Creating Motivated Readers, One Video at a Time
Nikolas & Co: The Mermaid and Moon Forgotten by Kevin McGill A long time ago in a world not so far away…” Senior stagecoach driver, Yeri Willrow, leads a group of mysterious passengers through one of the most fog-ridden night of his prestigious career. What he thought would be a simple drive and drop quickly turns into an attack by foul-breath, red-eyed creatures. Yeri learns that his mysterious passengers are a family of au...
Night by Ellie Wiesel Born in the town of Sighet, Transylvania, Elie Wiesel was a teenager when he and his family were taken from their home in 1944 to the Auschwitz concentration camp, and then to Buchenwald. Night is the terrifying record of Elie Wiesel’s memories of the death of his family, the death of his own innocence, and his despair as a deeply observant Jew confronting the absolute evil of man.e, a decision that will tear her...
Nickel and Dimed: or Not Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich Millions of Americans work for poverty-level wages, and one day Barbara Ehrenreich decided to join them. She was inspired in part by the rhetoric surrounding welfare reform, which promised that any job equals a better life. But how can anyone survive, let alone prosper, on $6 to $7 an hour? To find out, Ehrenreich moved from Florida to Maine to Minnesota, taking the ch...
No Child’s Game: Reality TV 2083 by Andrea White Five fourteen-year-olds are contestants on a reality TV show, Antarctic Survivor, which is set up to re-create Robert E. Scott’s 1912 doomed attempt to be the first to reach the South Pole, in a world where adult reality TV involves real injuries and death. The producer of this new show has decided to push the boundaries of edu-tainment and doesn’t care if the contestants ar...
Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult These are the words that seventeen-year-old Peter Houghton says when he is found after a school shooting spree huddling with a gun in his hand by Detective Patrick Ducharme. An outcast who had been bullied since kindergarten, Peter kills ten, including a teacher, and injures many more. At first glance, it looks like a straightforward act of revenge, but things are revealed to be more complex. One of his ...
Quake: Disaster in San Francisco – 1906 by Gail Langer Karwoski It is 1906, and 13-year-old Jacob Kaufman, who lives in San Francisco with his father and little sister, is outside when a major earthquake shakes the city, cracking streets and toppling buildings. After Jacob and his dog save the life of San, a Chinese boy, the two join together to search for their families and for food and temporary shelter. Though San occasionally ...
Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare This magnificent, timeless drama is the world’s most famous tale of “star-crossed lovers.” The young, unshakable love of Juliet and Romeo defies the feud that divides their families–the Capulets and Montagues–as their desperate need to be together, their secret meetings, and finally their concealed marriage drive them toward tragedy....
Outcasts United: The Story of a Refugee Soccer Team That Changed a Town by Warren St. John With conviction and skill, Jordanian Luma Mufleh established and coached three soccer teams known as the Fugees. Her players were haunted by memories of war-torn homelands and personal tragedies and were struggling to adjust to life in the United States. However, her high expectations and willingness to help families impacted her young players. De...
Paper Towns by John Green Quentin Jacobsen, 17, has been in love with his next-door neighbor, Margo Roth Spiegelman, for his entire life. A leader at their Central Florida high school, she has carefully cultivated her ‘bad-ass’ image. Quentin is one of the smart kids. His parents are therapists and he is, above all things, “goddamned well adjusted.” He takes a rare risk when Margo appears at his window in the middle of the night...
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie Arnold Spirit, a goofy-looking dork with a decent jumpshot, spends his time lamenting life on the “poor-ass” Spokane Indian reservation, drawing cartoons (which accompany, and often provide more insight than, the narrative), and, along with his aptly named pal Rowdy, laughing those laughs over anything and nothing that affix best friends so intricately together. When ...
