Possible Titles for Summer Reading 2010

The Adoration of Jenna Fox
Mary E. Pearson
MATURE
In the not-too-distant future, when biotechnological advances have made synthetic bodies and brains possible but illegal, a seventeen-year-old girl, recovering from a serious accident and suffering from memory lapses, learns a startling secret about her existence. (Novelist) (Multnomah County)

Airman
Eoin Colfer
In the 1890s on an island off the Irish coast, Conor Broekhart is falsely imprisoned and passes the solitary months by scratching designs of flying machines into the walls, including one for a glider with which he dreams of escape. (Novelist) (Multnomah County)

Alanna
Tamora Pierce

Eleven-year-old Alanna, who aspires to be a knight even though she is a girl, disguises herself as a boy to become a royal page, a learning many hard lessons along her path to high adventure. (Novelist) (Multnomah County)

Alchemyst
Michael Scott
While working at pleasant but mundane summer jobs in San Francisco, fifteen-year-old twins, Sophie and Josh, suddenly find themselves caught up in the deadly, centuries-old struggle between rival alchemists, Nicholas Flamel and John Dee, over the possession of an ancient and powerful book holding the secret formulas for alchemy and everlasting life. (NoveList) (Multnomah County Library)

Anne of Green Gables
L. M. Montgomery

Anne, an eleven-year-old orphan, is sent by mistake to live with a lonely, middle-aged brother and sister on a Prince Edward Island farm and proceeds to make an indelible impression on everyone around her. (Novelist) (Multnomah County)

The Batboy (Hard Back only)
Mike Lupica
Even though his mother feels baseball ruined her marriage to his father, she allows fourteen-year-old Brian to become a bat boy for the Detroit Tigers, who have just drafted his favorite player back onto the team. (NoveList)

The Beekeeper's Apprentice
Laurie King
When Mary Russell meets famous detective Sherlock Holmes, she discovers that he is also a beekeeper. Soon she finds herself on the trail of kidnappers and discovers a plot to kill both Holmes and herself. (Novelist) (Multnomah County Library)

Book of a Thousand Days
Shannon Hale
Fifteen-year-old Dashti, sworn to obey her sixteen-year-old mistress, the Lady Saren, shares Saren's years of punishment locked in a tower, then brings her safely to the lands of her true love, where both must hide who they are as they work as kitchen maids.
(Novelist) (Multnomah County Library)

The Count of Monte Cristo
Alexander Dumas
After escaping from the island where he has been in prison, Dantes plots his revenge on the people responsible for his imprisonment. (Novelist) (Multnomah County Library)

The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm
Nancy Farmer
In 2194 in Zimbabwe, General Matsika's three children are kidnapped and put to work in a plastic mine, while three mutant detectives use their special powers to search for them.

(Novelist) (Multnomah County Library)

Ender's Game
Orson Scott Card
MATURE
A tale of the child-hero Ender Wiggin, who must fight a desperate battle against a deadly alien race if mankind is to survive. (Novelist) (Multnomah County Library)

Extraordinary Adventures of Alfred Kropp
Rick Yancey
MATURE
Through a series of dangerous and violent misadventures, teenage loser Alfred Kropp rescues King Arthur's legendary sword Excalibur from the forces of evil. (Novelist) (Multnomah County Library)

Heart of a Shepherd
Rosanne Parry
Ignatius "Brother" Alderman, nearly twelve, promises to help his grandparents keep the family's Oregon ranch the same while his brothers are away and his father is deployed to Iraq, but as he comes to accept the inevitability of change, he also sees the man he is meant to be. (NoveList) (Multnomah County Library)

His Majesty's Dragon
Naomi Novik
After capturing a French frigate and seizing its precious cargo, Captain Will Laurence of the HMS "Reliant" befriends the dragon Temeraire and uses his new friend to help defend his country from other airborne dragon forces.
(Novelist) (Multnomah County Library)

Keeper
Mal Peet
MATURE
In an interview with a young journalist, World Cup hero, El Gato, describes his youth in the Brazilian rain forest and the events, experiences, and people that helped make him a great goalkeeper and renowned soccer star. (NoveList) (Multnomah County Library)

The Lightning Thief
Rick Riordan
After learning that the father he never knew is Poseidon, God of the Sea, Percy Jackson is transferred from boarding school to Camp Half-Blood, a summer camp for demigods, and becomes involved in a quest to prevent a war between the gods. (NoveList) (Multnomah County Library)
Little Women
Louisa May Alcott
Chronicles the joys and sorrows of the four March sisters as they grow into young ladies in nineteenth-century New England. (Novelist) (Multnomah County Library)

The Old Man and the Sea

Ernest Hemingway
Santiago is a Cuban fisherman who encounters a giant marlin in the Gulf Stream and the battle for his catch becomes one of survival against a band of marauding sharks.(Novelist) (Multnomah County Library)

The Real Benedict Arnold

Jim Murphy
Brilliant military strategist Benedict Arnold, although maligned and branded 'traitor,' was a man for whom honor meant a great deal. (Multnomah County Library)

Red Pyramid (Hard Back only)
Rick Riordan
Brilliant Egyptologist Dr. Julius Kane unites his children, Sadie and Carter, for a "research experiment" at the British Museum, hoping to set things right for his family after the death of the children's mother--instead, he awakens the gods of Egypt and unleashes the worst of them, the god Set, who banishes Julius to oblivion and forces the children to flee for their lives.
(Novelist) (Multnomah County Library)

Ruby In the Smoke
Philip Pullman
In nineteenth-century London, sixteen-year-old Sally, a recent orphan, becomes involved in a deadly search for a mysterious ruby. (Novelist) (Multnomah County)

Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World: The Extraordinary True Story of Shackleton and The Endurance
Jennifer Armstrong
In August 1914, Ernest Shackleton and 27 men sailed from England in an attempt to become the first team of explorers to cross Antarctica from one side to the other. Five months later and still 100 miles from land, their ship, Endurance, became trapped in ice. The expedition survived another five months camping on ice floes, followed by a perilous journey through stormy seas to remote and unvisited Elephant Island. In a dramatic climax to this amazing survival story, Shackleton and five others navigated 800 miles of treacherous open ocean in a 20-foot boat to fetch a rescue ship. (Multnomah County Library)

The Three Musketeers
Alexandre Dumas
A young Gascon nobleman, d'Artagnan, sets off for Paris in hopes of joining the Musketeers. He proves himself fighting with them and earns a place in their ranks. With d'Artagnan the three preserve the honor of the king and thwart the schemes of Cardinal Richelieu. (Novelist) (Multnomah County Library)

Trickster's Choice
Tamora Pierce
Alianne must call forth her mother's courage and her father's wit in order to survive on the Copper Isles in a royal court rife with political intrigue and murderous conspiracy. (Novelist) (Multnomah County LIBRARY))


True North
Kathryn Lasky
Because of the strong influence which her grandfather, an abolitionist, has in her life, fourteen-year-old Lucy assists a fugitive slave girl in her escape. (Novelist) (Multnomah County Library)

Waiting for Normal
Leslie Connor
Twelve-year-old Addie tries to cope with her mother's erratic behavior and being separated from her beloved stepfather and half-sisters when she and her mother go to live in a small trailer by the railroad tracks on the outskirts of Schenectady, New York. (NoveList) (Multnomah County Library)

Westing Game
Ellen Raskin
The mysterious death of an eccentric millionaire brings together an unlikely assortment of heirs who must uncover the circumstances of his death before they can claim their inheritance. (Novelist) (Multnomah County Library)

When You Reach Me
Rebecca Stead
As her mother prepares to be a contestant on the 1980s television game show, "The $20,000 Pyramid," a twelve-year-old New York City girl tries to make sense of a series of mysterious notes received from an anonymous source that seems to defy the laws of time and space.
(Novelist) (Multnomah County Library)

White House
Roland Smith
In this follow-up to "Book One: Independence Hall," Q and Angela continue their quest to uncover the truth behind the supposed death of Angela's real mother, a former Secret Service agent, while trying to differentiate the "good guys" from the "bad guys." (NoveList)

A Wrinkle in Time
Madeleine L'Engle
Meg Murry and her friends become involved with unearthly strangers and a search for Meg's father, who has disappeared while engaged in secret work for the government. (Novelist) (Multnomah County Library)

Zen and the Art of Faking It
Jordan Sonnenblick
When thirteen-year-old San Lee moves to a new town and school for the umpteenth time, he is looking for a way to stand out when his knowledge of Zen Buddhism, gained in his previous school, provides the answer -- and the need to quickly become a convincing Zen master. (NoveList) (Multnomah County Library)

THIS IS THE END OF THE LIST OF POSSIBLE BOOKS (SO FAR) FOR THE SUMMER OF 2010.