Creating Motivated Readers, One Video at a Time
Last Exit to Normal by Michael Harmon Life was going along just fine for Ben Campbell until he hit fourteen. That was the year his father announced that he was gay and his mother left. His dad’s boyfriend moved in, and Ben started counseling — and also misbehaving. Now, after three years of run-ins with the law, Ben’s dad has decided the only way to save Ben is to leave Spokane. At age seventeen, city boy Ben finds himself living ...
Little Brother by Corey Doctorow Seventeen-year-old techno-geek “w1n5t0n” (aka Marcus) bypasses the school’s gait-recognition system by placing pebbles in his shoes, chats secretly with friends on his IMParanoid messaging program, and routinely evades school security with his laptop, cell, WiifFinder, and ingenuity. When he ditches school one Friday morning, 17-year-old Marcus is hoping to get a head start on the Harajuku Fun Madn...
Losing Forever by Gayle Friesen Ninth-grader Jes Miner-Cooper knows that she isn’t responsible for her parents’ divorce; their marriage started to fail after her little sister, Alberta, died. What bothers her is the perception that her folks are hiding something from her. Her father spends most of his time fishing and reading Russian novels; her mother is absorbed in plans to remarry. Jes’ friends aren’t any help: one is involve...
Monster by Walter Dean Myers “Monster!” That is what the lady prosecutor called Steve Harmon, a sixteen-year-old black teenager. Steve’s story begins when he is charged as an accomplice to murder. While in prison, Steve passes the time by writing his story like a screenplay. In it he tells of his fears, his past, and the events of his own murder trial. Is Steve a monster or was he merely in the wrong place at the wrong time? Will ...
The Orange Houses by Paul Griffin This story follows three kids through the pressure cooker of inner-city teenage life as it moves toward its crushing conclusion. Tamika Sykes is a partially deaf student agonizing over whether she really wants to hear all the noise surrounding her. Fatima Esperer is a 16-year-old refugee who fled the violence and poverty of her unspecified African country to live in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty. ...
All For one – Elise Leonard Series About Elise Leonard: Elise was a successful teacher of inner-city kids for over 20 years before starting her writing career. She now lives in Florida. About This Book: All for One is the first book of The Smith Brothers series: MEET THE SMITH BROTHERS. Storyline: Four Brothers, all adopted, and all in the family business. They decided to open up a detective agency. Will they be able to solve thei...
All That is Red by Anna Caltabiano If you could choose a world without loneliness, without shame, grief, misery, or feeling of any kind, would you, if it also meant that you lost the simple pleasure of a picnic on a sunny day or the joy of falling in love? Would the allure of a comfortable numbness prove too tempting to resist? Could you choose between feeling pain and not feeling anything, ever again? A girl is caught in a world...
Alt Ed by Catherine Atkins Susan Calloway, bullied and overweight, faces daily humiliation at the hands of her classmates and she’s had enough. With her anger about to reach the boiling point, Susan lands in an alternative education class, a sort of group therapy for the nearly expelled. School is bad enough, but facing off with five peers, including her cruelest tormentor, is worse. Now Susan is being forced to do something she’s a...
Amy and Roger’s Epic Detour by Morgan Matson Amy Curry thinks her life sucks. Her mom decides to move from California to Connecticut to start anew–just in time for Amy’s senior year. Her dad recently died in a car accident. So Amy embarks on a road trip to escape from it all, driving cross-country from the home she’s always known toward her new life. Joining Amy on the road trip is Roger, the son of Amy’s mother’s old fr...
Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment by James Patterson Fang, Iggy, Nudge, the Gasman, Angel, and Maximum: Six kids who are pretty normal in most ways-except that they’re 98% human, 2% bird. They grew up in cages, living like rats, but now they’re free. Riding the wind, their wings are an amazing gift….and yet, their world can morph into a nightmare in a single instant. For when the bloodthirsty Erasers-half men, half wolves genetic...
