Transcript Summer Reading Choices - Maine West High School

Summer Reading Choices
First up….
Non-Fiction books:
The President’s Secret Service
Never before has a journalist penetrated the wall of secrecy
that surrounds the U.S. Secret Service. After conducting
exclusive interviews with more than one hundred current and
former Secret Service agents, bestselling author and awardwinning reporter Ronald Kessler reveals their secrets for the
first time.
•
George W. Bush’s daughters would try to lose their agents.
• Based on a psychic’s vision that a sniper would assassinate President
George H. W. Bush, the Secret Service changed his motorcade route.
• To make the press think he came to work early, Jimmy Carter would walk into
the Oval Office at 5 a.m., then nod off to sleep.
• Lyndon Johnson gave dangerous instructions to his Secret Service agents
and engaged in extensive philandering at the White House.
Escape From Camp
Fourteen
North Korea’s political prison camps have existed twice
as long as Stalin’s Soviet gulags and twelve times as long as
the Nazi concentration camps. No one born and raised in
these camps is known to have escaped. No one, that is,
except Shin Dong-hyuk.
In Escape From Camp 14, Blaine Harden unlocks the
secrets of the world’s most repressive totalitarian state
through the story of Shin’s shocking imprisonment and his
astounding getaway. Shin knew nothing of civilized
existence—he saw his mother as a competitor for food,
guards raised him to be a snitch, and he witnessed the
execution of his mother and brother.
Escape from Camp 14 offers an unequalled inside account of one of the world’s
No Easy Day
This is a first-person account of the planning and execution of
the Bin Laden raid from a Navy Seal who confronted the
terrorist mastermind and witnessed his final moments.
From the streets of Iraq to the third floor of Osama Bin
Laden’s compound, Mark Owen of the U.S. Naval Special
Warfare Development Group--commonly known as SEAL
Team Six-- has been a part of some of the most memorable
special operations in history.
No Easy Day puts readers alongside Owen and the other
hand picked members of the twenty-four-man team as they
train for the biggest mission of their lives.
Steal Like an Artist
10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative
You don’t need to be a genius, you just need to be
yourself. That’s the message from Austin Kleon, a young
writer and artist who knows that creativity is everywhere,
creativity is for everyone. Steal Like an Artist is a guide
whose graphic look, illustrations and examples will put
readers directly in touch with their artistic side.
When Mr. Kleon was asked to address college
students in upstate New York, he shaped his speech
around the ten things he wished someone had told him
when he was starting out. The talk went viral, and its author
dug deeper into his own ideas to create Steal Like an
Artist, the book.
Next type of books…
Fiction:
Dystopia and Sci-Fi books
Shadow and Bone
The once-great nation of Ravka has been torn in two by the
Shadow Fold, a swath of near impenetrable darkness
crawling with monsters who feast on human flesh.
Alina Starkov has never been good at anything. But when
her regiment is attacked on the Fold and her best friend is
brutally injured, Alina reveals a dormant power that saves
his life—a power that could be the key to setting her warravaged country free. Alina is whisked away to the royal
court to be trained as a member of the Grisha, the magical
elite led by the mysterious Darkling.
Yet nothing in this lavish world is what it seems.
Shadow and Bone is the first installment in Leigh Bardugo's Grisha Trilogy.
Ready Player One
In the year 2044, reality is an ugly place. The only time
teenage Wade Watts really feels alive is when he's jacked
into the virtual utopia known as the OASIS. Wade's
devoted his life to studying the puzzles hidden within this
world's digital confines—puzzles that are based on their
creator's obsession with the pop culture of decades past
and that promise massive power and fortune to whoever
can unlock them.
But when Wade stumbles upon the first clue, he finds
himself beset by players willing to kill to take this ultimate
prize. The race is on, and if Wade's going to survive, he'll
have to win—and confront the real world he's always
been so desperate to escape.
Ashes
An electromagnetic pulse flashes across the sky, destroying
every electronic device, wiping out every computerized
system, and killing billions.
Alex hiked into the woods to say good-bye to her dead parents
and her personal demons. Now desperate to find out what
happened after the pulse, Alex meets up with Tom—a young
soldier—and Ellie, a girl whose grandfather was killed by the
EMP.
For this improvised family and the others who are spared, it’s
now a question of who can be trusted and who is no longer
human.
Author Ilsa J. Bick crafts a terrifying and thrilling novel about a
world that could be ours at any moment.
Divergent
In Beatrice Prior’s dystopian Chicago world, society is
divided into five factions, each dedicated to the
cultivation of a particular virtue—Candor (the honest),
Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity
(the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). All sixteenyear-olds must select the faction to which they will
devote the rest of their lives. For Beatrice, the decision
is between staying with her family and being who she
really is-- So she makes a choice that surprises
everyone, including herself.
And as she discovers unrest and growing conflict that
threaten to unravel her seemingly perfect society, she
also learns that her secret might help her save those
Ender’s Shadow
Growing up is never easy. But try living on the mean streets
as a child begging for food and fighting like a dog with
ruthless gangs of starving kids who wouldn't hesitate to
pound your skull into pulp for a scrap of apple. If Bean has
learned anything on the streets, it's how to survive. And not
with fists. He is way too small for that. But with brains.
Bean is a genius with a magician's ability to zero in on his
enemy and exploit his weakness.
What better quality for a future general to lead the Earth in a
final climactic battle against a hostile alien race, known as
Buggers. At Battleschool Bean meets and befriends another
future commander - Ender Wiggins - perhaps his only true
rival.
Realistic Fiction books...
An Abundance of
Katherines
When it comes to relationships, Colin Singleton’s type is
girls named Katherine. And when it comes to girls named
Katherine, Colin is always getting dumped. Nineteen
times, to be exact. On a road trip miles from home, this
washed-up child prodigy has ten thousand dollars in his
pocket, a bloodthirsty feral hog on his trail, and an
overweight best friend riding shotgun—but no Katherines.
Colin is on a mission to prove The Theorem of Underlying
Katherine Predictability, which he hopes will predict the
future of any relationship, avenge Dumpees everywhere,
and finally win him the girl. Love, friendship, and a dead
Austro-Hungarian archduke add up to surprising and
heart-changing conclusions in this comic novel about
reinventing oneself.
Sea of Tranquility
Two and a half years after an unspeakable tragedy left
her a shadow of the girl she once was, Nastya Kashnikov
moves to a new town determined to keep her dark past
hidden and hold everyone at a distance. But her plans only
last so long before she finds herself inexplicably drawn to the
one person as isolated as herself: Josh Bennett.
Josh’s story is no secret. Every person he loves has
been taken from his life. When your name is synonymous
with death, everyone tends to give you your space. Everyone
except Nastya who won’t go away until she’s insinuated
herself into every aspect of his life. But as the pull between
them intensifies, he starts to wonder if he will ever learn the
secrets she’s been hiding—or if he even wants to.
Wild Cards
After getting kicked out of boarding school, bad boy
Derek Fitzpatrick has no choice but to live with his ditzy
stepmother while his military dad is deployed. Things quickly
go from bad to worse when he finds out she plans to move
them back to her childhood home in Illinois. The last thing he
needs is to get involved with someone else’s family drama.
Ashtyn Parker knows one thing for certain--people you
care about leave without a backward glance. So when her
older sister comes home after abandoning her ten years
earlier, with her hot new stepson in tow, Ashtyn wants
nothing to do with either of them. She comes up with a plan
that would finally give her the chance to leave, but it requires
trusting Derek. Is she willing to put her heart on the line to
get the future she wants?
Out of My Mind
Melody is not like most people. She cannot walk or talk, but
she has a photographic memory; she can remember every
detail of everything she has ever experienced. She is
smarter than most of the adults who try to diagnose her and
smarter than her classmates in her integrated classroom—
the very same classmates who dismiss her as mentally
challenged, because she cannot tell them otherwise. But
Melody refuses to be defined by cerebral palsy. And she’s
determined to let everyone know it…somehow. In this
breakthrough story, readers will come to know a brilliant
mind and a brave spirit who will change forever how they
look at anyone with a disability.
Historical Fiction book...
Between Shades of Gray
If you enjoyed reading Night by Elie Wiesel...
WWII - Fifteen-year-old Lina is a Lithuanian girl living an
ordinary life--until Soviet officers invade her home and
tear her family apart. Separated from her father and
forced onto a crowded train, Lina, her mother, and her
young brother make their way to a Siberian work camp,
where they are forced to fight for their lives.
Lina finds solace in her art, documenting these events by
drawing. Risking everything, she imbeds clues in her
drawings and secretly passes them along, hoping they
will make their way to her father's prison camp. But will
strength, love, and hope be enough for Lina and her
family to survive?
A classic novel...
Last Of the Mohicans
Chingachgook and Uncas are the last living members
of the great Mohican tribe. Hawkeye, a colonial
scout, is their companion and loyal friend. In the
midst of the French and Indian War, these three will
risk everything to lead the two daughters of a British
colonel to safety through the battle-torn northern
wilderness. When the girls are captured by the
vicious Huron tribe, Chingachgook, Uncas, and
Hawkeye determine to do whatever they can to
save them—no matter the cost.
Works Cited
Summaries and pictures taken from
Amazon.com
Goodreads.com