12^th Grade Reading List

Ackerman, Diane. The Zookeeper’s Wife: A War Story. Norton, 2007. Based on a little known chapter from Nazi Poland, Ackerman works from the diary of Antonina Zabinski. Not only was Hitler interested in human genetics but also the purity of animal breeds. At the Warsaw Zoo, Antonina and her director husband struggle with wartime shortages, care for the animals, their own family, and hundreds of Jews hidden at the zoo from the occupying Nazis. A dramatic, true story. 2008 Orion Book Award; ALA Notable Nonfiction 2008

Anderson, Laurie Halse. Wintergirls. Viking, 2009. Anderson has taken us into the mind of a rape victim in Speak and now takes us into the mind of an anorexic. This is a haunting story about Lia’s desire to be the thinnest girl in school, her struggle with anorexia, and path to recovery. BBYA Fiction 2010

Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. First published 1813. Elizabeth and Jane Bennet overcome obstacles to their happiness with Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingley in this comedy of manners set in early nineteenth-century England.

Baldwin, James. Go Tell It On the Mountain. First published 1953. In 1935 Harlem, young John Grimes searches for God while struggling with his identity as the stepson of a stern, evangelist preacher.

Beah, Ishmael. A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2007. Twelve-year old Ishmael first flees from attacking rebels with his friends, but later is transformed into a cold-blooded soldier. This is a heartbreaking personal memoir of a boy growing up in Sierra Leone in the 1990s. Alex Award 2008

Bradbury, Jennifer. Shift. Atheneum, 2008. The summer before they begin college, Chris and Win bike from West Virginia to Seattle. After a fight, and 50 miles from their goal, Win rides off while Chris changes a flat tire and simply disappears. Win’s manipulative father enlists the FBI to question Chris.

Caletti, Deb. The Fortunes of Indigo Skye. Simon & Schuster, 2008. Indigo wants nothing more from life than her job as a waitress until a customer gives her $2,500,000. Then everything changes.