US - New Books in the Upper School Library: English 10 Reading Extension

Dystopian Novel: Winston Smith is a worker at the Ministry of Truth, where he falsifies records for the party. Secretly subversive, he and his colleague Julia try to free themselves from political slavery but the price of freedom is betrayal. Depicts life in a totalitarian regime of the future.

Memoir: The author chronicles his impoverished childhood in Limerick, Ireland, in the 1930s and 1940s, describing his father's alcoholism and talent for storytelling; the challenges and tragedies his mother faced, including the loss of three children; and his early experiences in the Catholic church, and balances painful memories with humor.

Historical Fiction: Trying to make sense of the horrors of World War II, Death relates the story of Liesel--a young German girl whose book-stealing and story-telling talents help sustain her family and the Jewish man they are hiding, as well as their neighbors.

Bildungsroman: An adolescent boy, knowing he is about to be dropped by his school, spends three days and nights in New York City.

A murder mystery like no other, this novel features Christopher Boone, a 15 year-old who suffers from Asperger's syndrome. When he finds a neighbour's dog murdered, he sets out on a journey which will turn his whole world upside down.

Sience Fiction: The story of a young prince, Paul Artreides, scion of a star-crossed dynasty, and of his journey from boy to warrior to ruler of a dying planet destined to become a paradise regained.

Dystopian Novel: In a society in which books are outlawed, Montag, a regimented fireman in charge of burning the forbidden volumes, meets a revolutionary school teacher who dares to read. Suddenly he finds himself a hunted fugitive, forced to choose not only between two women, but between personal safety and intellectual freedom.

After being mentally retarded for all of his thirty-two years, Charlie Gordon undergoes an operation designed to change his life.

Historical Fiction: The life of sixteen-year-old Griet is transformed forever when she goes to work as a maid in the home of Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer, and catches the eye of the famous artist.

Realist Novel: A poor Midwest family is forced off their land during the dustbowl era of the 1930s and migrate to California in search of a new life.

Social Criticism: Pip, an orphan in Victorian England, is informed one day he has "great expectations" and is to be educated and reared as a gentleman.

Jazz Age Novel: The tragic story of the wealthy Jay Gatsby and his attempt to win back the love of Daisy Buchanan.

Memoir: Sent by their mother to live with their devout, self-sufficient grandmother in a small Southern town, Maya and her brother, Bailey, endure the ache of abandonment and the prejudice of the local "powhitetrash." At eight years old and back at her mother's side in St. Louis, Maya is attacked by a man any times her age - and has to live with the consequences for a lifetime.

Adventure: The author relates his experience of climbing Mount Everest during its deadliest season and examines what it is about the mountain that makes people willingly subject themselves to such risk, hardship, and expense.

Tells the story of Chris McCandless, a twenty-four-year-old who walked into the Alaskan wilderness on an idealistic journey and was found dead of starvation four months later. Attempts to discover what led the young man to that point.

In early nineteenth-century England, an orphaned young woman accepts employment as a governess and soon finds herself in love with her employer who has a terrible secret.

Fiction: In 1949 four Chinese women began meeting in San Francisco to play mah jong. They called their gathering the Joy Luck Club. Forty years later they look back and remember.

Bildungsroman: Scout Finch, the young daughter of a local attorney in the Deep South during the 1930s, tells of her father's defence of an African-American man charged with the rape of a white girl. And according to this assessment by a Brown University professor, the first ever YA novel.

Allegory: After a plane crash strands them on a tropical island while the rest of the world is ravaged by war, a group of British school boys attempts to form a civilized society but descends into brutal anarchy.

Fiction: Right from the start, Bigger Thomas had been headed for jail. It could have been for assault or petty larceny; by chance, it was for murder and rape. Native Son tells the story of this young black man caught in a downward spiral after he kills a young white woman in a brief moment of panic.

Ken Kesey's story of life in a state mental hospital is a classic of American literature.

Graphic Novel: Contains black-and-white comic strip images in which the author shares the story of her life in Tehran, Iran, where she lived from ages six to fourteen while the country came under control of the Islamic regime.

Bildungsroman: No stranger to the injustice of racial hatred, five-year-old Peekay learns the hard way the first secret of survival and self-preservation - the power of one. An encounter with amateur boxer Hoppie Groenewald inspires in Peekay a fiery ambition - to be welterweight champion of the world.

Dystopian Novel: A nameless man and his young son wander through a decimated landscape, searching for means of survival and a reason for hope as barbaric hordes of people roam the streets and ash falls from the sky.