Nashua School District

Summer Reading List 2004

                                                 Grades 9-12

Aronson, Marc. Witch-Hunt : Mysteries of the Salem Witch Trials. Atheneum, c2003., 272p
What really happened in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692 when a group of girls and young women accused certain people in the village of witchcraft, leading to the executions of innocent men and women.

Crowe, Chris. Getting Away with Murder :The True Story of the Emmett Till Case. P. Fogelman Books, c2003., 128p
While visiting relatives in Mississippi in 1955, Till was kidnapped, beaten, and shot after he whistled at a white woman in a grocery store. The primary suspects were acquitted, but the case is being reopened.

Dixon, Chuck.  Way of the Rat. Volume 1, The Walls of Zhumar. CrossGeneration Comics, c2003.
A graphic novel in which Boon Sai Hong, a scoundrel with nothing more on his mind than thievery, learns he is destined to be the hero of his world.

Donnelly, Jennifer.  A Northern Light. Harcourt, c2003., 389p
Sixteen-year-old Mattie, determined to attend college and be a writer against the wishes of her father and boyfriend, takes a job at a hotel in 1906 where the death of a guest renews her determination to live her own life.

Fletcher, David.  Hunted : A True Story of Survival. Carroll & Graf, 2002., 212p
The author recounts his harrowing ten days in Alaska during which he was hunted by an enraged mother grizzly after he accidentally killed her cub.

Frank, E. R.  Friction : A Novel. Atheneum Books for Young Readers, c2003., 197p
Alex, suffering a bit of a crush on her eighth-grade teacher Simon, becomes confused about what is true when a new girl at Forest Alternative claims Simon has been molesting her and Alex.

Gantos, Jack.  Hole in My Life. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002., 199p
The author relates how, as a young adult, he became a drug user and smuggler, was arrested, did time in prison, and eventually got out and went to college, all the while hoping to become a writer.

Grimes, Nikki. Bronx Masquerade. Dial Books, c2002., 167p
While studying the Harlem Renaissance, students at a Bronx high school read aloud poems they've written, revealing their innermost thoughts and fears to their formerly clueless classmates.

Hardesty, Von. Air Force One : The Aircraft That Shaped the Modern Presidency. NorthWord Press, c2003., 191p
Full-color and archival photographs show how airliners have been used by U.S. presidents in the second half of the 20th century, and explains how the presidency has been affected by the events and advances of the 1900s.

Hill, Laban Carrick.  Harlem Stomp! : A Cultural History of the Harlem Renaissance. Little, Brown, c2003., 151p
Offers a cultural history of the Harlem Renaissance, discussing how it sparked a period of intellectual, artistic, literary, and political blossoming for many African-Americans.

Lekuton, Joseph.  Facing the Lion : Growing Up Maasai on the African Savanna. National Geographic, c2003., 127p
A member of the Masai people describes his life as he grew up in a northern Kenya village, traveled to America to attend college, and became an elementary school teacher in Virginia.

Lowry, Lois.  Messenger. Houghton Mifflin, 2004., 169p
In this novel that unites characters from The Giver and Gathering Blue, Matty, a young member of a utopian community that values honesty, conceals an emerging healing power that he cannot explain or understand.

McNamee, Graham. Acceleration. Wendy Lamb Books, c2003., 210p
Stuck working in the lost and found department of the Toronto Transit Authority for the summer, seventeen-year-old Duncan finds the diary of a serial killer and sets out to stop him.

Murphy, Jim.  An American Plague : The True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of1793 . Clarion Books, c2003., RL 7.1, 165p
Provides an account of the yellow fever epidemic that swept through Philadelphia in 1793, discussing the chaos that erupted when people began evacuating in droves, leaving the city without government, goods, or services.

Oates, Joyce Carol. Big Mouth & Ugly Girl. HarperTempest, 2002., 266p
When sixteen-year-old Matt is falsely accused of threatening to blow up his high school and his friends turn against him, an unlikely classmate comes to his aid.

Orenstein, Denise Gosliner.  Unseen Companion. Katherine Tegen Books, c2003., 357p
In rural Alaska in 1969, the lives of several teenagers come together while trying to find out what happened to a sixteen-year-old boy who is missing.

Osa, Nancy.  Cuba 15 : A Novel. Delacorte Press, c2003., 277p
Violet Paz, a Chicago high school student, reluctantly prepares for her upcoming "quince," a Spanish nickname for the celebration of an Hispanic girl's fifteenth birthday.

Pattou, Edith. East. Harcourt, c2003., 498p
A young woman journeys to a distant castle on the back of a great white bear who is the victim of a cruel enchantment.

Peck, Richard.  The River Between Us. Dial Books, c2003., 164p
During the early days of the Civil War, the Pruitt family takes in two mysterious young ladies who have fled New Orleans to come north to Illinois.

Reeve, Philip.  Mortal Engines : A Novel. EOS, 2003, c2001., 310p
Tom, a third class apprentice in a distant future in which technology has been lost and tiered cities move about the Earth on caterpillar tracks, often absorbing smaller locales, has many dangerous adventures after being pushed off London by Thaddeus Valentine, a historian who is trying to resurrect an ancient atomic weapon.

Sebold, Alice.  The Lovely Bones : A Novel. Little, Brown, c2002., 328p
Fourteen-year-old Susie Salmon, the victim of a sexual assault and murder, looks down from beyond as her family deals with their grief, and waits for her killer to be brought to some type of justice.

Soto, Gary.  The Afterlife. Harcourt, c2003., 161p
A senior at East Fresno High School lives on as a ghost after his brutal murder in the restroom of a club where he had gone to dance.

Spinelli, Jerry.  Milkweed : A Novel. Knopf , c2003., 208p
A street child, known to himself only as Stopthief, finds community when he is taken in by a band of orphans in Warsaw ghetto which helps him weather the horrors of the Nazi regime.

Werlin, Nancy. Double Helix. Dial Books, c2004., 252p
Eighteen-year-old Eli discovers a shocking secret about his life and his family while working for a Nobel Prize-winning scientist whose specialty is genetic engineering.

Open Your Eyes : Extraordinary Experiences in Faraway Places. Viking, c2003., 201p
Presents memoirs and stories in which well-known authors such as Lois Lowry, Suzie Morgenstern, Harry Mazer, and others write about travel experiences that changed their lives.