SOCIAL STUDIES

History of the 20^th Century, REQUIRED — ONE of the following books:

• Wild Swans : Three Daughters of China, Jung Chang — The story of Jung Chang, her mother, her grandmother, and of 20^th-century China. The forces of history and the exceptional writing talents of Chang produce a nonfiction work with the breadth and drama of the most memorable fiction classics.
• Saints and Villains, Denise Giardina — In the charnel house that was Europe in the Second World War, there were few instances of shining moral courage, let along secular sainthood. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian and Nazi resister was the exception. This emblematic figure risked his life--and finally lost it--through his participation in a failed plot to assassinate Hitler and topple his regime. Saints and Villains gives us this exemplary life in a sweeping narrative that is bold in conception and utterly convincing in its power of imaginative reconstruction.
• All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Remarque — Paul Baumer enlisted with his classmates in the German army of World War I. Youthful, enthusiastic, they become soldiers. But despite what they have learned, they break into pieces under the first bombardment in the trenches. And as horrible war plods on year after year, Paul holds fast to a single vow: to fight against the principles of hate that meaninglessly pits young men of the same generation but different uniforms against each other--if only he can come out of the war alive.
• Darkness at Noon, Arthur Koestler — During Stalin's purges, Nicholas Rubashov, an aging revolutionary, is imprisoned and psychologically tortured by the party he has devoted his life to. Under mounting pressure to confess to crimes he did not commit, Rubashov relives a career that embodies the ironies and betrayals of a revolutionary dictatorship that believes it is an instrument of liberation. A seminal work of twentieth-century literature, Darkness At Noon is a penetrating exploration of the moral danger inherent in a system that is willing to enforce its beliefs by any means necessary.
• The Ugly American, William J. Lederer and Eugene Burdick — The multi-million-copy bestseller that coined the phrase for tragic American blunders abroad. First published in 1958, The Ugly American became a runaway national bestseller for its slashing expos of American arrogance, incompetence, and corruption in Southeast Asia. Based on fact, the book's eye-opening stories and sketches drew a devastating picture of how the United States was losing the struggle with Communism in Asia. Combining gripping storytelling with an urgent call to action, the book prompted President Eisenhower to launch a study of our military aid program that led the way to much-needed reform.

Local Government/Economics, REQUIRED — ONE of the following books:

• Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, Barbara Ehrenreich — Millions of Americans work for poverty-level wages, and one day Barbara Ehrenreich decided to join them. She was inspired in part by the rhetoric surrounding welfare reform, which promised that any job equals a better life. But how can anyone survive, let alone prosper, on $6 to $7 an hour? To find out, Ehrenreich moved from Florida to Maine to Minnesota, taking the cheapest lodgings available and accepting work as a waitress, hotel maid, house cleaner, nursing-home aide, and Wal-Mart salesperson. She soon discovered that even the "lowliest" occupations require exhausting mental and physical efforts. And one job is not enough; you need at least two if you intend to live indoors. Nickel and Dimed reveals low-wage America in all its tenacity, anxiety, and surprising generosity — a land of Big Boxes, fast food, and a thousand desperate strategies for survival. Instantly acclaimed for its insight, humor, and passion, this book is changing the way America perceives its working poor.
• Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, John Perkins — John Perkins started and stopped writing Confessions of an Economic Hit Man four times over 20 years. He says he was threatened and bribed in an effort to kill the project, but after 9/11 he finally decided to go through with this expose of his former professional life. Perkins, a former chief economist at Boston strategic-consulting firm Chas. T. Main, says he was an "economic hit man" for 10 years, helping U.S. intelligence agencies and multinationals cajole and blackmail foreign leaders into serving U.S. foreign policy and awarding lucrative contracts to American business. "Economic hit men (EHMs) are highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars," Perkins writes. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man is an extraordinary and gripping tale of intrigue and dark machinations. Think John Le Carrι, except it's a true story.
• Creation of Quabbin Reservoir: Death of the Swift River Valley, J.R. Greene — A general overview of what happened in the days leading up to, and following, the creation of the Quabbin.
• Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser — Fast food has hastened the malling of our landscape, widened the chasm between rich and poor, fueled an epidemic of obesity, and propelled American cultural imperialism abroad. That's a lengthy list of charges, but here Eric Schlosser makes them stick with an artful mix of first-rate reportage, wry wit, and careful reasoning.
• Profiles of the Past: A Illustrated History of Ashburnham, Gardner, Hubbardston, Templeton, Westminster and Winchendon, Massachusetts, Tom Malloy
• Rich Dad, Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money, Robert T. Kiyosaki, with Sharon L. Lechter — Rich Dad, Poor Dad is a true story on the lessons about money that Robert Kiyosaki learned from his two "dads." One dad, a Ph.D. and superintendent of education, never had enough money at the end of the month and died broke. His other dad dropped out of school at age 13 and went on to become one of the wealthiest men in Hawaii.  Rich Dad, Poor Dad  will . . .
  • Explode the myth that you need to earn a high income to become rich
  • Challenge the belief that your house is an asset
  • Show parents why they can't rely on the school system to teach their kids about money
  • Define once and for all an asset and a liability
  • Teach you what to teach your kids about money for their future financial success.
  In Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Robert Kiyosaki explains how to make your money work hard for you instead of you working hard for money.
• Quabbin, the Accidental Wilderness, Thomas Conuel — This is the story of how four towns and six villages in the Swift River Valley of Massachusetts were leveled and flooded to make way for Quabbin Reservoir, the water supply for Boston and 43 other cities and towns.
• Who Moved My Cheese?, Spencer Johnson — A guide to accepting and dealing with change in work and life. Uses a parable about two little mice trying to get through a maze and looking for cheese to represent what most people go through in search of their desires.

AP U.S. History Grade 11, See Dr. Hart for required assignments.

U.S. History Grade 11 (H) & American Studies Grade 11 (H), REQUIRED — ONE of the following books:

• All the President's Men, Carl Bernstein, Bob Woodward — Investigation and report of the burglary at Watergate that climaxed with a President's resignation.
• The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Malcolm X — If any one man articulated the anger, the struggle, and the beliefs of African Americans in the 1960s, it was Malcolm X. His autobiography is an established classic of modern America.
• Bad Land: An American Romance, Jonathan Raban — Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, "Bad Land" recounts the exploits of the many homesteaders who came to the prairies of eastern Montana in 1909, drawn by the promise of free land--only to be defeated by a country so arid and unforgiving that maps identified it as the Great American Desert.
• Battle Cry, Leon Uris — A magnificent saga of men at war. U.S. Marine Corps who experience life in the jaws of death.
• The Bean Trees, Barbara Kingsolver — An unforgettable story of love and friendship, abandonment and belonging, and the discovery of surprising resources in apparently empty places, "The Bean Trees" tells the story of Taylor Green, a spirited woman who grew up in rural Kentucky with two goals: to avoid pregnancy and to get away.
• Citizen Soldiers: The U.S. Army from the Normandy Beaches to the Bulge to the Surrender of Germany, June 7, 1944-May 7, 1945, Stephen E. Ambrose — Drawing on hundreds of interviews and oral histories, Ambrose recreates life on the front lines during one of the bloodiest periods of World War II: from D-Day to the surrender of Germany. "The most gripping account of the second World War that I have ever read".--Joseph Heller.
• Dispatches, Michael Herr — One of the best personal journals about war. With uncanny precision, the book sums up the very essence of the Vietnam War—its bitter humor, the dope, the body bags, the rot.
• The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck — First published in 1939, "The Grapes of Wrath" is a landmark of American literature. This Pulitzer Prize-winning epic of the Great Depression chronicles the Dust Bowl migration of the 1930s and tells the story of one Oklahoma farm homestead, the Joads, who are driven off their homestead by the "land companies" and forced to travel west to the promised land of California. A portrait of conflict between the powerful and the powerless, the novel captures the horrors of the Depression and probes the very nature of equality in America.
• Having our Say: the Delany Sisters' First 100 Years, Sarah and A. Elizabeth Delany — Chronicles the experiences of two African-American women growing up in North Carolina at the turn-of-the-century.
• Inherit the Wind, Jerome Lawrence — The powerful classic drama based on the Scopes "monkey trial" of the 1920s--one of the most important legal confrontations of the 20th century.
• The Jungle, Upton Sinclair — A vivid portrait of life and death in a turn-of-the-century American meat-packing factory. A grim indictment that led to government regulations of the food industry.
• The Long Loneliness, Dorothy Day — A compelling autobiographical testament to the spiritual pilgrimage of a woman who, in her own words, dedicated herself "to bringing about the kind of society where it is easier to be good."
• My Antonia, Willa Cather — Willa Cather's masterful portrait of prairie culture, based on her own life. Against Nebraska's panoramic landscape, Cather recreates the life of an immigrant girl who becomes, in the memories of narrator Jim Burden, the epitome of strong and dignified womanhood.
• O Pioneers!, Willa Cather — O Pioneers!, Willa Cather's second novel, tells the story of an immigrant family's struggle to save their Nebraska farm. Cather's placement of a strong and capable woman at the center of the story, her realistic depiction of life on the Midwestern prairie, and her vivid portrayal of the immigrant experience at the turn of the century make O Pioneers! a true American classic.
• The Octopus, Frank Norris — This is a turn-of-the-century epic of California wheat farmers struggling against the rapacity of the Pacific and Southwestern Railroad, which will stop at nothing to extend its domination. The company controls the local paper, the land, the legislature and, when the farmers organize to protect themselves, even manages to control their representative on the state rate-fixing commission. An unremitting tale of greed and betrayal, originally intended as one-third of Norris' never-completed "Epic of the Wheat" trilogy.
• The Rough Riders, Theodore Roosevelt — History of the Spanish-American War largely based on the records of Theodore Roosevelt, who trained and led the Rough Riders during the war.
• A Rumor of War, Philip Caputo — The classic Vietnam memoir, as relevant today as it was almost thirty years ago. In March of 1965, Marine Lieutenant Philip J. Caputo landed at Da Nang with the first ground combat unit deployed to Vietnam. Sixteen months later, having served on the line in one of modern history's ugliest wars, he returned home--physically whole but emotionally wasted, his youthful idealism forever gone. A Rumor of War is more than one soldier's story. Upon its publication in 1977, it shattered America's indifference to the fate of the men sent to fight in the jungles of Vietnam. In the years since then, it has become not only a basic text on the Vietnam War but also a renowned classic in the literature of wars throughout history and, as Caputo explains, of "the things men do in war and the things war does to men."
• Slaughterhouse-Five, or, The Children's Crusade: a Duty-dance with Death, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. — One of the world's great antiwar books, an American classic, centering on the infamous firebombing of Dresden, Billy Pilgrim's odyssey through time reflects the mythic journey of our own fractured lives as we search for meaning in what we fear most.
• The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness, Simon Wiesenthal — In this volume, divided into two sections, Wiesenthal tackles the question of the possibilities and limits of forgiveness. The first part relates the story of how Wiesenthal, as a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp, was brought before a dying SS trooper, who explained his actions and asked for forgiveness, which Wiesenthal could not bring himself to bestow. In the second section, Wiesenthal presents the story to an array of leading intellectuals and asks, "What would you have done?" This edition contains all the original responses plus additional ones from Primo Levi, Cynthia Ozick, Albert Speer, and others. Heavy stuff.
• Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Robert Kennedy — A recounting of the details of John Kennedy's direction of the American response to the Cuban missile crisis.

U.S. History Grade 11, REQUIRED — Any ONE work from History 11 (H) list or ONE of the following books:

• Habibi, Naomi Shihab Nye — In this award-winning first novel by the acclaimed poet, a 14-year-old Arab-American girl moves to Jerusalem and falls in love with a Jewish boy — challenging her family, culture, and tradition.
• Forbidden City, William Bell — Contemporary adventure story about a teenage Canadian boy and his father swept up in the recent student revolt in China.
• The Ox-Bow Incident, Walter Van Tilburg Clark — Set in 1885, The Ox-Bow Incident is a searing and realistic portrait of frontier life and mob violence in the American West. First published in 1940, it focuses on the lynching of three innocent men and the tragedy that ensues when law and order are abandoned. The result is an emotionally powerful, vivid, and unforgettable re-creation of the Western novel, which Clark transmuted into a universal story about good and evil, individual and community, justice and human nature. As Wallace Stegner writes, Clark's theme was civilization, and he recorded, indelibly, its first steps in a new country.
• Rosa Parks: My Story, Rosa Parks with James Haskins — "The only tired I was, was tired of giving in". These are the simple yet eloquent words of Rosa Parks, who on December 1, 1955, refused to give up her seat to a white man on a segregated bus, sparking the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott. Written in her own straightforward and moving language, this is her compelling story.
• Shane, Jack Schaefer — Schaefer's classic novel illuminates the spirit of the West through the eyes of a young boy and a hero who changes the lives of everyone around him. Shane, a stranger the Starretts take into their home in Wyoming in 1889, becomes involved in a feud between the cattle ranger and the local homesteaders.

U.S. History Grade 10 (H), REQUIRED — ONE of the following books:

• American Jezebel: The Uncommon Life of Anne Hutchinson, the Woman Who Defied the Puritans, Eve LaPlante — This engaging biography of Anne Hutchinson, the early American rebel and "first feminist," explores religious, political, and moral conflict in the formative years of U.S. history.
• Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West, Dee Brown — Traces the white man's conquest of the Indians of the American West, emphasizing the causes, events, and effects of the major Indian Wars leading to the symbolic end of Indian freedom at Wounded Knee.
• Classic American Autobiographies, William L. Andrews, ed. — The true diversity of the American experience comes to life in this superlative collection that includes autobiographies of Mark Twain, Benjamin Franklin, and Frederick Douglass.
• Cold Mountain, Charles Frazier — Winner of the 1997 National Book Award, Frazier has created a masterpiece that is at once an enthralling adventure, a stirring love story, and a luminous evocation of a vanished land, a place where savagery coexists with splendor and human beings contend with the inhuman solitude of the wilderness. A magnificent love story in the tradition of Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms. Based on true stories passed down from the author's great-great-grandfather, Cold Mountain is set at the end of the Civil War and tells the tale of a wounded soldier and his perilous journey home from the front.
• Confederates in the Attic : Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War, Tony Horwitz — Tony Horwitz, a former war correspondent, tells of his journeys to Civil War battlefields and the colorful people he meets along the way.
• The Education of Little Tree, Forrest Carter — The controversial memoir of a Cherokee boyhood in the 1930s. The most sensitive and evocative autobiographical account ever of the Cherokee way, as seen through the eyes of a young boy in the Appalachian Mountains.
• Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation, Joseph J. Ellis — From the author of American Sphinx, the award-winning biography of Thomas Jefferson, comes an illuminating study of the intertwined lives of the founders of the American republic — John Adams, Aaron Burr, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and George Washington.
• In Our Defense: The Bill of Rights in Action, Ellen Alderman, Caroline Kennedy — The Bill of Rights defines and defends the freedoms we enjoy as Americans -- from the right to bear arms to the right to a civil jury. Using the dramatic true stories of people whose lives have been deeply affected by such issues as the death penalty and the right to privacy, attorneys Ellen Alderman and Caroline Kennedy reveal how the majestic principles of the Bill of Rights have taken shape in the lives of ordinary people, as well as the historic and legal significance of each amendment. In doing so, they shed brilliant new light on this visionary document, which remains as vital and as controversial today as it was when a great nation was newly born.
• Indian Givers: How the Indians of the Americas Transformed the World, Jack Weatherford — In a fascinating new look at the Indians of North and South America, Indian Givers proves these people were instrumental in shaping world culture--from the monetary system to our diets to political organizations and our beliefs.
• The Killer Angels, Michael Shaara — The Battle of Gettysburg was fought for two dreams — freedom, and a way of life. Memories, promises, and love were carried into the battle but what fell was shattered futures, forgotten innocence, and crippled beauty. This fictional account of four days in July, 1863 at the Battle of Gettysburg discusses tactics, plans, and preparations for battle from both the Northern and Southern points of view.
• The Kingdom of Matthias: a Story of Sex and Salvation in 19Th-Century America, Paul E. Johnson, Sean Wilentz — In the autumn of 1834, New York City was awash with rumors of a strange religious cult operating nearby, centered around a mysterious, self-styled prophet named Matthias. It was said that Matthias the Prophet was stealing money from one of his followers; then came reports of lascivious sexual relations, based on odd teachings of matched spirits, apostolic priesthoods, and the inferiority of women. At its climax, the rumors transformed into legal charges, as the Prophet was arrested for the murder of a once highly-regarded Christian gentleman who had fallen under his sway. By the time the story played out, it became one of the nation's first penny-press sensations, casting a peculiar but revealing light on the sexual and spiritual tensions of the day.
• Northwest Passage, Kenneth Lewis Roberts — Presents a fictionalized account of Major Robert Rogers' 1759 expedition to wipe out the Indian town of St. Francis, and his search for the water route to the Northwest--based on Rogers' own writings.

U.S. History Grade 10, REQUIRED — Any ONE work from the U.S. History 10 (H) list above or ONE of the following books:

• Across Five Aprils, Irene Hunt — The unforgettable story of young Jethro Creighton, who comes of age during the turbulent years of the Civil War, by the Newbery Award-winning author of Up a Road Slowly.
• Bull Run, Paul Fleischman — In this brilliant fictional tour de force that can be read as a novel or performed as readers' theater, Newbery Award-winning author Paul Fleischman recreates the first great battle of the Civil War from the points of view of 16 participants — Northern and Southern, male and female, black and white.
• Dances With Wolves, Michael Blake — Lieutenant John Dunbar arrived at Fort Sedgewick anxious to be a good U.S. soldier. Instead, he found himself charmed by the Comanche people and, before he knew it, became one of them, loving an Indian woman and going by a new name, Dances with Wolves.
• Little House on the Prairie, Laura Ingalls Wilder — The adventures continue for Laura Ingalls and her family as they leave their little house in the Big Woods of Wisconsin and set out for Kansas. They travel for many days in their covered wagon until they find the best spot to build their little house on the prairie. Soon they are planting and plowing, hunting wild ducks and turkeys, and gathering grass for their cows. Sometimes pioneer life is hard, but Laura and her folks are always busy and happy in their new little house.
• Tituba of Salem Village, Ann Petry — In the Salem Village of 1692, superstition and hysteria peaked with the Salem witch trials. One of the first three "witches" condemned is Tituba, a slave from Barbados. "This restrained but dramatic narrative . . . brings to life not only Tituba but also those around her, and shows how suspicion against her culminated in her arrest and trial". — Booklist.
• Wolf by the Ears, Ann Rinaldi — Harriet Hemings, rumored to be the daughter of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, one of his black slaves, struggles with the problems facing her--to escape from the velvet cage that is Monticello, or to stay, and thus remain a slave. "Tantalizing . . . history brought to life by a skillful and imaginative author".--VOYA. An ALA Best Book for Young Adults.

Humanities — Grade 9 (Honors English/Social Studies) — See Mr. Stiles and Mrs. Stefanakos's Memo

• REQUIRED — Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes, Edith Hamilton — (selections noted on handout)
• REQUIRED — ONE of the following books:
  • Of Nightingales That Weep, Katherine Paterson — The daughter of a samurai never weeps, but Takiko, whose father was killed in battle, finds this a hard rule. When her beauty and voice captivate a young warrior at the imperial Japanese court, Takiko finds she cannot run away from her samurai honor.
  • The Chosen, Chaim Potok — In 1940s Brooklyn, New York, an accident throws Reuven Malther and Danny Saunders together. Despite their differences (Reuven is a Modern Orthodox Jew with an intellectual, Zionist father; Danny is the brilliant son and rightful heir to a Hasidic rebbe), the young men form a deep, if unlikely, friendship. Together they negotiate adolescence, family conflicts, the crisis of faith engendered when Holocaust stories begin to emerge in the U.S., loss, love, and the journey to adulthood. The intellectual and spiritual clashes between fathers, between each son and his own father, and between the two young men, provide a unique backdrop for this exploration of fathers, sons, faith, loyalty, and, ultimately, the power of love.
  • 1984, George Orwell — Novel by George Orwell, published in 1949 as a warning about the menaces of totalitarianism. The novel is set in an imaginary future world that is dominated by three perpetually warring totalitarian police states. The book's hero, Winston Smith, is a minor party functionary in one of these states. His longing for truth and decency leads him to secretly rebel against the government. Smith has a love affair with a like-minded woman, but they are both arrested by the Thought Police. The ensuing imprisonment, torture, and reeducation of Smith are intended not merely to break him physically or make him submit but to root out his independent mental existence and his spiritual dignity. Orwell's warning of the dangers of totalitarianism made a deep impression on his contemporaries and upon subsequent readers, and the book's title and many of its coinages, such as NEWSPEAK, became bywords for modern political abuses.
  • Shabanu, Daughter of the Wind, Suzanne Fisher Staples — Life is both sweet and cruel to strong-willed young Shabanu, whose home is the windswept Cholistan Desert of Pakistan. The second daughter in a family with no sons, she’s been allowed freedoms forbidden to most Muslim girls. But when a tragic encounter with a wealthy and powerful landowner ruins the marriage plans of her older sister, Shabanu is called upon to sacrifice everything she’s dreamed of. Should she do what is necessary to uphold her family’s honor—or listen to the stirrings of her own heart?

World History Grade 9 (H), REQUIRED — ONE of the following books:

• Catherine Called Birdy, Karen Cushman — Set against a backdrop of life on a medieval manor, here is a young girl's account of her 14th year. Catherine feels trapped because her father is determined to marry her off to a rich man. By wit, trickery, and luck, she manages to send several would-be husbands packing. Then comes a man from the north--the oldest, the ugliest, and the richest. Newbery Medal winner; ALA 1995 Best Books of 1995; ALA 1995 Best Books for Young Adults.
• Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith, and Love, Dava Sobel — While Galileo Galilei was under house arrest, accused of heresy for his claim that the earth revolved around the sun, his daughter Virginia, a cloistered nun, proved to be her father's greatest source of strength through the difficult years of his trial and persecution. Winner of the Christopher Award and named a Notable Book of the Year by The New York Times.
• Greek Drama, Moses Hadas — In power, passion, and the brilliant display of moral conflict, the drama of ancient Greece remains unsurpassed. For this volume, Professor Hadas chose nine plays which display the diversity and grandeur of tragedy, and the critical and satiric genius of comedy, in outstanding translations of the past and present. His introduction explores the religious origins, modes of productions, structure, and conventions of the Greek theater, individual prefaces illuminate each play and clarify the author's place in the continuity of Greek drama.
• The Guns of August, Barbara Tuchman — Historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Barbara Tuchman has brought to life again the people and events that led up to Worl War I. With attention to fascinating detail, and an intense knowledge of her subject and its characters, Ms. Tuchman reveals, for the first time, just how the war started, why, and why it could have been stopped but wasn't. A classic historical survey of a time and a people we all need to know more about, The Guns of August will not be forgotten.
• Hiroshima, John Hersey — On August 6, 1945, an atomic bomb destroyed the city of Hiroshima, Japan. This book, a masterpiece by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist John Hersey, reveals what happened on that day. Told through the memories of six survivors, it is a timeless, powerful, and compassionate document "that stirs the conscience of humanity." (The New York Times) One hundred thousand people were killed in Hiroshima when the bomb dropped. Miraculously, these six survived: a Jesuit priest, a surgeon, a desk clerk, a Methodist pastor, a physician, and a tailor's widow. Their stories reveal the extraordinary courage, unearthly terror, and devastating loss of the few who emerged, alive, from the shattered ruins of the city. Forty years after the original publication of this celebrated classic, John Hersey returned to Hiroshima to find the survivors he interviewed--and to tell you their fates. What he discovered is now the eloquent and moving final chapter of Hiroshima.
• Longitude: the True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time, Dava Sobel — During the great age of exploration, the "longitude problem" was the gravest of scientific challenges. Without the ability to determine longitude, sailors and their ships were lost at sea as soon as they lost sight of land. In 1714, desperate for a solution, England's Parliament offered 20,000 pounds (the equivalent of millions of dollars today) to anyone who could solve the problem. With all the skill and storytelling ability of a great novelist, Dava Sobel captures the dramatic story at the heart of this epic scientific quest.
• Murder in the Cathedral, T.S. Eliot — A dramatization in verse of the murder of Thomas Becket at Canterbury. "The theatre as well as the church is enriched by this poetic play of grave beauty and momentous decision" (The New York Times). "Within its limits the play is a masterpiece.... Mr. Eliot has written no better poem than this and none which seems simpler" (Mark Van Doren, The Nation).
• The Midwife's Apprentice, Karen Cushman — "Like Cushman's 1995 Newbery Honor Book, Catherine, Called Birdy, this novel is about a strong young woman in medieval England who finds her own way home. . . . From the first page, (readers) are caught by the spirit of the homeless, nameless waif . . . (who) gets the village midwife to take her in, names herself Alyce, and learns something about delivering babies. . . ".--ALA "Booklist", starred review. 1996 Newbery Medal Winner. "School Library Journal" Best Books of the Year, 1995. ABA Pick of the Lists, 1995. A 1996 ALA Notable Children's Book. A 1996 ALA Best Books for Young Adults.
• 1984, George Orwell — (If not used as an English selection.) This great modern classic of "Negative Utopia" — the gray world dominated by Big Brother and his vast network of agents suffocating freedom in a totalitarian world — grows eerily more and more accurate every day.
• The Chosen, Chaim Potok — (If not used as an English selection.) In 1940s Brooklyn, New York, an accident throws Reuven Malther and Danny Saunders together. Despite their differences (Reuven is a Modern Orthodox Jew with an intellectual, Zionist father; Danny is the brilliant son and rightful heir to a Hasidic rebbe), the young men form a deep, if unlikely, friendship. Together they negotiate adolescence, family conflicts, the crisis of faith engendered when Holocaust stories begin to emerge in the U.S., loss, love, and the journey to adulthood. The intellectual and spiritual clashes between fathers, between each son and his own father, and between the two young men, provide a unique backdrop for this exploration of fathers, sons, faith, loyalty, and, ultimately, the power of love.

World History Grade 9, REQUIRED — Any ONE work from the World History 9 (H) list above or ONE of the following books:

• Inside the Walls of Troy: A Novel of the Women Who Lived the Trojan War, Clemence McLaren — Helen and Cassandra, two legendary women of Greek mythology, grippingly relate the dramatic, romantic story of the Trojan War as they lived it. Through their eyes, the classic tale of the Trojan War is retold in an immediate and fascinating way.
• The Chronicles of Narnia (one book), C.S. Lewis — THE MAGICIAN'S NEPHEW; THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE; THE HORSE AND HIS BOY; PRINCE CASPIAN; THE VOYAGE OF THE DAWN TREADER; THE SILVER CHAIR; THE LAST BATTLE. Deceptively simple and direct, The Chronicles of Narnia continue to captivate fans with adventures, characters, and truths that speak to readers of all ages, more than fifty years after they were first published.

Practical English students, REQUIRED — Any ONE work from History 9 list above or ONE of the following books:

• Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes, Eleanor Coerr — Based on a true story, young Sadako faces the battle of her life when she is diagnosed with "atomic bomb disease" (leukemia). She turns to her native Japanese beliefs and makes one thousand paper cranes so the gods will grant her wish to be well.
• The Land I Lost: Adventures of a Boy in Vietnam, Huynh Quang Nhuong — The author lived in a hamlet in the central highlands of Vietnam, surrounded by jungle on one side and a river on the other, where he and the villagers encountered animals daily--some easily tamed, others, like tigers and wild hogs, which were terribly dangerous. "This first-person narrative brims with life." — School Library Journal.
• Red Scarf Girl: A Memoir of the Cultural Revolution, Ji-Li Jiang — An outstanding student and much admired leader of her class, Ji-Li Jiang was poised for a shining future in the Communist party until the Cultural Revolution of 1966. Told with simplicity, innocence and grace, this unforgettable memoir gives a child's eye view of a terrifying time in 20th-century history — and of one family's indomitable courage under fire. ALA 1998 Notable Children's Book; ALA 1998 Best Books for Young Adults.
• A Single Shard, Linda Sue Park — Tree-ear, an orphan, has become fascinated with the potters' craft; he wants nothing more than to watch master potter Min at work, and he dreams of making a pot of his own someday. When Min takes on Tree-ear as his helper, Tree-ear is elated — until he finds obstacles in his path: the backbreaking labor of digging and hauling clay, Min's irascible temper, and his own ignorance. However, Tree-ear is determined to prove himself.
• Torn Thread, Anne Isaacs — Based on the true story of the author's own family. Twelve-year-old Eva and her sister are imprisoned by the Nazis in a Czechoslovakian labor camp. There they must spin thread to make clothing for the Nazis. Eva struggles to save her life and that of her sick sister while striving to create a home and family amidst inhumanity and chaos.
• Star Fisher, Laurence Yep — It is 1927, and fifteen-year-old Joan Lee and her family find the adjustment hard when they move from Ohio to West Virginia and become the first Chinese-Americans their new town has ever seen.

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