The Bibliophile's Bookshelf

Top Ten Tuesday is run by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl and this week’s theme is Books I Was Assigned to Read in School.

There is no particular order of books, so here are my Top Ten!

The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton The Outsiders is about two weeks in the life of a 14-year-old boy. The novel tells the story of Ponyboy Curtis and his struggles with right and wrong in a society in which he believes that he is an outsider. According to Ponyboy, there are two kinds of people in the world: greasers and socs. A soc (short for “social”) has money, can get away with just about anything, and has an attitude longer than a limousine. A greaser, on the other hand, always lives on the outside and needs to watch his back. Ponyboy is a greaser, and he’s always been proud of it, even willing to rumble against a gang of socs for the sake of his fellow greasers–until one terrible night when his friend Johnny kills a soc. The murder gets under Ponyboy’s skin, causing his bifurcated world to crumble and teaching him that pain feels the same whether a soc or a greaser.

The Outsiders is a book that many people enjoy, and I was no exception. It was wonderfully written and appeals to many different people.

Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech In her own award-winning style, Sharon Creech intricately weaves together two tales, one funny, one bittersweet, to create a heartwarming, compelling, and utterly moving story of love, loss, and the complexity of human emotion.

Walk Two Moons is one of my favorite required readings. It was so good; Sharon Creech wrote a beautiful story. It was very emotional, though.

My Side of The Mountain by Jean Craighead George Every kid thinks about running away at one point or another; few get farther than the end of the block. Young Sam Gribley gets to the end of the block and keeps going–all the way to the Catskill Mountains of upstate New York. There he sets up house in a huge hollowed-out tree, with a falcon and a weasel for companions and his wits as his tool for survival. In a spellbinding, touching, funny account, Sam learns to live off the land, and grows up a little in the process. Blizzards, hunters, loneliness, and fear all battle to drive Sam back to city life. But his desire for freedom, independence, and adventure is stronger. No reader will be immune to the compulsion to go right out and start whittling fishhooks and befriending raccoons.

I was supposed to read this in the sixth grade. I couldn’t get through it. I just didn’t love this story.

Peak by Roland Smith Roland Smith has created an action-packed adventure about friendship, sacrifice, family, and the drive to take on Everest, despite the incredible risk. The story of Peak’s dangerous ascent—told in his own words—is suspenseful, immediate, and impossible to put down.

I can’t remember what class I had to read this in, but it was entertaining. It wasn’t really my type of book, but I liked it non-the-less.

Catherine, Called Birdy by Karen Cushman “Corpus Bones! I utterly loathe my life.” Catherine feels trapped. Her father is determined to marry her off to a rich man–any rich man, no matter how awful. But by wit, trickery, and luck, Catherine manages to send several would-be husbands packing. Then a shaggy-bearded suitor from the north comes to call–by far the oldest, ugliest, most revolting suitor of them all. Unfortunately, he is also the richest. Can a sharp-tongued, high-spirited, clever young maiden with a mind of her own actually lose the battle against an ill-mannered, piglike lord and an unimaginative, greedy toad of a father? Deus! Not if Catherine has anything to say about it!

My entire seventh grade history class read Catherine, Called Birdy. I honestly really enjoyed it and it painted a picture of what life was like for women in medieval times.

The Ghost of Spirit Bear by Ben Mikaelsen At fifteen, Cole Matthews faced a prison sentence for slamming another student’s head against a sidewalk. Instead, he volunteered for Native American Circle Justice and agreed to a year in exile on a remote Alaskan island. There he was mauled by the legendary Spirit Bear and nearly faced death…but finally found redemption. Now, his banishment over, he has to return home and face the one thing he may not be able to handle: high school. Gangs haunt the hallways. Cole finds violence at every turn, and as the hate-filled school reaches its boiling point, the hibernating rage inside Cole begins to stir. In this tale of urban survival and self-awareness, Cole realizes it’s not enough to change himself. He has to change his world. 

This book was read aloud to the whole class when I was in fifth grade. It is a middle reader book that deals with heavy themes, but in an interesting way. I actually reread it recently and I still enjoyed it.

I am Malala by Malala Yousafzai I Am Malala is the remarkable tale of a family uprooted by global terrorism, of the fight for girls’ education, of a father who, himself a school owner, championed and encouraged his daughter to write and attend school, and of brave parents who have a fierce love for their daughter in a society that prizes sons.

I’m currently reading this for a Women Writers class. I can’t give a complete review of it, but I am enjoying it so far and it’s very eye-opening.

Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor

The dream chooses the dreamer, not the other way around—and Lazlo Strange, war orphan and junior librarian, has always feared that his dream chose poorly. Since he was five years old he’s been obsessed with the mythic lost city of Weep, but it would take someone bolder than he to cross half the world in search of it. Then a stunning opportunity presents itself, in the person of a hero called the Godslayer and a band of legendary warriors, and he has to seize his chance or lose his dream forever. What happened in Weep two hundred years ago to cut it off from the rest of the world? What exactly did the Godslayer slay that went by the name of god? And what is the mysterious problem he now seeks help in solving? The answers await in Weep, but so do more mysteries—including the blue-skinned goddess who appears in Lazlo’s dreams. How did he dream her before he knew she existed? And if all the gods are dead, why does she seem so real? Welcome to Weep.

Strange the Dreamer was book I chose to read for a book report. I read this when I was in middle school and it’s a big book, with lots of world building. I enjoyed it, though I think I would enjoy this more if I read it now.

Love Letters to the Dead by Ava Dellaira It begins as an assignment for English class: Write a letter to a dead person. Laurel chooses Kurt Cobain because her sister, May, loved him. And he died young, just like May did. Soon, Laurel has a notebook full of letters to people like Janis Joplin, Amy Winehouse, Amelia Earhart, Heath Ledger, and more — though she never gives a single one of them to her teacher. She writes about starting high school, navigating new friendships, falling in love for the first time, learning to live with her splintering family. And, finally, about the abuse she suffered while May was supposed to be looking out for her. Only then, once Laurel has written down the truth about what happened to herself, can she truly begin to accept what happened to May. And only when Laurel has begun to see her sister as the person she was — lovely and amazing and deeply flawed — can she begin to discover her own path in this stunning debut from Ava Dellaira, Love Letters to the Dead.

This was a book that I picked to complete a book report for my eighth-grade class. This was a good book, though not exactly what I was looking for, and in hindsight this book dealt with heavy themes and was kind of dark.

Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare In this death-filled setting, the movement from love at first sight to the lovers’ final union in death seems almost inevitable. And yet, this play set in an extraordinary world has become the quintessential story of young love. In part because of its exquisite language, it is easy to respond as if it were about all young lovers.

I was supposed to read parts of this book throughout many different English classes in high school, but I never managed to get through it.

All summaries are from Goodreads.