Reading Guides Lesson Plans
Bring our books into the classroom or lead a reading group with guidance from our reading guides and lesson plans.
Fiction
Clover
Clover Hill is ten years old when her father, the principal of the local elementary school, marries a white woman, Sara Kate. Just hours later, an automobile accident compels Clover to forge a relationship with the new stepmother she hardly knows in this beautiful, enduring novel about a family lost and found.
How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents
Acclaimed writer Julia Alvarez’s brilliant and buoyant and beloved first novel gives voice to four sisters recounting their adventures growing up in two cultures.
The Girl Who Fell from the Sky
A searing and heartwrenching portrait of a young biracial girl dealing with society’s ideas of race.
Good Kings Bad Kings
Bellwether Award winner Susan Nussbaum’s powerful novel invites us into the lives of a group of typical teenagers—alienated, funny, yearning for autonomy—except that they live in an institution for juveniles with disabilities.
The Good Negress
Twenty years after its initial publication, The Good Negress continues to be an important part of the literary canon, as relevant and necessary as ever. Set in 1960s Detroit, the novel centers around Denise Palms and her journey from adolescence to womanhood as she navigates the tension between loyalty and independence, and between circumstance and desire. The Good Negress is simultaneously the portrait of a family and a glimpse into an era of twentieth-century America.
In the Time of the Butterflies
The voices of four sisters speak across the decades to tell their own stories and to describe the everyday horrors of life under Gen. Trujillo’s rule in the Dominican Republic.
Mudbound
In Jordan’s prize-winning debut, prejudice takes many forms, both subtle and brutal.
Water for Elephants
Jacob Janowski’s luck had run out—orphaned and penniless, he had no direction until he landed on a rickety train that was home to the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth. A veterinary student just shy of a degree, he was put in charge of caring for the circus menagerie. It was the Great Depression and for Jacob the circus was both his salvation and a living hell.
Nonfiction
Leaving China
In a unique memoir comprising more than fifty watercolor paintings and accompanying text, award-winning artist and New York Times bestselling author James McMullan explores how his early childhood in China and wartime journeys with his mother influenced his whole life, especially his artwork.
Passenger on the Pearl
The page-turning, heart-wrenching true story of one young woman willing to risk her safety and even her life for a chance at freedom in the largest slave escape attempt in American history.
Pumpkinflowers
Hailed as a modern war classic “on par with Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, Pumpkinflowers by Matti Friedman was picked as a New York Times Notable Book of 2016, and it hit No. 8 on Amazon’s list of Best Books of the year.
Middle Grade
The Girl Who Drank the Moon
In this New York Times bestselling epic fantasy, a young girl raised by a witch, a swamp monster, and a Perfectly Tiny Dragon must unlock the dangerous magic buried deep inside. The New York Times Book Review calls The Girl Who Drank the Moon “impossible to put down . . . as exciting and layered as classics like Peter Pan or The Wizard of Oz.”
The Witch’s Boy
“A lightning bolt erupted from the cloud and aimed directly at Ned’s heart. He couldn’t cry out. He couldn’t even move. He could just feel the magic sink into his skin and spread itself over every inch of him, bubbling and slithering and cutting deep, until he didn’t know where the magic stopped and he began.”
Young Adult
The Art of Secrets
When Saba Khan’s apartment burns in a mysterious fire, her high school rallies around her. But then a quirky piece of art donated to a school fund-raising effort for the Khans is revealed to be worth a fortune and Saba’s life quickly turns upside down again. Greed, jealousy, and suspicion create an increasingly tangled web as adults and teens alike debate who should get the money and begin to question one another’s motives and make accusations.
Beastly Bones
In this highly anticipated sequel, Abigail and Sherlockian detective of the supernatural Jackaby follow a trail of mysterious murders from New Fiddleham to nearby Gad’s Valley. There they are reunited with exiled police detective Charlie Caine, and the three race to find the culprit before more lives are lost.
Hit Count
Acclaimed author Chris Lynch explores the American love affair with football and our attempts to come to terms with the dangers of the sport through Arlo Brodie, a teen who loves being at the heart of the action on the football field, getting hit hard and hitting back harder.
If You’re Lucky
After Georgia’s brother, Lucky, drowns in a surfing accident, a charming stranger comes to town for his funeral. As Georgia seeks the truth about what really happened to Lucky and her suspicions about the stranger grow, the line between Georgia’s increasingly fragile mental state and reality begin to blur.
If You Could Be Mine
In Iran, it’s a crime punishable by death to be gay. Sex reassignment surgery is covered by the government health program, though, and regarded by many as a way to fix a “mistake.” Sahar, seventeen, has been in love with her best friend, a girl named Nasrin, since they were six. Sahar even lets herself dream that one day they might marry. But when Nasrin’s parents announce her arranged marriage will take place in a matter of months, Sahar must decide just what lengths she’ll go to for true love.
Jackaby
Doctor Who meets Sherlock in William Ritter’s debut novel, which features a detective of the paranormal as seen through the eyes of his adventurous and intelligent assistant in a tale brimming with cheeky humor and a dose of the macabre.
Somebody Up There Hates You
Richie is a normal seventeen-year-old—except he’s in hospice care. The end of his story is clear, but the people who love Richie want to keep him alive as long as possible. Richie wants to live as much as he can till the end. Oh, and there’s a fifteen-year-old girl named Sylvie across the hall. Somebody Up There Hates You is smart, funny, painful, and bawdy—with no holds barred.
The Summer of Letting Go
Four years ago, Francesca’s little brother, Simon, drowned, and Francesca’s the one who should have been watching. Now Francesca is about to turn sixteen, but guilt keeps her stuck in the past. Then she meets four-year-old Frankie Sky, a little boy who bears an almost eerie resemblance to Simon. Is it possible he’s Simon’s reincarnation?
Tell Me Again How a Crush Should Feel
High-school junior Leila has made it most of the way through Armstead Academy without having a crush on anyone, which is something of a relief. Her Persian heritage already makes her different from her classmates; if word got out that she liked girls, life would be twice as hard. But when a sophisticated, beautiful new girl, Saskia, shows up, Leila starts to take risks she never thought she would, especially when it looks as if the attraction between them is mutual.
The Walls Around Us
The Walls Around Us is a ghostly story of suspense told in two voices—one still living and one dead. Nova Ren Suma tells a supernatural tale of guilt and innocence, and what happens when one is mistaken for the other.