Required Book List

Fantasy List

• Gifts Ursula K. Le Guin Ursula K. Le Guin tells a tale of contrasts between worlds and people. Set in a fantasy world where families compete to create unions for security to pass their gifts through generations. By telling tales within tales she helps the reader understand how the characters are caught in their feudal history and the lineage of the parents. The story of Orrec, the main character, is of a boy coming of age and his struggle to find his place within his family and his responsibilities. Only Le Guin could create such an intriate thought provoking tale set in fantasy with themes recognized through all time and all worlds within 274 pages, powerful.
• The House of Scorpions, Nancy Farmer winner of several awards. Incredibly well written science fiction. Future world of a drug lord and possible dilemmas faced as a consequence of cloning and future societies.
• The Angel Factory, Terence Blacker, a story about good and evil and the perfect life. Thomas discovers that he is adopted and that his parents are part of a worldly scheme. What is the good life and how should choose? A story equal to Lois Lowry's The Giver.
• Coraline, Neil Gaiman, Shortly before school starts Coraline is in search of something to do. Coraline meets her neighbors Miss April Spink and Miss Miriam Forcible who tell Coraline her future by reading her tea leaves and finding she was in danger. Later, after Coraline discovers a door to no where, Miss April Spink gives Coraline a stone with a hole in it and suggests it will protect her. Coraline goes through the door and meets her other parents, singing rats, and a talking black cat. An adventure indeed awaits her in a world as inside out as the Wonderland that Alice visited.
• The Wee Free Men: A Story of Discworld,Terry Pratchett, A young witch-to-be named Tiffany teams up with the Wee Free Men, a clan of six-inch-high blue men, to rescue her baby brother and ward off a sinister invasion from Fairyland. The book is filled with clever plays on words, puns, and interesting uses of words as well as exciting adventure with surprises galore.
• Green Angel, Alice Hoffman, Story of a fifteen year old girl haunted by grief from her past and losing her family in a devastating disaster. The story of her struggles to survive emotionally and physically on her own is a novel written in a poetic style that uses strong images to tell her story.
• Dragon Sword and Wind Child, Noriko Ogiwara, Noriko, as she grew up, read many western fantasies. Inspired by them she used the legends and mythology of her ancient country of Japan to write a story about people of darkness and light. However, this conflict is not simply good versus evil and the young women, Saya, has been chosen to overcome the past if there is to be a future for her land and people she loves.
• Sword of the Rightful King, Jane Yolen, a very different tale of Kind Arthur. Jane has taken author's license and turned events around and upside down in her retelling of this famous legend. Her changes make the characters more realistic as events in her tale go as far as having Excaliber being pulled from the stone by another instead of King Arthur.
• City of Beasts, Isabel Allende, Isabel starts her story of a boy, Alexander, with him being informed that he will be going to stay with his eccentric grandmother in the Amazon Jungle while his father goes with his mother for chemotherapy. While there he befriends a young girl and the two of them discover mysterious beasts and their link with the natives. Desiring to save the natives, the beasts, and his mother provides a suspenseful story of a boy coming of age.
• The Ancient One, T. A. Barran, This story takes place in the Northwest United States where a young girl and a group of lumberjacks are at odds about the value of old trees as lumber and jobs or conserving them. The story becomes fantasy as the girl is drawn into the tree and begins an adventure that helps her to gain deeper respect for the relationships of living organisms and the power of interrelationships.
• A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L'Engle, A classic science fiction story of good vs. bad, coming of age, making decisions, individuals' place in society and family, inter and intra personal relations, interstellar travel, family, and being different.
• The Tale of Despereaux, Kate DiCamillo, Happily ever after - can the smallest mouse and the beautiful princess Pea live happily ever after. A tale of light and dark, good and evil. Creative use of story elements and word usage.
• Gathering Blue, Companion to The Giver. Kira, a unique, creative, convincing, and ethically driven young girl befriends and collaborates to uncover the mysteries and truths of her world and what exists beyond it.

 Realistic Fiction List

• Hold Fast to Dreams, Andrea Davis Pinkney a powerful story about good and bad relationships that people have with one another. The setting is in an all white Connecticut town and about a black family that moves into the town and their struggle to belong. Andrea tells her story by describing common everyday events of the characters with a style that is totally realistic and believable, without succumbing to the use of sensationalism, yet compels you to read and leaves you with an emotional transaction and understanding of the character's feelings.
• There is a Girl in the Boy's Bathroom, Louis Sachar This story should be read aloud to every fourth grader in the world. It is a story about a boy that can't figure out how to get along in school or with other kids. I have had teachers report to me that they noticed a distinct positive difference in their classes and how students interacted with each other after they read this story aloud to the class.
• Stargirl, Jerry Spinelli A story about a girl that was home schooled and decides it is time for public school. To say that she cares about people and isn't bashful in her expressions and actions is an understatement. What affect will she have on Leo, the main character of the story? What affect will she have on the town? Is it possible that the friendliest person in a school could have no friends? Activity
• Flipflop Girl, Katherine Paterson What does it feel like to loose your best friends? What is it like to have to move to another city and school? Can a teacher and classmates make a difference or will loneliness, fear, and apprehension cause the main character to flip flop and change her life in a negative way forever?
• The Lord Theif, Cornelia Funke A story about teenage runaways in Venice, Italy. The story takes several twists and turns as the characters come together in mysterious ways and plot and scheme to make a better life. Will they be rewarded in the end with monetary riches or with greater inner understanding of themselves and their places in the world?
• Walk Two Moons, Sharon Creech A story within a story of a girl, her mother, her heritage, and a quest for deeper understanding.
• Bronx Masquerade, Nikki Grimes, Nikki combines poetry and prose with a story about inner city youth, a teacher, and the idea of open mike day. A compelling look into the life of inner city life.
• When Zachery Beaver Came to Town, Kimberly Willis Holt Sorry didn't have time to get this one yet.
• The Dream Bearer, Walter Dean Myers Is a story about a boy in Harlem that tries to combine the wisdom of an old man the knowledge of his mother, the oral traditions of dream bearers to help his understand and come to terms with his unstable father.
• What Happened to Lani Garver, Carol Plum-Ucci, A story of girl recovering from leukemia and a possible eating disorder befriends a new person in school. Is this person male or female? Gay or straight? The main character in the story is torn between being popular and hanging out with the "right" crowd and developing a kinship with the new person, Lani. The author's story is compelling enough to sustain you to the end with desire to know how Claire, the main character, changes or not; as well as torments you with the possibility of Lani as a walking angel or just an extraordinary mortal.

Historical Fiction

• The Slave Dancer, Paula Fox
• The Sign of the Beaver, E. G. Speare
• Gold Cadillac, Mildred Taylor
• Number the Stars, Lois Lowry
• NightJohn, Gary Paulsen
• Out of Dust, Karen Heese
• War Comes to Willy Freeman, Hames and Christopher Collier
• Arthur for the Very FirstTime, Patricia Maclachlan

Nonfiction

• Prairie Visions: The Life and Times of Solomon Butcher, Pam Conrad
• Sanctuary: The Story of Three Arch Rocks, Mary Ann Fraser
• The Wright Brothers, Russell Freedman
• The Chimpanzees I Love: Saving their World and Ours, Ann Goodall
• Grandfather's Journey, Allen Say
• The Real McCoy, Wendy Towle
• Children of the Wild West, Buffalo Hunt, Lincoln: A Photobiography, Indian Chiefs, Immigrant Kids, Russell Freedman
• Duke Ellington: The Piano Prince and the Orchestra, Illustrated Brian
• Pinkney,Text Andrea Davis Pinkney
• We Remember the Holocaust, David Adler
• City, Cathedral, Castle, Pyramid, Ship, David Macaulay

Robert Sweetland's Notes ©