Welcome to CP English 10!
Please read one of the books listed below and complete the assignment available at this link.
This assignment will be collected and graded by your 10th grade English teacher.
Please read one of the books listed below and complete the assignment available at this link.
This assignment will be collected and graded by your 10th grade English teacher.
Fifteen-year-old outcast Julia Reyes longs to attend college in New York, in order to get away from the suffocating watch of her undocumented Mexican parents in Chicago. The unusual death of Julia's older sister Olga-considered the perfect child by her family-only bolsters this desire, as her parents focus their attention even more strongly on their now only child. When Julia stumbles across unexpected items in Olga's bedroom after the funeral, she sets off on a course to discover her sister's secrets while trying to find some escape from her strict parents...
Fiction, School Library Journal (September 2017) |
In this classic coming-of-age tale, Angelou traces her childhood and adolescence in the rural South and California, living off and on with parents who were full of life, if not wholly committed to responsibility. Experiencing the horror of rape at age eight, Angelou relied on the tender love of her grandmother to ease her transition into her teenage years, which followed universal patterns of school, friends, and crushes. Angelou’s experience as an African-American female, however, imbues the book with a profound insight into racism and sexism.
Biography, School Library Journal (November 2003) |
After Starr and her childhood friend Khalil, both black, leave a party together, they are pulled over by a white police officer, who kills Khalil. The sole witness to the homicide, Starr must testify before a grand jury that will decide whether to indict the cop, and she's terrified, especially as emotions run high. The first-person, present-tense narrative is immediate and intense, and the pacing is strong, with Thomas balancing dramatic scenes of violence and protest with moments of reflection.
Fiction, School Library Journal (January 2017) |
Working as “pickers,” Sang Ly and her husband, Ki Lim, earn their living by sifting through the trash at Stung Meanchey, Cambodia’s large city dump. Desperately poor, they live with their sickly baby boy in a one-room hut on a small piece of land that they rent from the cantankerous Rent Collector. Everything changes when one day Sang Ly discovers the Rent Collector’s secret: she can read. Determined to give her son a better life, Sang Ly convinces the Rent Collector to teach her how to read. An unlikely friendship blossoms between the two women, and Sang Ly learns that the Rent Collector’s gruff exterior hides unspeakable personal tragedies and a life shattered by the Khmer Rouge.
Fiction, Booklist (September 2012) |
"Take this baby," says an old Cherokee woman, depositing a bundle on the front seat of Taylor's car, which has broken down in Oklahoma, Heading west from rural Kentucky, Taylor is fleeing the "barefoot and pregnant" lifestyle which has claimed most of her high-school classmates. That bundle, an abused Indian toddler, whom she names Turtle, quickly claims territory in Taylor's heart... Hers is a story about love and friendship, abandonment and belonging, and the discovery of surprising resources in apparently empty places.
Fiction, Recommended for young adults by School Library Journal (December 1988) |
A semi-autobiographical chronicle of Arnold Spirit, aka Junior, a Spokane Indian from Wellpinit, WA. The bright 14-year-old was born with water on the brain, is regularly the target of bullies, and loves to draw... He expects disaster when he transfers from the reservation school to the rich, white school in Reardan, but soon finds himself making friends with both geeky and popular students and starting on the basketball team. Meeting his old classmates on the court, Junior grapples with questions about what constitutes one's community, identity, and tribe...
Fiction, School Library Journal (September 2007) |
Lily at 80 reflects on her life, beginning with her "daughter days" in 19th-century rural China. Foot-binding was practiced by all but the poorest families, and the graphic descriptions of it are not for the fainthearted. Yet women had nu shu, their own secret language. At the instigation of a matchmaker, Lily and Snow Flower are bound together for life, exchanging nu shu written on a fan. When war comes, Lily is separated from her husband and children and she survives the winter helped by Snow Flower's husband, a lowly butcher. As the years pass, the women's relationship changes… Even though the women's culture and upbringing may be vastly different from readers' own, the life lessons are much the same, and they will be remembered long after the details of this fascinating story are forgotten.
Fiction, School Library Journal (September 2005) |
Zélie Adebola, 17, remembers the night of the raid in her village 11 years earlier. Her mama was chained by her neck and lynched with other maji by the forces of ruthless King Saran of Orisha. King Saran hates magic and considers it the source of all evil, so he targets and exterminates the maji, who worship ancestors and practice magic. Now, they live hopelessly as servants, slaves, stockers, and prisoners. Zélie strives to bring back magic in Orisha, so she becomes the main target of King Saran's maji cleansing campaign.. Adeyemi weaves Yoruba language and culture into a complex and epic tale with themes of female empowerment. Fiction, School Library Journal (March 2018)
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Mariam is the scorned illegitimate daughter of a wealthy businessman, forced at age 15 into marrying the 40-year-old Rasheed, who grows increasingly brutal as she fails to produce a child. Eighteen later, Rasheed takes another wife, 14-year-old Laila, a smart and spirited girl whose only other options, after her parents are killed by rocket fire, are prostitution or starvation. Against a backdrop of unending war, Mariam and Laila become allies in an asymmetrical battle with Rasheed... Hosseini gives a forceful but nuanced portrait of a patriarchal despotism where women are agonizingly dependent on fathers, husbands and especially sons, the bearing of male children being their sole path to social status. His tale is a powerful, harrowing depiction of Afghanistan, but also a lyrical evocation of the lives and enduring hopes of its resilient characters. Fiction, Booklist (March, 2007)
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