Special Collections

Accelerated Reader - Upper Grade Collection

Description: A collection of popular novels and non-fiction upper grade books that have quizzes on Accelerated Reader #teens


Showing 26 through 50 of 66 results
 
 

The Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks

by Rebecca Skloot

Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells-taken without her knowledge-became one of the most important tools in medicine.

The first “immortal” human cells grown in culture, they are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. If you could pile all HeLa cells ever grown onto a scale, they’d weigh more than 50 million metric tons-as much as a hundred Empire State Buildings. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine, uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the atom bomb’s effects; helped lead to important advances like in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions. Yet Henrietta Lacks remains virtually unknown, buried in an unmarked grave.

Now Rebecca Skloot takes us on an extraordinary journey, from the “colored” ward of Johns Hopkins Hospital in the 1950s to stark white laboratories with freezers full of HeLa cells; from Henrietta’s small, dying hometown of Clover, Virginia-a land of wooden slave quarters, faith healings, and voodoo-to East Baltimore today, where her children and grandchildren live and struggle with the legacy of her cells.

Henrietta’s family did not learn of her “immortality” until more than twenty years after her death, when scientists investigating HeLa began using her husband and children in research without informed consent. And though the cells had launched a multimillion-dollar industry that sells human biological materials, her family never saw any of the profits. As Rebecca Skloot so brilliantly shows, the story of the Lacks family-past and present-is inextricably connected to the dark history of experimentation on African Americans, the birth of bioethics, and the legal battles over whether we control the stuff we are made of.

Over the decade it took to uncover this story, Rebecca became enmeshed in the lives of the Lacks family-especially Henrietta’s daughter Deborah, who was devastated to learn about her mother’s cells. She was consumed with questions: Had scientists cloned her mother? Did it hurt her when researchers infected her cells with viruses and shot them into space? What happened to her sister, Elsie, who died in a mental institution at the age of fifteen? And if her mother was so important to medicine, why couldn’t her children afford health insurance?

Intimate in feeling, astonishing in scope, and impossible to put down,The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lackscaptures the beauty and drama of scientific discovery, as well as its human consequences.

A New York Times Bestseller

Date Added: 05/25/2017


Category: ATOS LEVEL: 8.0

Award: AR POINTS: 18.0

A Briefer History of Time

by Leonard Mlodinow and Stephen Hawking

FROM ONE OF THE MOST BRILLIANT MINDS OF OUR TIME COMES A BOOK THAT CLARIFIES HIS MOST IMPORTANT IDEAS Stephen Hawking's worldwide bestseller A Brief History of Time remains a landmark volume in scientific writing. But for readers who have asked for a more accessible formulation of its key concepts--the nature of space and time, the role of God in creation, and the history and future of the universe--A Briefer History of Time is Professor Hawking's response. Although "briefer," this book is much more than a mere explanation of Hawking's earlier work. A Briefer History of Time both clarifies and expands on the great subjects of the original, and records the latest developments in the field--from string theory to the search for a unified theory of all the forces of physics. Thirty-seven full-color illustrations enhance the text and make A Briefer History of Time an exhilarating and must-have addition in its own right to the great literature of science and ideas.From the Hardcover edition.ersed throughout the book have now been given entire chapters of their own, including relativity, curved space, and quantum theory. This reorganization has allowed the authors to expand areas of special interest and recent progress, from the latest developments in string theory to exciting developments in the search for a complete unified theory of all the forces of physics. Like prior editions of the book--but even more so--A Briefer History of Time will guide nonscientists everywhere in the ongoing search for the tantalizing secrets at the heart of time and space.From the Hardcover edition.

Date Added: 05/25/2017


Category: ATOS LEVEL: 10.1

Award: AR POINTS: 18.0

The Blind Side

by Michael Lewis

"Lewis has such a gift for storytelling... he writes as lucidly for sports fans as for those who read him for other reasons."--Janet Maslin, New York Times

When we first meet Michael Oher is one of thirteen children by a mother addicted to crack; he does not know his real name, his father, his birthday, or how to read or write. He takes up football, and school, after a rich, white, Evangelical family plucks him from the streets.

Then two great forces alter Oher: the family's love and the evolution of professional football itself into a game in which the quarterback must be protected at any cost. Our protagonist becomes the priceless package of size, speed, and agility necessary to guard the quarterback's greatest vulnerability: his blind side.

Date Added: 05/25/2017


Category: ATOS LEVEL: 7.2

Award: AR POINTS: 19.0

Silent Spring

by Rachel Carson and Edward O. Wilson and Linda Lear

Rachel Carson's Silent Spring was first published in three serialized excerpts in the New Yorker in June of 1962. The book appeared in September of that year and the outcry that followed its publication forced the banning of DDT and spurred revolutionary changes in the laws affecting our air, land, and water. Carson's passionate concern for the future of our planet reverberated powerfully throughout the world, and her eloquent book was instrumental in launching the environmental movement. It is without question one of the landmark books of the twentieth century.

Date Added: 05/25/2017


Category: ATOS LEVEL: 11.5

Award: AR POINTS: 19.0

Phineas Gage

by John Fleischman

Phineas Gage was truly a man with a hole in his head. Phineas, a railroad construction foreman, was blasting rock near Cavendish, Vermont, in 1848 when a thirteen-pound iron rod was shot through his brain. Miraculously, he survived to live another eleven years and become a textbook case in brain science.At the time, Phineas Gage seemed to completely recover from his accident. He could walk, talk, work, and travel, but he was changed. Gage "was no longer Gage," said his Vermont doctor, meaning that the old Phineas was dependable and well liked, and the new Phineas was crude and unpredictable.His case astonished doctors in his day and still fascinates doctors today. What happened and what didn&’t happen inside the brain of Phineas Gage will tell you a lot about how your brain works and how you act human.

Date Added: 05/25/2017


Category: ATOS LEVEL: 7.4

Award: AR POINTS: 2.0

Founding Brothers

by Joseph J. Ellis

In this landmark work of history, the National Book Award--winning author of American Sphinx explores how a group of greatly gifted but deeply flawed individuals--Hamilton, Burr, Jefferson, Franklin, Washington, Adams, and Madison--confronted the overwhelming challenges before them to set the course for our nation. The United States was more a fragile hope than a reality in 1790. During the decade that followed, the Founding Fathers--re-examined here as Founding Brothers--combined the ideals of the Declaration of Independence with the content of the Constitution to create the practical workings of our government. Through an analysis of six fascinating episodes--Hamilton and Burr's deadly duel, Washington's precedent-setting Farewell Address, Adams' administration and political partnership with his wife, the debate about where to place the capital, Franklin's attempt to force Congress to confront the issue of slavery and Madison's attempts to block him, and Jefferson and Adams' famous correspondence--Founding Brothers brings to life the vital issues and personalities from the most important decade in our nation's history.

Date Added: 05/25/2017


Category: ATOS LEVEL: 12.8

Award: AR POINTS: 22.0

Fast Food Nation

by Eric Schlosser

New York Times Bestseller, With a New Afterword"Schlosser has a flair for dazzling scene-setting and an arsenal of startling facts . . . Fast Food Nation points the way but, to resurrect an old fast food slogan, the choice is yours."--Los Angeles TimesIn 2001, Fast Food Nation was published to critical acclaim and became an international bestseller. Eric Schlosser's exposé revealed how the fast food industry has altered the landscape of America, widened the gap between rich and poor, fueled an epidemic of obesity, and transformed food production throughout the world. The book changed the way millions of people think about what they eat and helped to launch today's food movement.In a new afterword for this edition, Schlosser discusses the growing interest in local and organic food, the continued exploitation of poor workers by the food industry, and the need to ensure that every American has access to good, healthy, affordable food. Fast Food Nation is as relevant today as it was a decade ago. The book inspires readers to look beneath the surface of our food system, consider its impact on society and, most of all, think for themselves."As disturbing as it is irresistible . . . Exhaustively researched, frighteningly convincing . . . channeling the spirits of Upton Sinclair and Rachel Carson."--San Francisco Chronicle"Schlosser shows how the fast food industry conquered both appetite and landscape."--The New YorkerEric Schlosser is a contributing editor for the Atlantic and the author of Fast Food Nation, Reefer Madness, and Chew on This (with Charles Wilson).

Date Added: 05/25/2017


Category: ATOS LEVEL: 10.4

Award: AR POINTS: 22.0

His Excellency, George Washington

by Joseph J. Ellis

To this landmark biography of our first president, Joseph J. Ellis brings the exacting scholarship, shrewd analysis, and lyric prose that have made him one of the premier historians of the Revolutionary era. Training his lens on a figure who sometimes seems as remote as his effigy on Mount Rushmore, Ellis assesses George Washington as a military and political leader and a man whose statue-like solidity concealed volcanic energies and emotions. Here is the impetuous young officer whose miraculous survival in combat half-convinced him that he could not be killed. Here is the free-spending landowner whose debts to English merchants instilled him with a prickly resentment of imperial power. We see the general who lost more battles than he won and the reluctant president who tried to float above the partisan feuding of his cabinet. His Excellency is a magnificent work, indispensable to an understanding not only of its subject but also of the nation he brought into being.

Date Added: 05/25/2017


Category: AR POINTS: 12.7

Award: AR POINTS: 23.0

Unbroken

by Laura Hillenbrand

On a May afternoon in 1943, an Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, leaving only a spray of debris and a slick of oil, gasoline, and blood. Then, on the ocean surface, a face appeared. It was that of a young lieutenant, the plane's bombardier, who was struggling to a life raft and pulling himself aboard. So began one of the most extraordinary odysseys of the Second World War.The lieutenant's name was Louis Zamperini. In boyhood, he'd been a cunning and incorrigible delinquent, breaking into houses, brawling, and fleeing his home to ride the rails. As a teenager, he had channeled his defiance into running, discovering a prodigious talent that had carried him to the Berlin Olympics and within sight of the four-minute mile. But when war had come, the athlete had become an airman, embarking on a journey that led to his doomed flight, a tiny raft, and a drift into the unknown.Ahead of Zamperini lay thousands of miles of open ocean, leaping sharks, a foundering raft, thirst and starvation, enemy aircraft, and, beyond, a trial even greater. Driven to the limits of endurance, Zamperini would answer desperation with ingenuity; suffering with hope, resolve, and humor; brutality with rebellion. His fate, whether triumph or tragedy, would be suspended on the fraying wire of his will.In her long-awaited new book, Laura Hillenbrand writes with the same rich and vivid narrative voice she displayed in Seabiscuit. Telling an unforgettable story of a man's journey into extremity, Unbroken is a testament to the resilience of the human mind, body, and spirit.BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Laura Hillenbrand's Seabiscuit.

Date Added: 05/25/2017


Category: ATOS LEVEL: 7.7

Award: AR POINTS: 24.0

Salt Sugar Fat

by Michael Moss

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERFrom a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter at The New York Times comes the explosive story of the rise of the processed food industry and its link to the emerging obesity epidemic. Michael Moss reveals how companies use salt, sugar, and fat to addict us and, more important, how we can fight back. In the spring of 1999 the heads of the world's largest processed food companies--from Coca-Cola to Nabisco--gathered at Pillsbury headquarters in Minneapolis for a secret meeting. On the agenda: the emerging epidemic of obesity, and what to do about it. Increasingly, the salt-, sugar-, and fat-laden foods these companies produced were being linked to obesity, and a concerned Kraft executive took the stage to issue a warning: There would be a day of reckoning unless changes were made. This executive then launched into a damning PowerPoint presentation--114 slides in all--making the case that processed food companies could not afford to sit by, idle, as children grew sick and class-action lawyers lurked. To deny the problem, he said, is to court disaster. When he was done, the most powerful person in the room--the CEO of General Mills--stood up to speak, clearly annoyed. And by the time he sat down, the meeting was over. Since that day, with the industry in pursuit of its win-at-all-costs strategy, the situation has only grown more dire. Every year, the average American eats thirty-three pounds of cheese (triple what we ate in 1970) and seventy pounds of sugar (about twenty-two teaspoons a day). We ingest 8,500 milligrams of salt a day, double the recommended amount, and almost none of that comes from the shakers on our table. It comes from processed food. It's no wonder, then, that one in three adults, and one in five kids, is clinically obese. It's no wonder that twenty-six million Americans have diabetes, the processed food industry in the U.S. accounts for $1 trillion a year in sales, and the total economic cost of this health crisis is approaching $300 billion a year. In Salt Sugar Fat, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Michael Moss shows how we got here. Featuring examples from some of the most recognizable (and profitable) companies and brands of the last half century--including Kraft, Coca-Cola, Lunchables, Kellogg, Nestlé, Oreos, Cargill, Capri Sun, and many more--Moss's explosive, empowering narrative is grounded in meticulous, often eye-opening research. Moss takes us inside the labs where food scientists use cutting-edge technology to calculate the "bliss point" of sugary beverages or enhance the "mouthfeel" of fat by manipulating its chemical structure. He unearths marketing campaigns designed--in a technique adapted from tobacco companies--to redirect concerns about the health risks of their products: Dial back on one ingredient, pump up the other two, and tout the new line as "fat-free" or "low-salt." He talks to concerned executives who confess that they could never produce truly healthy alternatives to their products even if serious regulation became a reality. Simply put: The industry itself would cease to exist without salt, sugar, and fat. Just as millions of "heavy users"--as the companies refer to their most ardent customers--are addicted to this seductive trio, so too are the companies that peddle them. You will never look at a nutrition label the same way again."As a feat of reporting and a public service, Salt Sugar Fat is a remarkable accomplishment."--The New York Times Book ReviewFrom the Hardcover edition.

Date Added: 05/25/2017


Category: ATOS LEVEL: 10.2

Award: AR POINTS: 26.0

The Elegant Universe

by Brian Greene

A new edition of the New York Times bestseller--now a three-part Nova special: a fascinating and thought-provoking journey through the mysteries of space, time, and matter. Now with a new preface (not in any other edition) that will review the enormous public reception of the relatively obscure string theory--made possible by this book and an increased number of adherents amongst physicists--The Elegant Universe "sets a standard that will be hard to beat" (New York Times Book Review). Brian Greene, one of the world's leading string theorists, peels away the layers of mystery surrounding string theory to reveal a universe that consists of eleven dimensions, where the fabric of space tears and repairs itself, and all matter--from the smallest quarks to the most gargantuan supernovas--is generated by the vibrations of microscopically tiny loops of energy. Today physicists and mathematicians throughout the world are feverishly working on one of the most ambitious theories ever proposed: superstring theory. String theory, as it is often called, is the key to the Unified Field Theory that eluded Einstein for more than thirty years. Finally, the century-old antagonism between the large and the small-General Relativity and Quantum Theory-is resolved. String theory proclaims that all of the wondrous happenings in the universe, from the frantic dancing of subatomic quarks to the majestic swirling of heavenly galaxies, are reflections of one grand physical principle and manifestations of one single entity: microscopically tiny vibrating loops of energy, a billionth of a billionth the size of an atom. In this brilliantly articulated and refreshingly clear book, Greene relates the scientific story and the human struggle behind twentieth-century physics' search for a theory of everything. Through the masterful use of metaphor and analogy, The Elegant Universe makes some of the most sophisticated concepts ever contemplated viscerally accessible and thoroughly entertaining, bringing us closer than ever to understanding how the universe works.

Date Added: 05/25/2017


Category: ATOS LEVEL: 12.3

Award: AR POINTS: 28.0

Anthem

by Ayn Rand

Anthem is a dystopian science fiction novella by Ayn Rand. Mankind has entered a new dark age as a result of the evils of irrationality and collectivism and the weaknesses of socialistic thinking and economics. Individuality and ambition have become sins. Technological advancement is now carefully planned (when it is allowed to occur at all). Here is the story of one man willing to risk everything to rebel against a society that refuses to believe in the power or rights of the individual.

Date Added: 05/25/2017


Category: ATOS LEVEL: 6.1

Award: AR POINTS: 3.0

Guns, Germs, and Steel

by Jared Diamond

In this book, Jared Diamond convincingly argues that geographical and environmental factors shaped the modern world. Societies that had had a head start in food production advanced beyond the hunter-gatherer stage, and then developed religion --as well as nasty germs and potent weapons of war --and adventured on sea and land to conquer and decimate preliterate cultures. A major advance in our understanding of human societies, Guns, Germs, and Steel chronicles the way that the modern world came to be and stunningly dismantles racially based theories of human history.

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science, the Rhone-Poulenc Prize, and the Commonwealth club of California's Gold Medal.

Date Added: 05/25/2017


Category: ATOS LEVEL: 12.6

Award: AR POINTS: 33.0

The Future

by Al Gore

From the former vice president and #1 New York Times bestselling author comes An Inconvenient Truth for everything--a frank and clear-eyed assessment of six critical drivers of global change in the decades to come. Ours is a time of revolutionary change that has no precedent in history. With the same passion he brought to the challenge of climate change, and with his decades of experience on the front lines of global policy, Al Gore surveys our planet's beclouded horizon and offers a sober, learned, and ultimately hopeful forecast in the visionary tradition of Alvin Toffler's Future Shock and John Naisbitt's Megatrends. In The Future, Gore identifies the emerging forces that are reshaping our world: * Ever-increasing economic globalization has led to the emergence of what he labels "Earth Inc."--an integrated holistic entity with a new and different relationship to capital, labor, consumer markets, and national governments than in the past. * The worldwide digital communications, Internet, and computer revolutions have led to the emergence of "the Global Mind," which links the thoughts and feelings of billions of people and connects intelligent machines, robots, ubiquitous sensors, and databases. * The balance of global political, economic, and military power is shifting more profoundly than at any time in the last five hundred years--from a U.S.-centered system to one with multiple emerging centers of power, from nation-states to private actors, and from political systems to markets. * A deeply flawed economic compass is leading us to unsustainable growth in consumption, pollution flows, and depletion of the planet's strategic resources of topsoil, freshwater, and living species. * Genomic, biotechnology, neuroscience, and life sciences revolutions are radically transforming the fields of medicine, agriculture, and molecular science--and are putting control of evolution in human hands. * There has been a radical disruption of the relationship between human beings and the earth's ecosystems, along with the beginning of a revolutionary transformation of energy systems, agriculture, transportation, and construction worldwide. From his earliest days in public life, Al Gore has been warning us of the promise and peril of emergent truths--no matter how "inconvenient" they may seem to be. As absorbing as it is visionary, The Future is a map of the world to come, from a man who has looked ahead before and been proven all too right.

Date Added: 05/25/2017


Category: ATOS LEVEL: 13.8

Award: AR POINTS: 35.0

Macbeth (The New Cambridge Shakespeare)

by William Shakespeare edited by A. R. Braunmuller

This 2008 book is an extensively-annotated edition of Macbeth, offering a thorough reconsideration of one of Shakespeare's most popular plays. A full and accessible updated introduction studies the immediate theatrical and political contexts of Macbeth's composition, especially the Gunpowder Plot and the contemporary account of an early performance at the Globe. It treats such issues as whether the Witches compel Macbeth to murder; whether Lady Macbeth is herself in some sense a witch; whether Banquo is Macbeth's accomplice in crime; and what criticism is levelled against Macduff. Several possible new sources are suggested, and the presence of Thomas Middleton's writing in the play is proposed. An extensive, well-illustrated account of the play in performance examines several cinematic versions, such as those by Kurosawa and Roman Polanski, and a brand new introductory section on recent performances and adaptations brings the edition completely up-to-date.

Date Added: 05/25/2017


Category: ATOS LEVEL: 10.9

Award: AR POINTS: 4.0

The Miracle Worker

by William Gibson

NO ONE COULD REACH HER Twelve-year-old Helen Keller lived in a prison of silence and darkness. Born deaf, blind, and mute, with no way to express herself or comprehend those around her, she flew into primal rages against anyone who tried to help her, fighting tooth and nail with a strength born of furious, unknowing desperation. Then Annie Sullivan came. Half-blind herself, but possessing an almost fanatical determination, she would begin a frightening and incredibly moving struggle to tame the wild girl no one could reach, and bring Helen into the world at last....

Date Added: 05/25/2017


Category: ATOS LEVEL: 5.2

Award: AR POINTS: 4.0

Night

by Elie Wiesel and Marion Wiesel

A new translation of Wiesel's landmark book Night, and the text of his 1986 Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech.

Date Added: 05/25/2017


Category: ATOS LEVEL: 4.8

Award: AR POINTS: 4.0

Of Mice and Men

by John Steinbeck

A controversial tale of friendship and tragedy during the Great Depression Over seventy-five years since its first publication, Steinbeck's tale of commitment, loneliness, hope, and loss remains one of America's most widely read and taught novels. An unlikely pair, George and Lennie, two migrant workers in California during the Great Depression, grasp for their American Dream. They hustle work when they can, living a hand-to-mouth existence. For George and Lennie have a plan: to own an acre of land and a shack they can call their own. When they land jobs on a ranch in the Salinas Valley, the fulfillment of their dream seems to be within their grasp. But even George cannot guard Lennie from the provocations, nor predict the consequences of Lennie's unswerving obedience to the things George taught him. Of Mice and Men represents an experiment in form, which Steinbeck described as "a kind of playable novel, written in a novel form but so scened and set that it can be played as it stands." A rarity in American letters, it achieved remarkable success as a novel, a Broadway play, and three acclaimed films. This edition features an introduction by Susan Shillinglaw, one of today's leading Steinbeck scholars.

Date Added: 05/25/2017


Category: ATOS LEVEL: 4.5

Award: AR POINTS: 4.0

The Pearl

by John Steinbeck and Linda Wagner-Martin and Jose Clemente Orozco

"There it lay, the great pearl, perfect as the moon." Like his father and grandfather before him, Kino is a poor diver, gathering pearls from the gulf beds that once brought great wealth to the Kings of Spain and now provide Kino, Juana, and their infant son with meager subsistence. Then, on a day like any other, Kino emerges from the sea with a pearl as large as a sea gull's egg, as "perfect as the moon." With the pearl comes hope, the promise of comfort and of security....A story of classic simplicity, based on a Mexican folk tale, The Pearl explores the secrets of man's nature, the darkest depths of evil, and the luminous possibilities of love.From the Trade Paperback edition.

Date Added: 05/25/2017


Category: ATOS LEVEL: 7.1

Award: AR POINTS: 4.0

Looking for Alaska

by John Green

The award-winning, genre-defining debut from #1 bestselling author of The Fault in Our Stars. Winner of the Michael L. Printz Award. Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist. New York Times bestseller.

Miles “Pudge” Halter is done with his safe life at home. His whole life has been one big non-event, and his obsession with famous last words has only made him crave “the Great Perhaps” even more (Francois Rabelais, poet).

He heads off to the sometimes crazy and anything-but-boring world of Culver Creek Boarding School, and his life becomes the opposite of safe. Because down the hall is Alaska Young. The gorgeous, clever, funny, sexy, self-destructive, screwed up, and utterly fascinating Alaska Young. She is an event unto herself. She pulls Pudge into her world, launches him into the Great Perhaps, and steals his heart. Then. . . .After. Nothing is ever the same.

Date Added: 05/25/2017


Category: ATOS LEVEL: 5.8

Award: AR POINTS: 4.0

The Crucible

by Arthur Miller

A haunting examination of groupthink and mass hysteria in a rural community

The place is Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692, an enclave of rigid piety huddled on the edge of a wilderness. Its inhabitants believe unquestioningly in their own sanctity.

But in Arthur Miller's edgy masterpiece, that very belief will have poisonous consequences when a vengeful teenager accuses a rival of witchcraft--and then when those accusations multiply to consume the entire village.

First produced in 1953, at a time when America was convulsed by a new epidemic of witch-hunting, The Crucible brilliantly explores the threshold between individual guilt and mass hysteria, personal spite and collective evil.

It is a play that is not only relentlessly suspenseful and vastly moving but that compels readers to fathom their hearts and consciences in ways that only the greatest theater ever can.

Date Added: 05/25/2017


Category: ATOS LEVEL: 4.9

Award: AR POINTS: 5.0

A Child Called "It"

by Dave Pelzer

"Dave Pelzer's child experience is a testimony to the triumph of the human spirit. This book vividly articulates the abuse he suffered at the hands of his mother and the unbelievable apathy of others to his plight. Pelzer's courage and determination will go a long way in helping the millions of children in America who, too often, suffer every day in silence."

Mark Riley Child Welfare League of America

"Everything began to point to one thing: this kid was being beaten and punished far beyond normal parental practice."

Steven E. Ziegler, Teacher

Daly City, California

The subtitle for some editions is One Child's Courage to Survive." Pelzer tells his story with contempt or bitterness despite his parents' repeated attempts to murder him.

Date Added: 05/25/2017


Category: ATOS LEVEL: 5.8

Award: AR POINTS: 5.0

Animal Farm

by George Orwell

George Orwell's classic satire of the Russian Revolution is an intimate part of our contemporary culture.

It is the account of the bold struggle, initiated by the animals, that transforms Mr. Jones's Manor Farm into Animal Farm--a wholly democratic society built on the credo that All Animals Are Created Equal.

Out of their cleverness, the pigs Napoleon, Squealer, and Snowball emerge as leaders of the new community in a subtle evolution that proves disastrous.

The climax is the brutal betrayal of the faithful horse Boxer, when totalitarian rule is reestablished with the bloodstained postscript to the founding slogan: But some Animals Are More Equal Than Others. . . .

Date Added: 05/25/2017


Category: ATOS LEVEL: 7.3

Award: AR POINTS: 5.0

A Raisin in the Sun

by Lorraine Hansberry

"Never before, the entire history of the American theater, has so much of the truth of black people's lives been seen on the stage," observed James Baldwin shortly before A Raisin in the Sun opened on Broadway in 1959.Indeed Lorraine Hansberry's award-winning drama about the hopes and aspirations of a struggling, working-class family living on the South Side of Chicago connected profoundly with the psyche of black America--and changed American theater forever. The play's title comes from a line in Langston Hughes's poem "Harlem," which warns that a dream deferred might "dry up/like a raisin in the sun.""The events of every passing year add resonance to A Raisin in the Sun," said The New York Times. "It is as if history is conspiring to make the play a classic." This Modern Library edition presents the fully restored, uncut version of Hansberry's landmark work with an introduction by Robert Nemiroff. [This text is listed as an example that meets Common Core Standards in English language arts in grades 11-12 at http://www.corestandards.org.]

Date Added: 05/25/2017


Category: ATOS LEVEL: 5.5

Award: AR POINTS: 5.0

Romeo and Juliet

by William Shakespeare

In Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare creates a violent world, in which two young people fall in love. It is not simply that their families disapprove; the Montagues and the Capulets are engaged in a blood feud. In this death-filled setting, the movement from love at first sight to the lovers’ final union in death seems almost inevitable. And yet, this play set in an extraordinary world has become the quintessential story of young love. In part because of its exquisite language, it is easy to respond as if it were about all young lovers. The authoritative edition of Romeo and Juliet from The Folger Shakespeare Library, the trusted and widely used Shakespeare series for students and general readers, includes: -The exact text of the printed book for easy cross-reference -Hundreds of hypertext links for instant navigation -Freshly edited text based on the best early printed version of the play -Newly revised explanatory notes conveniently linked to the text of the play -Scene-by-scene plot summaries -A key to the play’s famous lines and phrases -An introduction to reading Shakespeare’s language -An essay by a leading Shakespeare scholar providing a modern perspective on the play -Fresh images from the Folger Shakespeare Library’s vast holdings of rare books -An annotated guide to further reading Essay by Gail Kern Paster The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, is home to the world’s largest collection of Shakespeare’s printed works, and a magnet for Shakespeare scholars from around the globe. In addition to exhibitions open to the public throughout the year, the Folger offers a full calendar of performances and programs. For more information, visit Folger.edu.

Date Added: 05/25/2017


Category: ATOS LEVEL: 8.6

Award: AR POINTS: 5.0


Showing 26 through 50 of 66 results