The following reading assignments are required of all students, including incoming freshmen. English teachers will use the text for introductory lessons beginning the first day of school. ...
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Card's novel Ender's Game introduced Ender Wiggin, a young genius who used his military prowess to all but exterminate the "buggers," the first alien race mankind had ever encountered. Ender then transformed himself into the "Speaker for the Dead," who claimed it had been a mistake to destroy the alien civilization. Many years later, when a new breed of intelligent life form called the "piggies" is discovered, Ender takes the opportunity to atone for his earlier actions. This novel views the interplay between the races from the differing perspectives of the colonists, scientists, computer artficial intelligence, the lone surviving bugger and the piggies themselves. (Publishers Weekly)
Winner of the Hugo Award and Nebula Award for Excellence in Science Fiction
In a not-too-distant future, the U.S. has collapsed, weakened by drought, fire, famine, and war, to be replaced by Panem, a country divided into the Capital and 12 districts. Each year, two young representatives from each district are selected by lottery to participate in The Hunger Games. Part entertainment, part brutal intimidation of the subjugated districts, the televised games are broadcast throughout Panem as the 24 participants are forced to eliminate their competitors. When 16-year-old Katniss's young sister, Prim, is selected as the mining district's female representative, Katniss volunteers to take her place. She and her male counterpart, Peeta, the son of the town baker, will be pitted against bigger, stronger representatives who have trained for this their whole lives. (School Library Journal)Winner of the 2008 Cybil Award for Fantasy and Science Fiction
After graduating from Emory University in Atlanta in 1992, top student and athlete Christopher McCandless abandoned his possessions, gave his entire $24,000 savings account to charity and hitchhiked to Alaska, where he went to live in the wilderness. Four months later, he turned up dead. His diary, letters and two notes found at a remote campsite tell of his desperate effort to survive, apparently stranded by an injury and slowly starving. They also reflect a confused young man, the son of an eminent aerospace engineer, who was raised in an affluent neighborhood, but who self-consciously renounced his wealth with an effort to return to nature. (Publishers Weekly)
Henrietta Lacks was a 31-year-old black mother of five when she died of cervical cancer in 1951. Without her knowledge, doctors treating her at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore took tissue samples from her cervix for research. They spawned the first viable cell line, known as HeLa. These cells have aided in medical discoveries from the polio vaccine to AIDS treatments. The author poignantly portrays the devastating impact Henrietta's death, and the eventual importance of her cells, had on her husband and children in this tale of modern science, the wonders it can perform and how easily it can exploit society's most vulnerable people. (Publishers Weekly)
of this novel is fascinated with other people's parents -- particularly his remarkable in-laws, bound to each other, yet estranged and combative almost since their wedding. A man of reason who was once a Communist, Bernard Tremaine cannot understand why his wife, June, rejected political activism for spiritual quest after an encounter with evil in the form of two fierce black dogs. As the narrator returns to the French countryside where June fatefully encountered the dogs, the deceptively simple buildup makes her brush with violence all the more shocking. (Library Journal)Grade 12 Advanced Placement: Mill on the Floss by George Eliot
One of George Eliot's best-loved works, this novel is a brilliant portrait of the bonds of provincial life as seen through the eyes of the free-spirited Maggie Tulliver, who is torn between a code of moral responsibility and her hunger for self-fulfillment. Rebellious by nature, she causes friction both among the townspeople of St. Ogg's and in her own family, particularly with her brother, Tom. Maggie's passionate nature makes her a beloved heroine, but it is also her undoing. This is an exploration of human relationships and of a heroine who critics say closely resembles Eliot herself. (Library Journal)Note: Norton Critical Edition highly recommended.