named
as emperor of an
entire nation and is
shaped by the
power, cruelty,
decadence, and
intrigues of the royal
court.

In India during World
War I, thirteen-year-old
Leela's happy, spoiled
childhood ends when
her husband since age
nine, whom she barely
knows, dies, leaving her
a widow whose only
hope of happiness could
come from Mahatma
Ghandi's social and
political reforms.

In seventeenthcentury China, three
women become
emotionally involved
with "The Peony
Pavilion," a famed
opera rumored to
cause lovesickness
and even death.

LaMamo and Mamo
are separated when
LaMamo escapes to
pursue his dream of
becoming a soldier,
but when religious
zealots incite the
people to violence, he
returns home to battle
the enemy and to be
reunited with his twin
brother.

Silvano and Chiara,
teens sent to live in a
friary and a nunnery in
Renaissance Italy, are
drawn to one another
and dream of a future
together, but when
murders are committed
in the friary, they must
discover who is behind
the crimes before they
can realize their love.

At the beginning of
the 20th century, Tita,
the youngest of three
daughters, is
expected to serve her
mother for the rest of
her life, but in order
to show her love to
Pedro, who is
engaged to her sister,
Tita cooks for him

Students Juan and
Clara put off
studying for their
final exams to
wander the city of
Buenos Aires which
has been enveloped
in a strange fog

In India, in 1941,
when her father
becomes braindamaged in a nonviolent protest march,
fifteen-year-old Vidya
and her family are
forced to move in with
her father's extended
family and become
accustomed to a
totally different way of
life.

In 1865, the
preparations of the
Dante Club--led by
Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow and Oliver
Wendell Holmes--to
release the first
translation of Dante's
"The Divine Comedy"
are threatened by a
series of murders that
re-create episodes
from "Inferno.".

Miraflores has never
known her father, and
until now, she's never
thought that he wanted
to know her. She's long
been aware that her
mother had an affair
with him while she was
stationed with her then
husband in Panama, and
she's always assumed
that her pregnant
mother came back to
the United States alone
with his consent.

Suffering from writer's
block, Alma finds
herself enamored of a
story she stumbles
upon which involves
Isabel, director of La
Casa De Expositos,
who selected twentytwo orphan boys to be
live carriers of the
smallpox vaccine in
1803.

Haya Leah Molnar,
recalls growing up in
Bucharest, Romania,
during the 1950s.
Though she heard
Yiddish and kept
Kosher at home, Eva
remained unaware of
her Jewish heritage.
This ignorance
protected Eva at her
Communist-run
school.

Struggling to maintain
her sense of self and her
understanding of the
world while spending the
first year of her marriage
in Kenya, Geraldine
participates in a climbing
expedition to Mt. Kenya
and is challenged to
come to terms with a
devastating accident.


Books checked out today are due _________
World Literature often contains themes of war and
oppression. By its very nature, literature derived
from cultures that are much different than ours may
contain some information and imagery that will shock
audiences in the US. If you have objections (or
believe your parents will have objections) to certain
types of materials, please be sure to let your teacher
and/or Mrs. Will know so that you can get a book that
will be just right for you. Please keep in mind that
what one student finds offensive might be perfectly
appropriate for another student.

When her father is
injured, fourteen-yearold Nazia is pulled away
from school, her
friends, and her
preparations for an
arranged marriage, to
help her mother clean
houses in a wealthy part
of Karachi, Pakistan,
where she finally rebels
against the destiny that
is planned for her.

In October, 1942,
seventeen-year-old
Helmuth Hubener,
imprisoned for
distributing anti-Nazi
leaflets, recalls his past
life and how he came
to dedicate himself to
bring the truth about
Hitler and the war to
the German people.

The author reveals the
life of a young woman
she met while on an
internship with
UNICEF and how,
despite living with HIV
and losing her family
to AIDS, she is
thriving and looking
forward to giving her
child a better life.

During the 2001
Afghan War, the lives
of Najmal, a young
refugee from Kunduz,
Afghanistan, and
Nusrat, an AmericanMuslim teacher who is
awaiting her
husband's return from
Mazar-i-Sharif,
intersect at a school
in Peshawar, Pakistan.

After the death of
Akhenaten, a young
man searches for the
truth about the "heretic
pharaoh," interviewing
Akhenaten's closest
friends, most dangerous
enemies, and even his
enigmatic wife,
Nefertiti, about the
remarkable leader of
ancient Egypt

A ten-year-old
orphan from the
Ivory Coast, is
seized by rebels on
the way to Liberia to
live with his aunt
and forced to
become a soldier

In 1837, as
seventeen-year-old
twins, Persephone and
Penelope, are starting
their first London
Season they find that
their beloved
governess, who has
taught them
everything they know
about magic, has
disappeared.

Year Eleven at an
exclusive prep school in
the suburbs of
Melbourne, Australia,
would be tough enough,
but it is further
complicated for Amal
when she decides to
wear the hijab, the
Muslim head scarf, fulltime as a badge of her
faith--without losing
her identity or sense of
style.

Two New Zealand
teenagers receive a
desperate SOS from
their future selves
and set out on a
quest to stop an
impending
ecological disaster
that could mean the
end of humanity.

Traces the unlikely
friendship of a
wealthy Afghan youth
and a servant's son,
in a tale that spans
the final days of
Afghanistan's
monarchy through
the atrocities of the
present day.

After an
archaeological dig at
Glastonbury Tor in
England uncovers the
Holy Grail, Felicity and
her mother, a
professor of Arthurian
literature, find that
their destinies are
linked across time
with the Grail and the
legendary King Arthur

When high school junior
Kate wins an essay
contest that sends her
to Verona, Italy, to
study Shakespeare's
"Romeo and Juliet" over
the summer, she meets
both American and
Italian students and
learns not just about
Shakespeare, but also
about starcrossedlovers--and
herself.

A collection of tales
about modern
African children in
crisis includes "An
Ex-Mas Feast," in
which an eight-yearold child shares in
his family's sacrifices
to obtain enough
food and enable his
education.


Books checked out today are due _________
World Literature often contains themes of war and
oppression. By its very nature, literature derived
from cultures that are much different than ours may
contain some information and imagery that will shock
audiences in the US. If you have objections (or
believe your parents will have objections) to certain
types of materials, please be sure to let your teacher
and/or Mrs. Will know so that you can get a book that
will be just right for you. Please keep in mind that
what one student finds offensive might be perfectly
appropriate for another student.

When her father
commands that she
produce an heir, the
huntress Atalanta
gives her suitors a
seemingly impossible
task in order to
uphold her pledge of
chastity, as the gods
of ancient Greece look
on.

Collects the online
journal of Hadiya, a
fifteen-year old girl
living in Mosul, who
shares her
reflections on
family, friends, and
the devastation of
the war on her home
town.

In 1979 Muddy River,
a provincial Chinese
city, the Gu family
struggles to deal with
the imminent loss of
their daughter, Gu
Shan, about to be
executed as a
counterrevolutionary,
while their neighbors
deal with the realities
of life in China.

A thoroughly modern
young American woman
living in San Francisco,
Lindsey Owyang has
little in common with
her Chinese heritage,
until an unexpected
event forces her to
reexamine her family's
history and the need to
meld the old culture
with the new

The lives of Evita, a
thirteen-year-old girl
living on the streets, her
nineteen-year-old
cousin Petra, and
Mayela, a twelve-yearold Tarahumara Indian,
are bonded indelibly in
the shadow of the
rapes, tortures, and
brutal murders of
women occurring in
Ciudad Juarez, Mexico,
without intervention by
the police.

During the Chinese
Cultural Revolution,
two boys are sent to
the country for
reeducation, where
their lives take an
unexpected turn when
they meet the
beautiful daughter of
a local tailor and
stumble upon a
forbidden stash of
Western literature.

Leaving her home in
the Dominican
Republic to pursue an
American lifestyle,
Esperanza struggles
with the realities of
everyday hardships in
a cramped apartment
where she lives with
her husband, children,
and critical father-inlaw.

Thirteen-year-old Kim
travels to South Africa
with her journalist
mother and must
come to terms with
the country’s diverse
and often shocking
history with the
realization that she is
not as removed from
this powerful story as
she thought.

In 1940, after traveling
from their country
village to Mexico City to
find their mother,
fourteen-year-old Maria
and her younger brother
Victor are befriended by
the artist Frida Kahlo
and the talking animals
and household objects
that inhabit her home.

A present-day
escaped slave
recounts his capture
and enslavement at
the age of seven, his
escape to a refugee
camp and finally
America, his
education, and his
ongoing work as an
anti-slavery activist.

In Uganda in 1972,
fifteen-year-old Sabine
and her family, wealthy
citizens of Indian
descent, try to
preserve their normal
life during the ninety
days allowed by
President Idi Amin for
all foreign Indians to
leave the country,
while soldiers and
others terrorize them
and people disappear.


Books checked out today are due _________
World Literature often contains themes of war and
oppression. By its very nature, literature derived
from cultures that are much different than ours may
contain some information and imagery that will shock
audiences in the US. If you have objections (or
believe your parents will have objections) to certain
types of materials, please be sure to let your teacher
and/or Mrs. Will know so that you can get a book that
will be just right for you. Please keep in mind that
what one student finds offensive might be perfectly
appropriate for another student.

On a hot day in Tripoli
in the summer of
1979, nine-year-old
Suleiman spots his
father, supposedly
away on business,
across from the market
square and wearing
dark glasses, the first
portent of grave
danger in a previously
unsuspected world.

Relates the author's
experiences as an
embedded reporter
with Battalion 2-16.
telling the story of
the surge from the
perspective of the
someone who
worked the soldiers
every day.

During the Israeli
occupation of
Ramallah in the West
Bank of Palestine,
twelve-year-old Karim
and his friends create
a secret place for
themselves where
they can momentarily
forget the horrors of
war.

Seventeen-year-old
Mimi Wallingford's stage
fright and fight with her
mother on the closing
night of Romeo and
Juliet are nothing
compared to the
troubles she faces when
she and her leading
man are transported to
Shakespeare's Verona,
where she decides to
give the real Juliet a
happy ending.

An AfricanAmerican girl and a
Latino boy fall in
love after meeting
on the Internet, but
they are harrassed
by a gang who
objects to their
interracial dating.

Having moved to
Annapolis, Maryland,
with her medievalist
parents, high school
junior Ellie enrolls at
Avalon High School
where several
students may or may
not be reincarnations
of King Arthur and his
court.

In a heart-wrenching,
candid
autobiography, a
human rights activist
offers a firsthand
account of war from
the perspective of a
former child soldier,
detailing the violent
civil war that wracked
his native Sierra
Leone and the
government forces
that transformed a
gentle young boy
into a killer as a
member of the army.

What were once just
boys' games become
matters of life and
death as Petros and
his older brother Zola
each wonder if, like
their resistancefighter cousin, they
too can make a
difference in a Nazioccupied Greece.

In the early 1960s
in the Dominican
Republic, Anita
learns that her
family is involved in
the underground
movement to end
the bloody rule of
the dictator,
General Trujillo.

After falling in love,
eighteen-year-old
Will Shakespeare, a
bored apprentice in
his father's glove
business and often in
trouble for various
misdeeds, vows to
live an upstanding
life and pursue his
passion for writing.

Presents the
fictionalized stories of
twelve survivors from
the Chinese work
camps in Jiabiangou,
exiled there by the
Communist Party
between 1957 and
1960 to undergo
reeducation through
hard labor for being
rightists


Books checked out today are due _________
World Literature often contains themes of war and
oppression. By its very nature, literature derived
from cultures that are much different than ours may
contain some information and imagery that will shock
audiences in the US. If you have objections (or
believe your parents will have objections) to certain
types of materials, please be sure to let your teacher
and/or Mrs. Will know so that you can get a book that
will be just right for you. Please keep in mind that
what one student finds offensive might be perfectly
appropriate for another student.

The twelve gods of
Olympus are alive and
well in the twenty-first
century, but they are
crammed together in a
London townhouse-and none too happy
about it. Two perplexed
humans, Alice and Neil,
who are caught in the
crossfire, must fear not
only for their own lives,
but for the survival of
humankind

Recounts the
author's experiences
as an Army engineer
in the Iraq War.

Every week after Friday
prayers, the anonymous
narrator sends an email to
the female subscribers of
her online chat group. In
fifty such emails over the
course of a year, we
witness the tragicomic
reality of four university
students negotiating their
love lives, their
professional success, and
their rebellions, large and
small, against their
cultural traditions.

Seventeen-year-old Tal
Levine of Jerusalem,
despondent over the
ongoing Arab-Israeli
conflict, puts her hopes
for peace in a bottle and
asks her brother, a
military nurse in the
Gaza Strip, to toss it
into the sea, leading
ultimately to friendship
and understanding
between her and an
"enemy.".

Netta and her family
have relocated
temporarily from
Israel to Los Angeles,
and when her
seventeen-year-old
brother mysteriously
disappears, she
becomes convinced
that he has been
abducted by
Palestinian terrorists.

Lily, about to give birth to her
first child, begins having
visions of Irene Dos Santos,
her best friend who went
missing fifteen years earlier in
the Venezuelan rain forest. She
is about to begin to search for
the truth about the day Irene
disappeared when she falls
and is confined to bed,
surrounded by family and
friends who offer prayers and
stories to guide the new baby
safely into the world.

Steve, a British high
school student, and
Fatimah, a devout
Muslim and daughter
of immigrants, must
learn to overcome
their community's
prejudices after a
picture of Fatimah
nursing Steven after a
terrorist attack is
featured in a national
newspaper.

Learning perplexing
truths about her late
mother including her
unhappiness in her
marriage, her dislike of
the family home, and
her unwillingness to be
a parent, Gabriella
discovers a secret diary
and considers the
possibility that her
mother was preparing
to leave

Amani, a young
Palestinian girl, looks
to the meadows of the
Firdoos to get her
sheep the food they
need, but when Israeli
settlers impede her
ability to get to the
pasture, she must try
to find a peaceful
solution to the
problem

Fourteen-year-old
Nadira, her sister, and
their parents leave
Bangladesh for New
York City, but the
expiration of their
visas and the events
of September 11,
2001, bring
frustration, sorrow,
and terror for the
whole family

When Russian troops
invade Finland during
the winter of 193940, Marko, a young
polio victim
determined to keep
his homeland free,
joins the Finnish
Army as a messenger
boy

Captured and
accused of plotting
against the
Spaniards in 1680
New Mexico, every
day fifteen-yearold Serafina trades
the governor one
story for one
Pueblo prisoner.

In England in 1662, a
time of religious
persecution, fifteenyear-old Susanna, a
poor country girl and
a Quaker, and
seventeen-year-old
William, a wealthy
Anglican, meet and
fall in love against all
odds.