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Please make sure you have read one of the following books
for your summer reading assignment.

Students are to choose one book from the list to read. All students will be tested on their choice at the start of the school year in their English classes. Books may be borrowed from the state library system or purchased from the local bookstores. New and used paperback books may be purchased online.
Two such sites are Campusi.com and Amazon.com

Minos

by Marcos M. Villatoro

See NoveList to read Chapter One and read reviews.

Mature subject matter. Strong language and sexual situations. Graphic violence and images of cruelty.

Synopsis: At the start of Villatoro's scintillating, densely plotted sequel to 2001's Home Killings, bilingual Nashville cop Romilia Chacón has been searching for six years for "the Whisperer," the serial killer who murdered her older sister, Catalina. Romilia's hunt for the elusive Whisperer, now calling himself Minos (after the mythical monster in Dante's Inferno) is interrupted when she finds herself in the hospital with a horrible gash on her neck, a near-fatal wound from another killer she was pursuing. Her struggle to come to terms with the large, unsightly scar she will always bear quietly wins her the reader's sympathy. During her convalescence, she discovers the Internet and an entirely new way to investigate the Whisperer. An unexpected source, however, provides the most help: drug lord Rafael Murillo, a creepy yet alluring figure also known by the Mayan name Tekún Umán. Romilia inadvertently saved his life when she was wounded, and in return Tekún steals FBI files on the Whisperer and sends them to her. There's something appealing, in spite of his nature, in Tekún's devotion to Romilia. In addition, the contrast of a palpably present, ambiguous antagonist, Tekún, and the evil Whisperer creates a compelling, dramatic balance. The ending resolves beautifully, but that is really secondary considering how well the story works as a whole.

 

Reservation Blues

By Sherman Alexie

See NoveList for reviews and other information.

*Mature subject matter. Strong language and sexual situations. Some violence and graphic situations.

Synopsis: In the 111-year life of the Spokane Indian reservation, not one person has arrived by accident-until the day the black stranger appears with nothing more than the suit he wears and the guitar slung over his back. The man happens to be the legendary bluesman Robert Johnson, in flight from the devil and presumed long dead. And when he passes his enchanted instrument to young Thomas-Builds-the-Fire-storyteller, misfit, and musician-a magical odyssey begins. From reservation bars to small-town taverns, from the cement trails of Seattle to the concrete canyons of Manhattan, Thomas and his Coyote Springs bandmates careen through ancestral nightmares and rock-and-roll dreams, sounding chords of celebration and survival as timeless as their tribe. Sherman Alexie imaginatively mixes narrative, newspaper excerpts, songs, journal entries, visions, radio interviews, and dreams to explore the effects of Christianity on Native Americans in the late twentieth century. In addition, he examines the impact of cultural assimilation on the relationships between Indian women and Indian men. Reservation Blues is a painful, humorous, and ultimately redemptive symphony about God and indifference, faith and alcoholism, family and hunger, life and death.

 

Behold the Many

by Lois-Ann Yamanaka

See NoveList to read Chapter One and other reviews.

*Mature subject matter.

Summary: Lois-Ann Yamanaka has been hailed as "the freshest, most dynamic literary voice to come from Hawaii in recent years" (Somini Sengupta, The New York Times), and as "one of the most original voices on the American literary scene" (Jamie James, The Atlantic Monthly). In her novel, Behold the Many, Yamanaka tells the eerily beautiful story of three sisters and the captivating world they create out of their suffering.
 
In 1913, stricken by tuberculosis, young Anah, Aki, and Leah are sent away from their family for treatment at St. Joseph's, an orphanage in Hawaii's Kalihi Valley. Of the three, two will die there, in spite of the nuns' best efforts to save them, and only Anah, the eldest, will grow to adulthood. But the ghosts of the dead sisters are afraid to leave the grounds of St. Joseph's, where they wait until they can return home. As Anah prepares to begin married life away from the orphanage, they haunt her. Desperate for the love of their sister, who has communicated with them since childhood, jealous of her ability to live in the physical world, and terrified of losing her, they are determined to thwart Anah's happiness. One of them places a curse on her that will reverberate through the course of her future and that of her new family. While Anah struggles to appease the dead and to quiet her own guilt for having survived, it becomes apparent that only through one of her daughters can redemption be attained.

 

The Screwtape Letters

by C.S. Lewis

See NoveList for reviews and other information.

Synopsis: A masterpiece of satire, this classic has entertained and enlightened readers the world over with its sly and ironic portrayal of human life from the vantage point of Screwtape, a highly placed assistant to "Our Father Below." At once wildly comic, deadly serious, and strikingly original, C. S. Lewis gives us the correspondence of the worldly-wise old devil to his nephew Wormwood, a novice demon in charge of securing the damnation of an ordinary young man. The Screwtape Letters is the most engaging and humorous account of temptation - and triumph over it - ever written. In this humorous and perceptive exchange between two devils, C. S. Lewis delves into moral questions about good vs. evil, temptation, repentance, and grace. Through this wonderful tale, the reader emerges with a better understanding of what it means to live a faithful life.