VIRGINIA READERS' CHOICE ANNOTATIONS

HIGH SCHOOL LIST 2007

Annie Between the States by Laura M. Elliot
Annie and her family are away from their Middleburg, Virginia farm visiting an aunt in Manassas, where they find themselves hiding in the cellar to dodge bullets from the raging battle outside.  As the Civil War progresses, Annie’s two brothers fight in various ways -- her older brother serves with Jeb Stuart’s unit, and her younger brother joins with Mosby’s rangers.  Annie herself delivers covert messages, helps run the farm, and cares for the sick and wounded.  She attempts to hold onto family traditions, even as she struggles with the issues of slavery, loyalty, and violence.  Written by a Virginia author, most of the action takes place in Fauquier, Prince William, Loudoun, and Curlpeper counties. 

Hitler Youth: Growing up in Hitler’s Shadow by Susan Campbell Bartoletti
It is estimated that more than 7 million girls and boys belonged to the Hitler Youth, a German training ground for the armed forces, between 1926 and the end of World War II. Bartoletti integrates personal stories of the youth involved including ardent supporters, teens who changed their minds, and teens who were targeted by the Nazi purification ideology. This moving and carefully researched information book reads smoothly and offers many primary sources, documentation and photographs, and also includes an author’s note, timeline, epilogue, quote sources and information about the photographs, a bibliography, acknowledgments, and an index. 

Jake Reinvent by Gordan Korman
 Rick Paradis becomes friends with the popular new boy at Fitzgerald High, Jake Garrett, newest member of the football team and host of outstanding parties.  In the tradition of The Great Gatsby, our narrator Rick chronicles Jake’s pursuit of Didi, the most beautiful girl in school and girlfriend of the quarterback, while learning the truth about Jake’s past.

Looking for Alaska by John Green
“God, oh God, I’m so sorry” Alaska screamed.  How could Miles know those words, famous last words for which he had a passion, would separate “Before” from “After”, raucous fun from abysmal depression, adolescence from adulthood.  Miles Halter seeks the “Great Perhaps” in the company of his roommate “the Colonel”, the bewitching Alaska, and friend Takumi at Culver Creek Preparatory School, a boarding school in Alabama.  For 128 days, Miles enjoys the company, the rumpus, the pranks that boarding school life permitted, “real friends and a more-than-minor life”.  And he begins to find his way in his labyrinth, until day 129.

My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult
thirteen-year-old Anna has always obeyed her parents concerning their wishes for her and for her sick sister who suffers from a rare form of leukemia.  After all, Anna was conceived to be a donor of bone marrow and platelets for her older sister.  After many surgeries, transfusions and shots to keep her sister Kate from relapsing, her parents now want Anna’s kidney.  Anna refuses and sues her parents for medical emancipation which throws the entire family into a crisis.  Who is right?  Ms. Picoult creates a timely and compelling novel about the moral dilemma involved in this drama. 

Sandpiper by Ellen Wittlinger
Sandpiper Hollow Ragsdale and her friends think they have the foolproof method to become popular with the guys in eighth grade—through the zipper of their pants.  Once they graduate to high school, all but Sandy dismiss that method, and soon she has the reputation that matches a girl who goes through one boy a week.  During an ugly confrontation with her most recent conquest, Sandy meets and befriends “the walker” a mysterious young man who is simply recognized as the guy who just walks, everywhere, all the time, alone. With his help she seeks to clean up her reputation and refocus her life; at the same time, “the walker” begins to heal from his own personal trauma. 

Shattering Glass by Gail Giles
Turn Simon Glass, the stereotypical class nerd, into the most popular person on campus, and even get him elected as Senior Class Favorite?  Impossible?  Not to Rob Haynes.  The charismatic Rob transferred to B’Vale High School last year, and he’s making his mark.  Then his friends first discover a dark, controlling side to Rob, and then his horrible secret.  They all go along with Rob’s schemes to keep the peace – all except Simon Glass.

Trickster’s Choice by Tamora Pierce
Aly is the daughter of “The Lioness,” a well-known warrior queen, and a spy father.  She is whip-smart and trained in knife fighting and horsemanship.  Her privileged life is thrown into turmoil when she is kidnapped, sold into slavery, and then visited by the trickster god, Kyprioth, with whom she strikes a bargain.  Kyprioth will allow her to return to her beloved family after one year, if she will help him with his scheme to return the dark-skinned Raka people to power in their kingdom which was conquered by the fair-skinned Laurins.  

Vampire High by Douglas Rees
Cody Elliot is not happy about his family’s move from California to Massachusetts. After failing his classes, his parents give him a choice of private schools: Our Lady of Perpetual Homework or Vlad Dracul Magnet School. He decides to attend Vlad Dracul, but must agree to be on the swim team so that the school can maintain its accreditation. Cody soon realizes that he is at a high school for vampires and that the classes are seriously difficult. As long as he is on the swim team, though, he will get A’s without doing any work. Cody decides that he will earn his grades and that he will be successful at his most unusual school.  His adventures are both serious and funny.

 A Wreath for Emmett Till by Marilyn Nelson
Emmett Till was only 14 years old when he was brutally murdered.  The men responsible said he’d whistled at a white woman.  It was 1955 in Mississippi, and the killers went free.  In A Wreath for Emmett Till, Marilyn Nelson honors Emmett in a powerful poem which makes Emmett’s story shockingly real, and Philippe Lardy conveys the pain of her words in his artwork.  In notes to the reader, Nelson and Lardy each discuss how they approached their tasks.  Marilyn Nelson dedicates her work: “For innocence murdered.  For innocence alive.”  Emmett Till’s life is over, but we can still bear witness, and we can still speak out.

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