9th grade ARCO suggestions

Anonymous. Beowulf. In this adventurous Old English epic poem, Beowulf overcomes monsters and slays a fire breathing dragon. The poem is based on Norse legends and historical events of the sixth century.

Baldwin, James. Go Tell It on the Mountain. This semi-autobiographical novel about a fourteen-year-old black youth's religious conversion is based on Baldwin's experience as a young storefront preacher in Harlem.

Carroll, Lewis. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. This is a fantasy in which Alice follows the White Rabbit to a dream world. There are many satirical analogies to the political institutions of Carroll's time.

Cather, Willa. My Antonia. This is a realistic novel about immigrant pioneers as they strive to adapt to the Nebraska prairies. It is the story of the struggles of Antonia and other women who are strengthened by the harsh realities of life.

Crane, Stephen. The Red Badge of Courage. This Civil War novel, which Crane called "a psychological portrayal of fear," reveals the grim aspects of war in the life of an ordinary soldier. Henry Fleming joins the army full of romantic visions of battle which are shattered by combat.

Defoe, Daniel. Robinson Crusoe. Based on the true story of Alexander Selkirk's sea experiences, this novel is about the adventures of a man who spends 24 years on an isolated island. With the help of an islander who he names Friday, Crusoe shows courage and ingenuity in meeting the challenges of his predicament.

Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. This is a novel in which a young man corrupts himself and the American dream in order to regain a lost love.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter. This is a novel about an adulterous Puritan woman who keeps secret the identity of the father of her illegitimate child. Her sin and the secret sin of the father are dwarfed by the vengefulness of her husband.

Homer. The Odyssey. This epic depicts Odysseus's ordeals after the Trojan War as he tries for ten years to return home to Ithaca. On his journey he faces the dangers of the Cyclops, the Sirens, Circe, and others.

James, Henry. The Turn of the Screw. This novella is a study of good and evil in which the children are the pawns. A governess in charge of two children discovers they are under the evil influence of ghosts and attempts to save them.

Orwell,George. Animal Farm. In this classic satire of communism, the pigs lead the other farm animals in a revolution against the humans, setting up their own government where "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."

Poe, Edgar Allan. The Cask of Amontillado. Poe is considered the father of mystery stories and a master of supernatural tales. This tale describes the ingenious plan a man carries out to murder his enemy.

Swift, Jonathan. Gulliver's Travels. This satire on mankind describes an eighteenth century Englishman's visit to foreign lands populated by bizarre creatures who illuminate many of the vices and weaknesses of his society.

Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. In this novel, Huck takes a trip down the river with a runaway slave and learns the worth of life.

10th grade English selections

Dumas, Alexandre. The Count of Monte Cristo. A man, unjustly accused, is imprisoned for fifteen years. He manages to escape and recovers his dead cellmate's treasure. Then, he sets out to punish his enemies and reward his friends.

Hemingway, Ernest. The Old Man and the Sea. In this short novel, a Cuban fisherman shows courage when he encounters a gigantic marlin.

Hesse, Hermann. Siddhartha. Based on the early life of Buddha, a rich young man, bored with life and full of despair, comes to a river where he discovers the beginning of peace and, finally, wisdom.

Hugo, Victor. The Hunchback of Notre Dame. France at the beginning of the Renaissance is the setting for this novel of a hunchback caretaker in the cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris.

McKinley, Robin. Beauty: A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast. This novel is the modern version of the classic fairy tale.

Paulsen, Gary. The Island. Fifteen-year-old Wil retreats to an island near his home to get away from his fighting parents and a school bully. Can he live away from the world forever?

Rawlings, Marjorie K. The Yearling. A young boy in rural Florida must make the painful choice between giving up his half-wild pet deer and the starvation of his family.

Wharton, Edith. Ethan Frome. An unhappy, unproductive farmer with a difficult, suspicious wife, takes on a "hired girl" and realizes the possibilities of happiness she comes to represent.

10th grade History selections

Berry, James. Ajeemah and his Son. In 1807, Ajeemah and his son Atu are captured by slave traders in Africa while en route to deliver a dowry to Atu's bride-to-be.

Bowen, Catherine Drinker. Miracle at Philadelphia. This non-fiction book is a very readable account of the Constitutional Convention and its members.

Choi, Sook Nyul. The Year of Impossible Goodbyes. After Sookan and her family survive the Japanese occupation of Korea, they must flee South to escape further oppression.

Greene, Bette. The Summer of My German Soldier. A young British girl during World War II forges a friendship "through the fence" with a German prisoner-of-war.

Haggard, H. Rider. King Solomon's Mines. Customs of nineteenth century African tribes is described as Allan Quartermain goes on a search for the riches of an ancient civilization while an African prince attempts to regain his throne.

Orczy, B. Emma. The Scarlet Pimpernel. An English aristocrat secretly journeys to France to save his peers during the French Revolution.

Remarque, Erich Maria. All Quiet on the Western Front. One of the best novels about war, it details the experiences of a young German soldier in the trenches in the last years of World War I.

Rinaldi, Ann. Wolf By the Ears. Harriet Hemings, believed to be the daughter of Thomas Jefferson and one of his slaves, must adjust between two worlds.

10th grade Science selections

Cooke, Robin. Chromosome 6. In equatorial Africa, a biotechnology giant has taken genetic research to a new level where one mistake can change the genetic map of existence.

Herriot, James. All Creatures Great and Small. This sequel to the memoirs "All Things Bright and Beautiful" continues the adventures of a Yorkshire, England veterinarian as he brings health and aid to his neighbors' stock.

Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. In this bitter satire about the future, Huxley conceives a world controlled by advances in science and social changes. Individuals are no longer important and their lives are planned out for them.

Lawrence, James. The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail. The famous environmentalist spends a night in jail for refusing to pay his taxes to protest the Mexican War.

Lund, Doris. Eric. This novel is a mother's account of her son's struggle for life after his affliction with leukemia at age seventeen.

Preston, Richard. The Hot Zone. The author argues that the emergence of new deadly viruses is the result of the destruction of the rain forests.

Ure, Jean. Plague. Three London teens band together to survive when a deadly plague erupts in the wake of nuclear devastation.

10th grade ARCO suggestions

Balzac, Honore de. A Passion in the Desert. A French soldier, stranded in the desert, tames a panther.

Camus, Albert. The Stranger. This is an existential novel in which a young man, observing rather than participating in life, commits a senseless murder. While in prison awaiting execution, he comes to value life.

Cervantes, Miguel de. Don Quixote. This is a novel in which an eccentric old gentleman setting out as a knight goes "tilting at windmills" to right the wrongs of the world. This work, made up of twelve stories, has been translated into more languages than any other book except the Bible.

Chekov, Anton. A Day in the Country. An old cobbler named Terenty befriends two beggar children who need help and instructs them in the joys of nature.

Dostoevski, Feodor. Crime and Punishment. A poor student who murders an old woman pawnbroker and her sister. After the crime, his conscience bothers him until he confesses. He is sent to Siberia, and finally becomes truly repentant.

Hilton, James. Lost Horizon. Survivors of a plane crash discover the mystical land of Shangri-La, hidden in the Himalayas, where a person's fears and greed dissolve mysteriously into serenity.

Homer. The Iliad. Homer, the famous Ancient Roman writer, recounts the famous Ancient Greek epic about the Trojan War.

Ibsen, Henrick. A Doll's House. In this drama, the main character slams the door and walks out on a marriage based on inequality. Her revolt against her marriage to a selfish, hypocritical man who treats her as a doll rather than an individual gave impetus to the fight for women's rights.

Paton, Alan. Cry the Beloved Country. This novel is about a black minister in South Africa who goes in search of his children and finds them corrupted and destroyed by white society. The roots of both the generational and racial conflicts of black South Africans are explored in this story.

Rolvaag, O.E. Giants in the Earth. A Norwegian family struggles to survive and adapt to the American pioneer life in nineteenth century Minnesota.

Rostand, Edmond. Cyrano De Bergerac. Famous writer De Bergerac writes beautiful verse for other suitors but can not overcome his own ugliness.

Tolstoy, Leo. Anna Karenina. Anna, married to an older aristocrat, falls in love with a dashing Count but can not escape Russian upper class conventions and obtain happiness.

Wiesel, Elie. Night. This memoir describes the gradual evaporation of rights for Jews living in Germany before World War II ending with their deportation to concentration camps.

Wilde, Oscar. The Picture of Dorian Gray. This is the tale of a vain handsome man whose portrait slowly and mysteriously changes with his every cruel act until it becomes a hideous sight. The ending has a special twist.

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11th Grade Summer Reading Selections

11th grade English selections

Barrett, William. Lilies of the Field. A young black man, Homer Smith, helps a group of German nuns realize their dream of building a church in a desert area of the American Southwest.

Benet, Stephen Vincent. The Devil and Daniel Webster. This play is a fantasy in which the famous lawyer must defend a vulnerable farmer from the sneaky "Mr. Scratch."

Burns, Olive. Cold Sassy Tree. Fourteen-year-old Will copes with the humorous scandal of his grandfather marrying a young Yankee bride in turn-of-the-century Georgia.

Crutcher, Chris. Stotan! A high school coach invites members of his swimming team to a memorable week of rigorous training that tests their moral fiber.

Gibson, William. The Miracle Worker. This play relates the true story of how brilliant teacher Annie Sullivan tames the young and wild Helen Keller.

Hansbury, Lorraine. A Raisin in the Sun. In this touching play, the dreams of a black family in Chicago's south side are shared in their attempt to overcome poverty and limited opportunity to buy a home.

Lipsyte, Robert. The Contender. A dropout finds relief from outside pressures at a Harlem boxing center.

Zindel, Paul. The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds. This prize-winning play is about a widow and her two teen-age daughters. For the mother, life is a disappointment and for one daughter, life is a loss of hope. However, the second daughter, inspired by her Science teacher, makes the discovery that there are worlds beyond her harsh reality and learns to cope.

11th grade History selections

Fast, Howard. April Morning. In this novel set in the Civil War, an adolescent boy rapidly enters manhood through his observations, thoughts, and participation during the war.

Hesse, Karen. Letters from Rifka. Rifka, a Jewish refugee from Russia in 1919, shares her hopes for a new life in America through letters to her cousin.

Kennedy, John. Profiles in Courage. This is an award-winning collective biography of Americans who showed the courage of their convictions amid adversity.

Meyers, Carolyn. Where the Broken Heart Still Beats. Captured by Indians as a child, Cynthia must adjust to a new life when reunited with her relatives.

Sinclair, Upton. The Jungle. This novel written in 1905 spearheaded the labor movement and social reform bills. It is a heartbreaking story of an immigrant family's struggle to survive during the early years of the 20th century.

Taylor, Mildred D. Let the Circle Be Unbroken. This is an intense courtroom drama involving the Logan family during the Civil Rights Movement.

Woodward, Bob and Berstein, Carl. All the President's Men. The authors, two reporters from the Washington Post, uncover the plot that becomes the Watergate Scandal.

Voight, Cynthia. The Runner. The Vietnam War is raging and Bullet must cope with community tensions and family pressures.

11th grade Science selections

Crichton, Michael. Jurassic Park. Scientists discover a way to regenerate dinosaurs from DNA. However, even after careful planning on ways to contain the animals, something goes wrong.

Heyerdahl, Thor. Kon-Tiki. This is the true story of an adventurer's journey alone on a raft across the Pacific Ocean to prove migration patterns of Polynesian peoples.

Mowat, Farley. Never Cry Wolf. This is the account of a biologist who spends a year in the Canadian wilderness studying wolves.

Sagan, Carl. Contact. This novel, by the award-winning scientist and novelist, is about a scientist attempting to make contact with another life form despite everyone's skeptism.

Shute, Nevil. On the Beach. This novel is the grim account of the last days of the human race after a nuclear war. A town meets their end with dignity as, one by one, each country is heard from no more.

Stevenson, Robert Louis. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Dr. Jekyll becomes addicted to a drug that changes his complete identity to the cruel Mr. Hyde.

Wells, H. G. The Time Machine. This is the classic story of a man who builds a time machine to travel into the future only to be horrified at the outcome of the human race.

11th grade ARCO suggestions

Faulkner, William. The Sound and the Fury. The theme for this novel is the decline of the Southern family. Presented through five points of view, it examines the deterioration of the Compson family.

Hemingway, Ernest. A Farewell to Arms. In this semi-autobiographical novel that takes place during World War I, an American lieutenant falls in love and runs away with the woman who nurses him to health.

Lewis, Sinclair. Babbitt. This satirical novel is about a middle-class businessman in an average mid-western city. Babbitt becomes a pathetic yet comical character because of his exaggerated sense of his importance.

Malcolm X and Haley, Alex. The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Malcolm X describes his life from a childhood of poverty, time in prison, and the rediscovery of himself as a Black Muslim.

Miller, Arthur. Death of a Salesman. In this drama, a traveling salesman "riding on a smile and a shoeshine" realizes that his dreams will never come true. Unable to cope with the failure of his life, he dies tragically.

Rand, Ayn. The Fountainhead. An architect refuses to compromise his principles while building a huge skyscraper.

Salinger, J. D. The Catcher in the Rye. This is a novel in which a prep school dropout rejects the phoniness he sees all about him. Each generation has embraced this novel as its own.

Steinbeck, John. The Grapes of Wrath. This historical novel is about the desperate flight of tenant farmers from the Midwest during the Great Depression. The Joad family struggles to retain their dignity in the face of the hostility they find in California.

Thoreau, Henry David. Walden. Thoreau, an extreme individualist advised " a man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone." Walden is about the 26 months he spent alone in the woods to "front the essential facts of life."

Walker, Alice. The Color Purple. This novel focuses on the role of male domination by the frustration of a black woman's struggle for independence. A young black girl sees herself as property until another woman teaches her to value herself.

Wharton, Edith. The Age of Innocence. This is a novel about a couple condemned to a loveless marriage by the conventions of their social class.

Wilder, Thornton. Our Town. In this drama, the stage manager speaks directly to the audience from a set bare of props. The play tells the story of two families as they experience daily life, love and marriage, and death.

Williams, Tennessee. The Glass Menagerie. In this drama, a mother dwells on the past and longs to find "a gentleman caller" for her crippled daughter who has withdrawn into the world of her glass animals

Wright, Richard. Native Son. In this novel, Bigger Thomas, a young black man from the Chicago slums, lashes out against a hostile society by committing two murders.

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12th Grade Summer Reading Selections

12th grade English selections

Adams, Richard. Watership Down. A community of rabbits is confronted with the task of finding a new home when their warren is threatened. Survival requires cooperation and perseverance.

Buchan, John. The Thirty-nine Steps. In this mystery thriller, an English hero stops a secret society from assassinating a visiting dignitary.

Doyle, Arthur Conan. The Hound of the Baskervilles. This mystery novel involves strange deaths on the moors near the Baskervilles estate.

DuMaurier, Daphne. Rebecca. A shy, young, new, bride of a rich Englishman feels that his manor house is filled with the reminders of his beautiful, talented, deceased first wife. Slowly, she discovers how her husband really feels about his first wife.

Greene, Graham. The Power and the Glory. The last priest is hunted down like an animal during an anti-clerical purge.

Maclean, Alistair. Ice Station Zebra. Famous British adventure author Maclean describes the cold war crisis of a Soviet nuclear sub aground in the Arctic.

Tolkien, J.R.R. The Hobbit. This prequel to the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy introduces the reader to the magical world of middle earth. Sensible hobbit Bilbo Baggins is coerced by a band of dwarves to help recover their treasure, stolen by a dragon. Themes of greed, war, and friendship is explored.

White, T.H. The Once and Future King. This series of short stories describes the magical kingdom of King Arthur.

12th grade History selections

Craven, Margaret. I Heard the Owl Call My Name. A young priest dying of cancer is assigned to work among the Kwakiutl Indians and learns the meaning of life and the acceptance of his own death.

Clarke, Arthur C. 2001: A Space Odyssey. The crew of the Discovery are at risk when their computer HAL "goes nuts" due to an ethical conflict in its programming.

Keyes, Daniel. Flowers for Algernon. As the first subject of an experiment to increase human intelligence, Charlie Gordon relates his experiences as his I.Q. increases and learns that people can not be defined by intelligence alone.

Morrison, Toni. Beloved. A young black woman finds that life is not easy after her emancipation from slavery.

Orwell, George. 1984. In this novel, everyone is conditioned to believe that anything that hinders devotion to Big Brother is bad. However, Winston Smith finds forgotten and deep feelings. Many of the oppressions depicted are issues today.

Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. This book is a harsh denunciation of the late Stalin Era and the forced labor camp system of Siberia. The story recounts one day in the life of a sick prisoner whose goal is to survive a seventeen-degree day in half sheltered working conditions.

Staples, Suzanne. Shabanu. A twelve-year-old Muslim girl is pledged in marriage to a wealthy man while struggling to maintain control of her own destiny in a tight society.

Tan, Amy. The Joy Luck Club. This book is based on the lives of four Chinese women and their American-born daughters. The experiences of the mothers from old China conflicts with the values their American-born daughters.

12th grade Science selections

Aaseng, Nathan. Navajo Code Talkers. This novel describes how Navajo Indians devised an unbreakable code during World War II that could be used quickly and easily.

Bradbury, Ray, The Martian Chronicles. Humans colonize Mars with devastating effects on the native Martian population.

Clancy, Tom. The Hunt for Red October. This technically accurate story depicts a Soviet submarine captain who tries to defect to the West while pursued by both sides.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. Dr. Heidegger's Experiment. Dr. Heidegger experiments with four of his friends giving them water supposedly from the Fountain of Youth.

Toffler, Alvin, Future Shock. Although written over twenty years ago, the scientific issues related in this nonfiction work are still relevant today.

Vonnegut, Kurt, Slaughterhouse Five. This surreal novel is the story of a time traveler observing the obsurdities of human nature.

Watson, James, The Double Helix. This memoir relates the events leading to the discovery of the structure of DNA, the molecule of heredity. Cultural traditions and personalities play major roles in the novel.

12th grade ARCO suggestions

Austen, Jane, Pride and Prejudice. This novel depicts love and marriage among the English country gentry of Austen's day. The hero's pride in his social class conflicts with the heroine's prejudice against him based on first impression.

Bronte, Emily, Wuthering Heights. One of the masterpieces of English romanticism, this is a novel of love and revenge. The demonic passion of the hero-villain Heathcliffe destroys his beloved Catherine, her family, and eventually himself.

Bronte, Charlotte, Jane Eyre. This romantic novel introduced a new type of heroine to English fiction. Jane Eyre is an intelligent, passionate, and not especially beautiful young woman who falls in love with a strange moody man tormented by dark secrets.

Conrad, Joseph, Heart of Darkness. This probing psychological novel explores the darkness in the soul of each man. Conrad's narrator, Marlow, makes a journey into the depths of the Congo where he discovers the extent to which greed can corrupt a good man.

Dickens, Charles, Great Expectations. This novel is about Pip, a poor boy, who is made rich by a mysterious benefactor. He sets out to realize his "great expectations," and finally becomes a man of worth and character. As in all his works, Dickens populates this novel with memorable and eccentric characters.

Forster, E. M., A Passage to India. This pessimistic novel is about man's inhumanity to man. A young English woman in British-ruled India accuses an Indian doctor of a sexual assault. Her accusations causes racial tension between the British and Indian communities and destroys the young man's career.

Golding, William, Lord of the Flies. In this novel, a group of English schoolboys who are stranded on an island without adults become savages. This moral fable implies that defects in society are caused in part by defects in individuals.

Hardy, Thomas, Tess of the D'Ubervilles. In this Victorian novel, the happiness and marriage of Tess and her husband are destroyed because she confesses to him that she bore a child as the result of a forced sexual relationship with her employer's son.

Joyce, James. An Encounter. A short story from the anthology Dubliners, will introduce first time readers to the author's "stream of consciousness" literary method.

Scott, Sir Walter, Ivanhoe. This story of chivalry relates how Norman hero Wilfred wins his true love, the Saxon Rowena, with the help of the Black Knight (Richard the Lion-Hearted in disguise) and brings about a peace between the Normans and the Saxons.

Shakespeare, William, Hamlet. This is a great tragedy in which a prince is troubled by his inability to act to avenge the "murder" of his father by his greedy uncle.

Shaw, George Bernard, Pygmalion. In this satire, a professor of phonetics interferes with the social order by teaching a Cockney girl to act and speak like a duchess.

Shelley, Mary, Frankenstein. This is a gothic tale of terror in which Frankenstein creates a monster from corpses. Because everyone who sees him fears him, the monster despairs and turns on his creator.

Thackeray, William Makepeace, Vanity Fair This novel of 19th-century upper-middle-class British society portrays ten years in the lives of two young women very opposite in character: gentle, sentimental Amelia and lively, cunning Becky.

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