The BIG Read

1. The BIG Read 2009

2. What is it?

3. A school-wide summer reading program that is OPTIONAL

4. Teachers agree to read a book over summer break and facilitate book discussion at the BIG Read Cafe

5. Students sign up to read one of the books over summer break.

6. Teachers & students meet at the BIG Read Cafe on Thursday, August 27 for an evening of live music, free food, fabulous giveaways, and lively book discussions.

7. Participating students will receive a 100% grade in their English class one time during the 2009-2010 school year.

8. When is the BIG Read Cafe? Thursday, August 27 (Time TBA)

9. How do I sign up?

10. Select a book from the slides at the end of this presentation or visit the display in the LMC.

11. Fill out a form at the book display in the LMC and designate your Top 3 book choices.

12. You will be notified of your book circle later in May.

13. Come back the last week of school to check your book out for the summer.

14. Questions? Come see us in the LMC

15. Lebanese-Australian Jamilah, known in school as Jamie, hides her heritage from her classmates and tries to pass by dyeing her hair blonde and wearing blue-tinted contact lenses, until her conflicted feelings become too much for her to bear.

16. In October, 1942, seventeen-year-old Helmuth Hubener, imprisoned for distributing anti-Nazi leaflets, recalls his past life and how he came to dedicate himself to bring the truth about Hitler and the war to the German people.

17. In 1947, with her jovial stepfather Joe back from the war and family life returning to normal, teenage Evie, smitten by the handsome young ex-GI who seems to have a secret hold on Joe, finds herself caught in a complicated web of lies whose devastating outcome change her life and that of her family forever.

18. Ama, Jo, and Polly, three close friends from Bethesda, Maryland, are looking forward to high school, but wonder if their relationship will survive the challenges that each girl faces over the summer break.

19. After being accepted as a fledgling vampire at the House of Night prep school and receiving special powers by a goddess, sixteen-year-old Zoey Montgomery discovers one of her peers is misusing her powers and must decide what the right thing to do is.

20. Relates the experiences of eight high school students in Chicago, Illinois, including a soccer playing honor roll student, an overachieving class president, a Muslim, and others.

21. A group of American scientists descend to the ocean floor to investigate a spaceship of phenomenal dimensions, apparently undamaged by its fall, and three hundred years old.

22. Shortly after her boyfriend Josh is killed in a pledging accident, November Nelson learns she is pregnant and fears she has no one to turn to, until she finds solace in the arms of Josh's cousin Jericho.

23. Dublin detective Bob Ryan has never been able to recall what happened when as a child in 1984 he and two friends went into the woods and only he returned, but he sees a chance to solve the mystery of the past through his investigation of the murder of a twelve-year-old girl whose body has been found in the same woods.

24. The orphan Bod, short for Nobody, is taken in by the inhabitants of a graveyard as a child of eighteen months and raised lovingly and carefully to the age of eighteen years by the community of ghosts and otherworldly creatures.

25. Fifteen-year-old Abby Savage hopes that her five rules for falling in love will keep her from making the same mistakes as her mother and two older sisters--all unwed mothers who have slept with the same man, among others--while she also tries to help her best friend Cody admit that he is gay, and decide how she really feels about Cody's older brother, Jackson.

26. Adam Chase, run out of town after being narrowly acquitted of the murder of a local football hero, returns to North Carolina five years later at the request of his best friend Danny, but he finds that while some attitudes have softened, there are those--including family members--who still believe he is guilty, and when Danny turns up dead, tempers ignite with violent consequences.

27. Frankie Landau-Banks attempts to take over a secret, all-male society at her exclusive prep school, and her antics with the group soon draw some unlikely attention and have unexpected consequences that could change her life forever.

28. Fifteen-year-old Tristan deals with intensified criticism about his weight when the nutrition-obsessed daughter of his mother's boyfriend, Frank, moves in.

29. After an accident in gym class puts sixteen-year-old Tessa into a coma, she re-evaluates her life by visiting the mall stores where significant events in her life took place.

30. A girl who has been brought up in near isolation is thrown into a twisted web of family secrets and religious fundamentalism when her mother dies and she goes to live with relatives she never knew she had.

31. Since the car accident that claimed the lives of her family, sixteen-year-old Ever can see auras and hear people's thoughts, and she goes out of her way to hide from other people until she meets Damen, another psychic teenager who is hiding even more mysteries.

32. Computer science professor Randy Pausch, who has been diagnosed with terminal cancer, discusses how to overcome obstacles in one's life and achieve one's dreams.

33. When Charlotte and Sean O'Keefe learn about their daughter's illness, they wonder if they should have known about it sooner and begin to question what constitutes the value of even the most fragile life.

34. A tsunami destroys everything leaving Mau, an island boy, Daphne, an aristocratic English girl, and a small group of refugees responsible for rebuilding their village and their lives.

35. Emma, Anna, and Mariah, fourteen-year-old private school students, lie to their parents about their late-night activities and, when they are caught in their lies, concoct a story about a strange man attacking them, leading to problems for an innocent man and the girls' families.

36. Recent college graduate Shepard is tired of hearing people complain about what they don't have so he sets off to see how far he can get by starting in Charleston, SC, with $25 and the clothes on his back. His goal is to finish 365 days later with a functioning car, a furnished apartment, and $2500 and be in a position to continue improving his circumstances. Along the way, he lives in a homeless shelter, befriends some interesting characters, and learns things the hard way.

37. Marcelo Sandoval, a seventeen-year-old boy on the high-functioning end of the autistic spectrum, faces new challenges, including romance and injustice, when he goes to work for his father in the mailroom of a corporate law firm.

38. Sixteen-year-old Londoner Lucas Swain, left in possession of the ashes of Violet Park, becomes convinced that Violet is communicating with him, initiating a voyage of self-discovery that forces him to finally confront the events surrounding his father's sudden disappearance.

39. Eighteen-year-old Eli discovers a shocking secret about his life and his family while working for a Nobel Prize-winning scientist whose specialty is genetic engineering.

40. Chronicles the experiences of twelve South Central Los Angeles high school seniors in a program for gifted students, as well as their teachers and administrators, and discusses the potential ramifications of the elimination of affirmative action in California.

41. Alessandra Cecchi becomes enchanted with a young painter her father has brought back from nortern Europe to decorate the chapel walls in the family's Florentine palazzo, but their relationship is interrupted when Alessandra's parents arrange her marriage to a wealthy older man.

42. Former federal agent Cal Harper tries to uncover the ties between the biblical murder of Abel by his brother Cain, Superman creator Mitchell Siegel's father's murder in 1932, and an attack on him and his father by a man who is tattooed with the markings of Cain.

43. The cunning and engaging Precious Ramotswe sets up shop in a small storefront in Gaborone, hoping to become a private detective, and she soon has more business than she expected, including a disturbing case involving a missing child.

44. A classic, published in 1923, containing 28 prose poems. This edition features twelve full-page mystical drawings by the famous Lebanese poet, philosopher and artist.

45. After Missy is abducted during a vacation and evidence of her murder shows up at a shack in the forests of Oregon, Mackenzie Philips, her father, receives a strange note inviting him to return to the scene of the tragedy where he wrestles withnightmarish religious questions.

46. After finally getting noticed by someone other than school bullies and his ever-angry father, seventeen-year-old Tyler enjoys his tough new reputation and the attentions of a popular girl, but when life starts to go bad again, he must choose between transforming himself or giving in to his destructive thoughts.

47. Melanie, whose mind has been almost completely taken over by an alien named Wanderer, convinces the alien to search for her lost lover, who fled the extraterrestrial invasion, and tries to find a way in which she and Wanderer can coexist.

48. Robin Perry, from Harlem, is sent to Iraq in 2003 as a member of the Civilian Affairs Battalion, and his time there profoundly changes him.