1. What You Missed

2. Barrio Boy by Ernesto Galarza – Barrio = Foreign culture area of a city – True story, Ernie and family transitioning through many Mexican villages to U.S. – Story begins when Ernie is 4 years old (1910) and finishes before he starts high school (1920) – Cultural transitions between villages and countries – Adjust from farming to working for pay – Ernie learns family responsibility, work ethic, and man’s right to dignity

3. El Bronx Remembered by Nicholasa Mohr – Collection of 12 short stories – Life in a Puerto Rican barrio in NYC, 1946 – 1956 – Snippets of cultural preservation in U.S. – Different characters in each story – Families, especially children, making the best of their situation – Topics: Chicken as a pet, embarrassing shoes, gang death, new illnesses, stereotypes, finding love

4. Anne Frank: Diary by Anne Frank – Real diary entries by Anne, start on her 13 th birthday, end just after her 15 th – Jewish girl in hiding in an annex with her family and 4 others in the Netherlands during WWII – Anne’s struggle with growing up, her identity development, and being a part of a persecuted group – Agitation of close quarters, feelings for a boy in hiding with her, irritation with her mother and sister – Ends abruptly (Anne later died of typhus in a concentration camp) – Her father survived and published her diary entries

5. Separate Peace by John Knowles – New Hampshire boarding school for boys, 1942 – Gene = intellectual; Finny = athlete; Gene is jealous of Finny; Finny is wholly supportive of Gene – Gene causes Finny to break his leg as he is jumping out of a tree; Gene feels guilty and tries to confess; Finny won’t let him – War is going on, analogy for students’ interactions with each other – Self identity and confidence, effects of war and jealousy on young boys – The peace you make within yourself, separate from your peace with others

6. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury – The temperature at which books burn – Futuristic society, firemen don’t put out fires, they set fires to books to eliminate years of writing that offended people – Guy Montag, fireman, eyes are opened after meeting a young girl with a love for nature and an old lady who wishes to be burned with her books – Beatty (fire chief) tells Montag to take a day to read, then burn the books – Instead, Montag plants books in fireman’s homes to discredit the censorship machine – With the help of Faber (a retired professor), they find a printer to reprint books – Montag joins “The Book People” and they memorize books to rebuild civilization

7. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway – Takes place in Cuba, centered around Santiago, old experienced fisherman. – Catches nothing for 84 days, goes out further next day and catches enormous marlin. – Dragged around the sea by this marlin for three days before it tires and Santiago stabs it, drags it in tied to boat, bleeding. – Sharks eat the entire marlin by the time he gets home one day later, leaving the skeleton still tied to his boat. – Next day whole town is impressed by his catch

8. The Pearl by John Steinbeck – Mexico, poor family, lives by sea: Kino (dad), Juana (mom), Coyotito (baby son). Kino is a pearl diver – Kino finds enormous pearl; people try to steal it; pearl dealers in town bid low on the pearl; house is burned down – Decide to sneak to the capital at night to sell the pearl, followed, attacked, Coyotito is shot and killed – Kino and Juana walk back to town with their dead son and as people watch silently, Kino throws the pearl into the sea

9. The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros – Esperanza, lives in crowded Latino neighborhood on Mango Street in Chicago. Does not like her house or street – Book covers a year in her life around age 12-13, her sexual maturity, friendships, and desire to leave Mango Street – She is sexually assaulted by a group of boys when hanging out with her friend Sally who is more mature than Esperanza – Esperanza realizes she’ll never really leave Mango street even when she moves. – For now her writing is a mental escape, some day it could be a physical one, too.

10. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson – Book is separated into the four marking periods of a school year – Main character Melinda is starting her freshman year of HS – Something happened at a party over summer and now everyone hates Melinda including her friends. – Melinda isn’t talking about what happened, she hardly talks at all, but reveals later she was raped at a party over summer; party was broken up after Melinda called the police from the party. – Melinda has to draw numerous trees for art class, she embraces it – Faces and attacks her rapist at the end of the book, finds her voice again throughout the year