Brooklyn Prospect 2014 Summer Reading Guide
for Rising 9th Graders
Dear Rising 9th Graders,
Below is your Summer Reading Guide. These books have been selected by your
librarian and your teachers and include a variety of subjects. We have a limited number
of copies of these titles in our school library (so you can check them out for the
summer), and they are also available at the Brooklyn Public Library and local
bookstores.
 You must read A LONG WAY HOME by Saroo Brierley. After you have finished
reading the book, complete the assignments, print them out, and bring them to
school on Friday, September 5th.
 You must read at least two of the other suggested books below (your choice).
After you have finished reading these books, answer the discussion questions for
each book. You will need to print out your answers and bring them to school on
Friday, September 5th.
Happy Summer & Happy Reading!
Ms. Gallager, Librarian & the 9th Grade Team
REQUIRED BOOK:
A LONG WAY HOME
A Memoir
By Saroo Brierley
At only five years old, Saroo
Brierley got lost on a train in
India. Unable to read or write
or recall the name of his
hometown or even his own
last name, he survived alone
for weeks on the rough
streets of Calcutta before
ultimately being transferred to
an agency and adopted by a
couple in Australia. Despite his gratitude, Brierley always wondered
about his origins. Eventually, with the advent of Google Earth, he had
the opportunity to look for the needle in a haystack he once called
home, and pore over satellite images for landmarks he might recognize
or mathematical equations that might further narrow down the labyrinthine map of India. One day, after
years of searching, he miraculously found what he was looking for and set off to find his family.
“Homeward Bound”
Vanity Fair article
SUGGESTED FICTION BOOKS:
THE QUEEN OF WATER
By Laura Resau
Born in an Andean village in Ecuador, Virginia lives with her large family
in a small, earthen-walled dwelling. In her village of indígenas, it is not
uncommon to work in the fields all day, even as a child, or to be called a
longa tonta—stupid Indian—by members of the ruling class of mestizos,
or Spanish descendants. When seven-year-old Virginia is taken from
her village to be a servant to a mestizo couple, she has no idea what
the future holds. In this poignant novel based on a true story, acclaimed
author Laura Resau has collaborated with María Virginia Farinango to
recount one girl's unforgettable journey to self-discovery.
Author’s website
ARISTOTLE AND DANTE DISCOVER
THE SECRETS OF THE UNIVERSE
By Benjamin Alire Sáenz
Aristotle is an angry teen with a brother in prison. Dante is a know-it-all who
has an unusual way of looking at the world. When the two meet at the
swimming pool, they seem to have nothing in common. But as the loners
start spending time together, they discover that they share a special
friendship—the kind that changes lives and lasts a lifetime. And it is through
this friendship that Ari and Dante will learn the most important truths about
themselves and the kind of people they want to be.
Author interview with SLJ
GOING BOVINE
By Libba Bray
All 16-year-old Cameron wants is to get through high school—and life in
general—with a minimum of effort. It’s not a lot to ask. But that’s before
he’s given some bad news: he’s sick and he’s going to die. Hope arrives
in the winged form of Dulcie, a loopy punk angel/possible hallucination
with a bad sugar habit. She tells Cam there is a cure—if he’s willing to
go in search of it. With the help of a death-obsessed, video-gaming
dwarf and a yard gnome, Cam sets off on the mother of all road trips
through a twisted America into the heart of what matters most.
Author’s website
THE FUTURE OF US
By Jay Asher & Carolyn Mackler
What if you could see how your life would unfold--just by clicking a
button? It's 1996, and less than half of all American high school
students have ever used the Internet. Emma just got her first computer
and an America Online CD-ROM. Josh is her best friend. They power
up and log on--and discover themselves on Facebook, fifteen years in
the future. Everybody wonders what their destiny will be. Josh and
Emma are about to find out.
Book trailer
NATION
By Terry Pratchett
When a giant wave destroys his village, Mau is the only one left. Daphne—a
traveler from the other side of the globe—is the sole survivor of a shipwreck.
Separated by language and customs, the two are united by catastrophe.
Slowly, they are joined by other refugees. And as they struggle to protect the
small band, Mau and Daphne defy ancestral spirits, challenge death himself,
and uncover a long-hidden secret that literally turns the world upside down.
Dramatization by the National Theatre of London
A BEAUTIFUL LIE
By Irfan Master
An extraordinarily rich debut novel, set in India in 1947 at the time of
Partition. Although the backdrop is this key event in Indian history, the
novel is even more far-reaching, touching on the importance of
tolerance, love and family. The main character is Bilal, a boy
determined to protect his dying father from the news of Partition - news
that he knows will break his father's heart. With great spirit and
determination, and with the help of his good friends, Bilal persuades
others to collude with him in this deception, even printing false pages of
the local newspaper to hide the ravages of unrest from his father. All
that Bilal wants is for his father to die in peace. But that means Bilal has
a very complicated relationship with the truth…
Author’s website
WOLF MARK
By Joseph Bruchac
Luke King knows a lot of things. Like four different ways to disarm an
enemy before the attacker can take a breath. Like every detail of every
book he’s ever read. And Luke knows enough—just enough—about
what his father does as a black ops infiltrator to know which questions
not to ask. Luke hopes that this time, he’ll finally have a normal life.
He’ll be able to ask out the girl he likes. He’ll hang out with his friends.
He’ll be invisible—just as he wants. But when his dad goes missing,
Luke realizes that life will always be different for him. Suddenly he must
avoid his father’s kidnappers, while at the same time evading the
attention of a mysterious clique of Russian hipsters, who seem much
too interested in Luke’s own personal secret. Faced with multiple
challenges and his emerging paranormal identity, Luke must decide
who to trust as he creates his own destiny.
Author interview
MISS PEREGRINE’S HOME
FOR PECULIAR CHILDREN
By Ransom Riggs
Jacob Portman should feel lucky. He belongs to one of the richest families
in Florida. Unfortunately, he just doesn't fit in — not in school or even in his
own family. The only person he does have a connection with is his
grandfather, who entertains him by sharing eerie old photographs and
telling stories about evil monsters. As Jacob gets older, he learns to dismiss
his grandfather's stories as crazy ramblings, until his grandfather is killed
under mysterious circumstances and his stories begin to seem all too real.
Soon Jacob is on a real-life ghost hunt to investigate his grandfather's
childhood that takes him across the world to an abandoned orphanage in
Wales. Does freakiness run in the family?
Movie trailer
DOES MY HEAD LOOK BIG IN THIS?
By Randa Abdel-Fattah
Sixteen-year-old Amal makes the decision to start wearing the hijab
full- time and everyone has a reaction. Her parents, her teachers, her
friends, people on the street. But she stands by her decision to
embrace her faith and all that it is, even if it does make her a little
different from everyone else. Can she handle the taunts of "towel
head," the prejudice of her classmates, and still attract the cutest boy in
school?
Book trailer
THE BERLIN BOXING CLUB
By Robert Sharenow
Karl Stern has never thought of himself as a Jew; after all, he's never
even been in a synagogue. But the bullies at his school in Nazi-era
Berlin don't care that Karl's family doesn't practice religion. Demoralized
by their attacks against a heritage he doesn't accept as his own, Karl
longs to prove his worth. Then Max Schmeling, champion boxer and
German hero, makes a deal with Karl's father to give Karl boxing
lessons. But when Nazi violence against Jews escalates, Karl must
take on a new role: family protector. As Max's boxing fame forces him
to associate with Nazi elites, Karl begins to wonder where his hero's
sympathies truly lie. Can Karl balance his boxing dreams with his
obligation to keep his family out of harm's way?
Book trailer
THIRTEEN REASONS WHY
By Jay Asher
Clay Jensen returns home from school to find a strange package with
his name on it lying on his porch. Inside he discovers several cassette
tapes recorded by Hannah Baker - his classmate and crush - who
committed suicide two weeks earlier. Hannah's voice tells him that
there are thirteen reasons why she decided to end her life. Clay is one
of them. If he listens, he'll find out why. Clay spends the night
crisscrossing his town with Hannah as his guide. He becomes a
firsthand witness to Hannah's pain, and learns the truth about himself-a
truth he never wanted to face.
Book trailer
THINGS FALL APART
By Chinua Achebe
Things Fall Apart tells two intertwining stories, both centering on
Okonkwo, a “strong man” of an Ibo village in Nigeria. The first, a
powerful fable of the immemorial conflict between the individual and
society, traces Okonkwo’s fall from grace with the tribal world. The
second, as modern as the first is ancient, concerns the clash of cultures
and the destruction of Okonkwo's world with the arrival of aggressive
European missionaries. These perfectly harmonized twin dramas are
informed by an awareness capable of encompassing at once the life of
nature, human history, and the mysterious compulsions of the soul.
Short doc about book
THE PIGMAN
By Paul Zindel
For sophomores John and Lorraine, the world feels meaningless; nothing
is important. They certainly can never please their parents, and school is
a chore. To pass the time, they play pranks on unsuspecting people. It's
during one of these pranks that they meet the "Pigman"--a fat, balding old
man with a zany smile plastered on his face. In spite of themselves, John
and Lorraine soon find that they're caught up in Mr. Pignati's zest for life.
In fact, they become so involved that they begin to destroy the only
corner of the world that's ever mattered to them.
Movie trailer
SUGGESTED NON-FICTION BOOKS:
HIROSHIMA
By John Hersey
On August 6, 1945, Hiroshima was destroyed by the first atom bomb ever
dropped on a city. This book, John Hersey's journalistic masterpiece, tells
what happened on that day. Told through the memories of survivors, this
timeless, powerful and compassionate document has become a classic "that
stirs the conscience of humanity" -- The New York Times. Almost four
decades after the original publication of this celebrated book, John Hersey
went back to Hiroshima in search of the people whose stories he had
told. His account of what he discovered about them is now the eloquent and
moving final chapter of the book.
Book trailer
CODE NAME PAULINE:
Memoirs of a WWII Special Agent
By Pearl Witherington Cornioley
Pearl Witherington Cornioley, one of the most celebrated female World
War II resistance fighters, shares her remarkable story in this firsthand
account of her experience as a special agent for the British Special
Operations Executive (SOE). Told through a series of reminiscences—
from a difficult childhood spent in the shadow of World War I and her
family’s harrowing escape from France as the Germans approached in
1940 to her recruitment and training as a special agent and the logistics
of parachuting into a remote rural area of occupied France and hiding in
a wheat field from enemy fire.
BBC piece on Pearl
CHARLES AND EMMA:
The Darwins’ Leap of Faith
By Deborah Heiligman
Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species, his revolutionary tract
on evolution and the fundamental ideas involved, in 1859. Nearly 150
years later, the theory of evolution continues to create tension between
the scientific and religious communities. Challenges about teaching the
theory of evolution in schools occur annually all over the country. This
same debate raged within Darwin himself, and played an important part
in his marriage: his wife, Emma, was quite religious, and her faith gave
Charles a lot to think about as he worked on a theory that continues to
spark intense debates.
Book trailer
BOOTLEG:
Murder, Moonshine, and the
Lawless Years of Prohibition
By Karen Blumenthal
Worried about the effects of alcohol on American families, mothers and
civic leaders started a movement to outlaw drinking in public places.
Over time, their protests, petitions, and activism paid off—when a
Constitutional Amendment banning the sale and consumption of alcohol
was ratified. It also began a decade of lawlessness, the most upright
citizens casually broke the law, and a host of notorious gangsters
entered the public eye.
Book trailer
ROCKET BOYS
By Homer H. Hickham, Jr.
14-year-old Homer Hickam decided in 1957 to build his own rockets.
They were his ticket out of Coalwood, West Virginia, a mining town that
everyone knew was dying. Hickam's smart, iconoclastic mother wanted
her son to become something more than a miner and, along with a
female science teacher, encouraged the efforts of his grandiosely
named Big Creek Missile Agency. He grew up to be a NASA engineer
and his memoir of the bumpy ride toward a gold medal at the National
Science Fair in 1960--an unprecedented honor for a miner's kid--is rich
in humor as well as warm sentiment.
Movie trailer
MINECRAFT:
The Unlikely Tale of Markus "Notch" Persson
and the Game that Changed Everything
By Daniel Goldberg
A completely unique and in-depth look at the creator of Minecraft,
Markus "Notch" Persson, and his rise from unknown computer
programmer to multi-millionaire international gaming icon. Minecraft,
the "virtual Lego" game Markus crafted in his free time, has become
one of the most talked about activities since Tetris. Talked about by
tens of millions of people, in fact. It is the story of unlikely success, fast
money, and the power of digital technology to rattle an empire. And it
is about creation, exclusion, and the feeling of not fitting in.
Author Interview
WE BEAT THE STREET
How a Friendship Pact Led to Success
By Sampson Davis, George Jenkins, and Rameck Hunt
Growing up on the rough streets of Newark, New Jersey, Rameck,
George,and Sampson could easily have followed their childhood friends
into drug dealing, gangs, and prison. But when a presentation at their
school made the three boys aware of the opportunities available to them in
the medical and dental professions, they made a pact among themselves
that they would become doctors. It took a lot of determination—and a lot
of support from one another—but despite all the hardships along the way,
the three succeeded.
Book trailer
A LONG WAY GONE:
Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
By Ishmael Beah
This is how wars are fought now: by children, hopped-up on drugs and
wielding AK-47s. Children have become soldiers of choice. In the more
than fifty conflicts going on worldwide, it is estimated that there are
some 300,000 child soldiers. Ishmael Beah used to be one of them.
What is war like through the eyes of a child soldier? How does one
become a killer? How does one stop? Child soldiers have been profiled
by journalists, and novelists have struggled to imagine their lives. But
until now, there has not been a first-person account from someone
who came through this hell and survived.
Book trailer