One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest Ken Kesey In this classic novel, Ken Kesey’s hero is Randle Patrick McMurphy, a boisterous, brawling, fun-loving rebel who swaggers into the world of a mental hospital and takes over. A lusty, life-affirming fighter,…
All American Boys Jason Reynolds Ages 12-16 A bag of chips. That’s all sixteen-year-old Rashad is looking for at the corner bodega. What he finds instead is a fist-happy cop, Paul Galluzzo, who mistakes Rashad for a shoplifter, mistakes Rashad’s…
This One Summer Mariko Tamaki Jillian Tamaki Every summer, Rose travels with her parents to the quiet beach town of Awago. There, she reunites with her friend Windy, and together they spend their days watching scary movies, swimming, eating too…
Wicked Gregory Maguire Fantasy In this classic tale of good and evil, what if we weren”t told the whole story? Long before Dorothy follows the yellow brick road and triumphs over the Wicked Witch of the West, a little girl…
The Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck Classics First published in 1939, Steinbeck’s Pulitzer Prize-winning epic of the Great Depression chronicles the Dust Bowl migration of the 1930s and tells the story of one Oklahoma farm family, the Joads—driven from their…
The Freedom Writers Diary Erin Gruwell Non Fiction In 1994, an idealistic first-year teacher in Long Beach, California, named Erin Gruwell confronted a room of “unteachable, at-risk” students. She had intercepted a note with an ugly racial caricature and angrily…
Sold Patricia McCormick Realistic Fiction Lakshmi is a thirteen-year-old girl who lives with her family in a small hut on a mountain in Nepal. Though desperately poor, her life is full of simple pleasures, like playing hopscotch with her best…
Slaughterhouse-Five Kurt Vonnegut Fantasy Slaughterhouse-Five, an American classic, is one of the world’s great antiwar books. Centering on the infamous firebombing of Dresden, Billy Pilgrim’s odyssey through time reflects the mythic journey of our own fractured lives as we search…
The Story of Little Black Sambo Helen Bannerman Ages 3-12 Sambo is a South Indian boy who lives with his father and mother, named Black Jumbo and Black Mumbo, respectively. While out walking, Sambo encounters four hungry tigers, and surrenders…
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret Judy Blume Ages 10+ Margaret Simon, almost twelve, likes long hair, tuna fish, the smell of rain, and things that are pink. She’s just moved from New York City to Farbook, New Jersey,…