Book Commercials
So you're interested in Book Commercials, are you? Can't think of what to read next? Are you asking, What's a book commercial? Book commercials are like television commercials - they briefly advertise the plot of a book in hopes that you will read it. These recommendations are not just favorite books of your teacher, but they are suggestions that I have received from your classmates and other high school students. Some of the books may seem juvenile to you, but I assure you, I would not put a book on this list that is nothing less than wonderful. So please, take some time to browse these Book Commercials to see which ones catch your attention. Try one (or a few) out! You've got nothing to lose! Many of them can be found in our classroom library.
The Graveyard BookBy Neil Gaiman
Nobody Owens, known to his friends as Bod, is a normal boy. He would be completely normal if he didn't live in a sprawling graveyard, being raised and educated by ghosts, with a solitary guardian who belongs to neither the world of the living nor of the dead. There are dangers and adventures in the graveyard for a boy - an ancient Indigo Man beneath the hill, a gateway to a desert leading to an abandoned city of ghouls, the strange and terrible menace of the Sleer. But if Bod leaves the graveyard, then he will come under attack from the man Jack - who has already killed Bod's family... CoralineBy Neil Gaiman
When Coraline steps through a door to find another house strangely similar to her own (only better), things seem marvelous. But there's another mother there, and another father, and they want her to stay and be their little girl. They want to change her and never let her go. Coraline will have to fight with all her wit and courage if she is to save herself and return to her ordinary life. Are You There God,It's Me Margaret? by Judy Blume
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 the suburbs, and she's anxious to fit in with her new friends, so when they form a secret club to talk about boys, bras, and getting their first periods, Margaret is happy to belong. But none of them can believe Margaret doesn't have a religion. And Margaret can't tell them the truth: that she can talk to God anyway, about everything that's on her mind - including Philip Leroy, the best-looking boy in sixth grade. Margaret is funny and real. So are her most personal thoughts and feelings. CeremonyBy Leslie Marmon Silko
Tayo, a young Native American, has been a prisoner of the Japanese during WWII, and the horrors of capacity have almost eroded his will to survive. His return to the Laguna Pueblo reservation only increases his feeling of estrangement and alienation. While other returning soldiers find easy refuge in alcohol and senseless violence, Tayo searches for another kind of comfort and resolution. Tayo's quest leads him back to the Indian past and its traditions, to beliefs about witchcraft and evil, and to the ancient stories of his people. The search itself becomes a ritual, a curative ceremony that defeats the most virulent of afflictions, despair. The Wednesday WarsBy Gary SchmidtThe Wednesday Wars is a 2007 young adult historical fiction novel written by Gary D. Schmidt, the author of Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy. The novel is set in suburban Long Island during the 1967-68 school year. The Vietnam War is an important backdrop for the novel. Holling Hoodhood, the protagonist, is a twelve year old boy who has entered 7th grade that year. This novel was given a Newbery Honor medal in 2008.[1] It was also nominated for the 2010 Rebecca Caudill Young Reader's Book Award.
Okay For NowBy Gary Schmidt
"The Dump" is what Doug Swieteck calls his new home in upstate New York. He lands there in the summer of 1968, when the Apollo space missions are under way. Joe Pepitone is slugging for the New York Yankees, and the Vietnam War is raging. At home he lives with his father who has lost his way and a brother accused of robbery. And Doug's oldest brother is returning from Vietnam. Who knows what wounds his missions have given him? But Doug has his own mission, too, and it begins when he first sees the plates of John James Audubon's Birds of America at the local library. His mission will lead him to Lil Spicer, who shows him how to drink a really cold Coke, to Mrs. Windermere, who drags him to a theater opening, and to the customers of his Saturday grocery deliveries, who together will open a world as strange to him as the lunar landscape. A Prayer for Owen MeanyBy John Irving
Owen Meany, the only child of a New Hampshire granite quarrier, believes he is God's instrument. He is. This is John Irving's most comic novel; yet Owen Meany is Mr. Irving's most heartbreaking character. Cirque du Freak SeriesBy Darren ShanDarren Shan and his best friend, Steve, get tickets to the Cirque Du Freak, a wonderfully gothic freak show featuring weird, frightening half human/half animals who interact terrifyingly with the audience. In the midst of the excitement, true terror raises its head when Steve recognizes that one of the performers-- Mr. Crepsley-- is a vampire!
To Kill a MockingbirdBy Harper Lee
Set in the small Southern town of Maycomb, Alabama, during the Depression, To Kill a Mockingbird follows three years in the life of 8-year-old Scout Finch, her brother, Jem, and their father, Atticus--three years punctuated by the arrest and eventual trial of a young black man accused of raping a white woman. Though her story explores big themes, Harper Lee chooses to tell it through the eyes of a child. The result is a tough and tender novel of race, class, justice, and the pain of growing up. Uncle Tom's CabinBy Harriet Beecher Stowe
This is a book that changed history. Harriet Beecher Stowe was appalled by slavery, and she took one of the few options open to nineteenth century women who wanted to affect public opinion: she wrote a novel, a huge, enthralling narrative that claimed the heart, soul, and politics of pre-Civil War Americans. It is unabashed propaganda and overtly moralistic, an attempt to make whites - North and South - see slaves as mothers, fathers, and people with (Christian) souls. In a time when women might see the majority of their children die, Harriet Beecher Stowe portrays beautiful Eliza fleeing slavery to protect her son. In a time when many whites claimed slavery had "good effects" on blacks, Uncle Tom's Cabin paints pictures of three plantations, each worse than the other, where even the best plantation leaves a slave at the mercy of fate or debt. By twentieth-century standards, her propaganda verges on melodrama, and it is clear that even while arguing for the abolition of slavery she did not rise above her own racism. |
The Miraculous JourneyOf Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo
Once, in a house of Egypt Street, there lived a china rabbit named Edward Tulane. The rabbit was very pleased with himself, for he was owned by a girl named Abilene, who treated him with the utmost care and adored him completely. And then, one day, he was lost. Things Fall ApartBy Chinua Achebe
A simple story of a "strong man" whose life is dominated by fear and anger, Things Fall Apart is written with remarkable economy and subtle irony. Uniquely and richly African, at the same time it reveals Achebe's keen awareness of the human qualities common to men of all times and places. The Hunger Games TrilogyBy Suzanne Collins
Katniss is a 16-year-old girl living with her mother and younger sister in the poorest district of Panem, the remains of what used be the United States. Long ago the districts waged war on the Capitol and were defeated. As part of the surrender terms, each district agreed to send one boy and one girl to appear in an annual televised event called "The Hunger Games." The terrain, rules, and level of audience participation may change but one thing is constant: kill or be killed. When Kat's sister is chosen by lottery, Kat steps up to go in her place. The Absolutely True Diary of aPart-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
Junior is a budding cartoonist growing up on the Spokane Indian reservation. Born with a variety of medical problems, he is picked on by everyone but his best friend. Determined to receive a good education, Junior leaves the rez to attend an all-white school in the neighboring farm town where the only other Indian is the school mascot. Despite being condemned as a traitor to his people and enduring great tragedies, Junior attacks life with wit and humor and discovers a strength inside of himself that he never knew existed. The Lone Ranger and TontoFistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie
There is Thomas Builds-the-Fire, the storyteller who no one seems to listen to, and his compatriot - and sometimes not-so-great friend - Victor, the basketball hero who turned into a recovering alcoholic. Now with two new stories and an introduction from Alexie, these twenty-four interlinked tales are narrated by characters raised on humiliation and government-issued cheese, and yet filled with passion and affection, myth and charm. Against a backdrop of alcohol, car accidents, laughter, and basketball, Alexie depicts the distances between Indians and whites, reservation Indians and urban Indians, men and women, and, most poetically, modern Indians and the traditions of the past. The Twilight SeriesBy Stephenie Meyer
Isabella Swan, better known as Bella, is seventeen. Not long after her mom remarries a man who travels quite a bit, Bella decides to move from sunny Phoenix, Arizona to cloudy Forks, Washington to spend some time with her dad, Charlie. But not all is as it seems in Forks. There, she meets the Cullens, a strange, standoffish family. Through her interactions with Edward, she realizes that the family is something no one ever dreamed: vampire! Great ExpectationsBy Charles Dickens
A young man's burning desire to fulfill his "great expectations" of fame and fortune is presented in Charles Dickens's classic tale of love, madness, forgiveness, and redemption. Simon Vance's masterful narration brings to life such diverse personalities as Miss Havisham, the old woman who was abandoned on her wedding day and is determined to wreak revenge through her beautiful adopted daughter Estella; Joe, Pip's lumbering and slow-witted, but emotionally wise and faithful friend; the mysterious Magwitch, a convict who turns out to be Pip's financial benefactor; and Pip, the boy who longs for a destiny greater than that of living out his days as a blacksmith's apprentice. The Thief LordBy Cornelia Funke
This suspenseful tale begins in a detective's office in Venice, as the entirely unpleasant Hartliebs request Victor Getz's services to search for two boys, Prosper and Bo, the sons of Esther Hartlieb's recently deceased sister. Twelve-year-old Prosper and 5-year-old Bo ran away when their aunt decided she wanted to adopt Bo, but not his brother. Refusing to split up, they escaped to Venice, a city their mother had always described reverently, in great detail. Right away they hook up with a long-haired runaway named Hornet and various other ruffians who hole up in an abandoned movie theater and worship the elusive Thief Lord, a young boy named Scipio who steals jewels from fancy Venetian homes so his new friends can get the warm clothes they need. Of course, the plot thickens when the owner of the pawn shop asks if the Thief Lord will carry out a special mission for a wealthy client: to steal a broken wooden wing that is the key to completing an age-old, magical merry-go-round. This winning cast of characters--especially the softhearted detective with his two pet turtles--will win the hearts of readers young and old, and the adventures are as labyrinthine and magical as the streets of Venice itself. |