MHS BOOK CHAT

BOOK CLUB SELECTIONS

The Morton High School Book Club highly recommends the following reading selections…

HOMEBOYZ BY ALAN LAWRENCE SITOMER

When Teddy Anderson's little sister Tina is gunned down randomly in a drive-by shooting, the “gangstas” who rule the streets in the Anderson family's rapidly deteriorating neighborhood dismiss the incident as just another case of RP, RT (wrong place, wrong time.) According to gangsta logic, Tina doesn't even count as a statistic.

Each member of the Anderson family took the news of Tina’s murder in a different way, but they were all devastated. Teddy, however, the youngest brother in the family, shared none of his parents’ or siblings’ emotions. At 17, sadness wasn’t his style. T-Bear, Teddy’s a.k.a. on the streets, only cared about one thing: revenge.

RED RIDING HOOD

BY SARAH BLAKELY-CARTWRIGHT

Valerie's sister was kind and sweet. Now she is dead. Henry, the handsome son of the blacksmith, tries to console Valerie, but her wild heart beats fast for another: the outcast woodcutter, Peter, who offers Valerie another life far from home.

After her sister's death, Valerie's world begins to unravel. For generations, the Wolf has been kept at bay with a monthly sacrifice. But now no one is safe. When a Wolf hunter arrives, the villagers learn that the creature lives among them. Valerie is the only one who can hear the voice of the creature. The Wolf says she must surrender herself before the blood moon wanes...or everyone she loves will die.

SON OF THE MOB BY GORDON KORMAN

Vince Luca is just like any other high school guy. His best friend, Alex, is trying to score vicariously through him; his brother is a giant pain; and his father keeps bugging him to get motivated. There is just one thing that really sets him apart from other kids. His father happens to be the head of a powerful crime organization. While Vince's family's connections can be handy for certain things, how is he supposed to explain to a girl what his father does for a living? When Vince finally meets one girl who seems to be worth the trouble, her family turns out to be the biggest problem of all. Because her father is an FBI agent—the one who wants to put his father away for good.

THE HUNGER GAMES TRILOGY BY SUZANNE COLLINS

Follow the adventures of Katniss Everdeen, Peeta Mellark, and Gale Hawthorne as they fight for their lives in this exciting futuristic trilogy. Panem’s Hunger Games, an annual competition in which young people between the ages of twelve and eighteen engage in a televised fight to the death, set the stage for some serious, page-turning action. Who will survive the deadly match and live to take on the Capitol? And just how does victory change the victor?

CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN

THE NIGHT-TIME BY MARK HADDON

Christopher John Francis Boone knows all the countries of the world and their capitals and every prime number up to 7,057. He relates well to animals but has no understanding of human emotions. He cannot stand to be touched. And he detests the color yellow. This improbable story of Christopher's quest to investigate the suspicious death of a neighborhood dog makes for one of the most captivating, unusual, and widely heralded novels in recent years.

GLASS CASTLE BY JEANNETTE WALLS

Jeannette Walls grew up with parents whose ideals and nonconformity were both their curse and their salvation. Rex and Rose Mary Walls had four children. In the beginning, they lived like nomads. Rex was a charismatic man who, when sober, captured his children’s imagination, teaching them physics, geology, and how to embrace life fearlessly. Rose Mary painted and wrote, yet couldn’t stand the responsibility of providing for her family. Cooking a meal that would be consumed in fifteen minutes had no appeal when she could make a painting that might last forever.

Astonishingly, Jeannette Walls not only had the tenacity and intelligence to get out, but she also describes her parents with deep affection and generosity. Hers is a story of triumph against all odds, but also a tender, moving tale of unconditional love in a family that despite its profound flaws gave her the fiery determination to carve out a successful life on her own terms.

STITCHES BY DAVID SMALL

One day David Small awoke from a supposedly harmless operation to discover that he had been transformed into a virtual mute. A vocal cord removed, his throat slashed and stitched together like a bloody boot, the fourteen-year-old boy had not been told that he had cancer and was expected to die.

In Stitches, the author re-creates this terrifying event in a life story that might have been imagined by Kafka. As the images painfully tumble out, one by one, we gain a ringside seat at a gothic family drama where David—a highly anxious, yet supremely talented child—all too often became the unwitting object of his parents’ buried frustration and rage.

WHEN YOU REACH ME BY REBECCA STEAD

By sixth grade, Miranda and her best friend, Sal, know how to navigate their New York City neighborhood. They know where it’s safe to go, like the local grocery store, and they know whom to avoid, like the crazy guy on the corner.

But then, Sal gets punched by a new kid for what seems like no reason, and he shuts Miranda out of his life. The apartment key that Miranda’s mom keeps hidden for emergencies is stolen. And then Miranda finds a mysterious note:

I am coming to save your friend’s life, and my own. I must ask two favors. First, you must write me a letter.

The notes keep coming, and Miranda slowly realizes that whoever is leaving them knows all about her, including things that have not even happened yet. Each message brings her closer to believing that only she can prevent a tragic death. Until the final note makes her think she’s too late.

THE KNIFE OF NEVER LETTING GO

BY PATRICK NESS

Prentisstown isn't like other towns. Everyone can hear everyone else's thoughts in an overwhelming, never-ending stream of Noise. Just a month away from the birthday that will make him a man, Todd and his dog, Manchee (whose thoughts Todd can hear too, whether he wants to or not) stumble upon an area of complete silence. They find that, in a town where privacy is impossible, something terrible has been hidden—a secret so awful that Todd and Manchee must run for their lives.

But how do you escape when your pursuers can hear your every thought?

THE MONSTRUMOLOGIST

BY RICK YANCEY

These are the secrets I have kept. This is the trust I never betrayed. But he is dead now and has been for more than forty years, the one who gave me his trust, the one for whom I kept these secrets. The one who saved me . . . and the one who cursed me.

So starts the diary of Will Henry, orphaned assistant to Dr. Pellinore Warthorpe, a man with a most unusual specialty: monstrumology, the study of monsters. In his time with the doctor, Will has met many a mysterious late-night visitor and seen things he never imagined were real. But when a grave robber comes calling in the middle of the night with a gruesome find, he brings with him their most deadly case yet.

A gothic tour de force that explores the darkest heart of man and monster and asks the question: When does man become the very thing he hunts?

MEMOIRS OF A TEENAGE AMNESIAC

BY GABRIELLE ZEVIN

If Naomi had picked tails, she would have won the coin toss. She wouldn’t have had to go back for the yearbook camera, and she wouldn’t have hit her head on the steps. She wouldn’t have woken up in an ambulance with amnesia. She certainly would have remembered her boyfriend, Ace. She might even have remembered why she fell in love with him in the first place. She would understand why her best friend, Will, keeps calling her “Chief.” She’d know about her mom’s new family. She’d know about her dad’s fiancée. She never would have met James, the boy with the questionable past and the even fuzzier future, who tells her he once wanted to kiss her. She wouldn’t have wanted to kiss him back.

But Naomi picked heads.

THE MAZE RUNNER BY JAMES DASHNER

When Thomas wakes up in the lift, the only thing he can remember is his first name. His memory is blank. But he’s not alone. When the lift’s doors open, Thomas finds himself surrounded by kids who welcome him to the Glade—a large, open expanse surrounded by stone walls.

Just like Thomas, the Gladers don’t know why or how they got to the Glade. All they know is that every morning the stone doors to the maze that surrounds them have opened. Every night they’ve closed tight. And every thirty days a new boy has been delivered in the lift.

Thomas was expected. But the next day, a girl is sent up—the first girl to ever arrive in the Glade. And more surprising yet is the message she delivers. Thomas might be more important than he could ever guess. If only he could unlock the dark secrets buried within his mind.

PERFECT CHEMISTRY BY SIMONE ELKELES

When Brittany Ellis walks into chemistry class on the first day of senior year, she has no clue that her carefully created “perfect” life is about to unravel before her eyes. She's forced to be lab partners with Alex Fuentes, a gang member from the other side of town, and he is about to threaten everything she's worked so hard for: her flawless reputation, her relationship with her boyfriend, and the secret that her home life is anything but perfect. Alex is a bad boy and he knows it. So, when he makes a bet with his friends to lure Brittany into his life, he thinks nothing of it. But soon Alex realizes Brittany is a real person with real problems, and suddenly the bet he made in arrogance turns into something much more.

In a passionate story about looking beneath the surface, Simone Elkeles breaks through the stereotypes and barriers that threaten to keep Brittany and Alex apart.

WINTER’S BONE BY DANIEL WOODRELL

The sheriff's deputy at the front door brings hard news to Ree Dolly. Her father has skipped bail on charges that he ran a meth lab, and the Dollys will lose their house if he doesn't show up for his next court date. Ree's father has disappeared before. The Dolly clan has worked the shadowy side of the law for generations, and arrests (and attempts to avoid them) are part of life in Rathlin Valley.

With two young brothers depending on her and a mother who's entered a kind of second childhood, sixteen-year-old Ree knows she has to bring her father back, dead or alive. She has grown up in the harsh poverty of the Ozarks and learns quickly that asking questions of the rough Dolly clan can be a fatal mistake. But along the way to a shocking revelation, Ree discovers unforeseen depths in herself and in a family network that protects its own at any cost.

THE OTHER WES MOORE BY WES MOORE

Two kids with the same name lived in the same decaying city. One went on to be a Rhodes Scholar, decorated combat veteran, White House Fellow, and business leader. The other is serving a life sentence in prison. Here is the story of two boys and the journey of a generation.

FEED BY M.T. ANDERSON

For Titus and his friends, it started out like any ordinary trip to the moon—a chance to party during spring break and play with some stupid “low-grav” at the Ricochet Lounge. But that was before the crazy hacker caused all their feeds to malfunction, sending them to the hospital to lie around with nothing inside their heads for days. And it was before Titus met Violet, a beautiful, brainy teenage girl who has decided to fight the feed and its omnipresent ability to categorize human thoughts and desires.

THE CITY OF EMBER BY JEANNE DUPRAU

Many hundreds of years ago, the city of Ember was created by the Builders to contain everything needed for human survival. It worked…but now the storerooms are almost out of food, crops are blighted, corruption is spreading through the city and worst of all—the lights are failing. Soon Ember could be engulfed by darkness….

But when two children, Lina and Doon, discover fragments of an ancient parchment, they begin to wonder if there could be a way out of Ember. Can they decipher the words from long ago and find a new future for everyone? Will the people of Ember listen to them?

DRUMS, GIRLS & DANGEROUS PIE

BY JORDAN SONNENBLICK

Thirteen-year-old Steven has a totally normal life: he plays drums in the All-Star Jazz band, has a crush on the hottest girl in the school, and is constantly annoyed by his five-year-old brother Jeffrey. But when Jeffrey is diagnosed with leukemia, Steven's world is turned upside down. He is forced to deal with his brother's illness and his parents' attempts to keep the family in one piece. Salted with humor and peppered with devastating realities, Drums, Girls & Dangerous Pie is a heartwarming journey through a year in the life of a family in crisis.

HEIST SOCIETY BY ALLY CARTER

When Katarina Bishop was three, her parents took her on a trip to the Louvre…to case it. For her seventh birthday, Katarina and her Uncle Eddie traveled to Austria…to steal the crown jewels. When Kat turned fifteen, she planned a con of her own—scamming her way into the best boarding school in the country, determined to leave the family business behind. Unfortunately, leaving “the life” for a normal life proves harder than she’d expected.

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Book summaries are adapted from www.goodreads.com