books – Page 14

We Beat the Street: How a Friendship Led to Success

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We Beat the Street: How a Friendship Led to Success
by Sampson Davis

Sampson, George, and Rameck could easily have followed their childhood friends into drug dealing, gangs, and prison. Like their peers, they came from poor, single-parent homes in urban neighborhoods where survival, not scholastic success, was the priority. When the three boys met in a magnet high school in Newark, they recognized each other as kindred spirits who wanted to overcome the incredible odds against them and reach for opportunity.

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They made a friendship pact, deciding together to take on the biggest challenge of their lives: attending college and then medical school. Along the way they made mistakes and faced disappointments, but by working hard, finding the right mentors, separating themselves from negative influences, and supporting each other, they achieved their goals-and more.

Lexile Level	Content Rating	Number of Pages	Genre	Date Published	ISBN Number
860L	High School	183	Drama	2003	0399239901

Fat Kid Rules the World

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Fat Kids Rules the World
by K.L. Going

Troy Billings is seventeen, 296 pounds, friendless, utterly miserable, and about to step off a New York subway platform in front of an oncoming train. Until he meets Curt MacCrae, an emaciated, semi-homeless, high school dropout guitar genius, the stuff of which Lower East Side punk rock legends are made. Never mind that Troy’s dad thinks Curt’s a drug addict and Troy’s brother thinks Troy’s the biggest (literally) loser in Manhattan.

Soon, Curt’s recruited Troy as his new drummer-even though Troy can’t play the drums. Together, Curt and Troy will change the world of punk, and Troy’s own life, forever.

Lexile Level	Content Rating	Number of Pages	Genre	Date Published	ISBN Number
700L	Middle School	183	Realistic Fiction	2003	0399239901

House of the Scorpion

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The House of the Scorpion
by Nancy Farmer

Fields of white opium poppies stretch away over the hills, and uniformed workers bend over the rows, harvesting the juice. This is the empire of Matteo Alacran, a feudal drug lord in the country of Opium, which lies between the United States and Aztlan, formerly Mexico. Field work, or any menial tasks, are done by “eejits,” humans in whose brains computer chips have been installed to insure docility. Alacran, or El Patron, has lived 140 years with the help of transplants from a series of clones, a common practice among rich men in this world.

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The intelligence of clones is usually destroyed at birth, but Matt, the latest of Alacran’s doubles, has been spared because he belongs to El Patron. He grows up in the family’s mansion, alternately caged and despised as an animal and pampered and educated as El Patron’s favorite. Gradually he realizes the fate that is in store for him, and with the help of Tam Lin, his bluff and kind Scottish bodyguard, he escapes to Aztlan. There he and other “lost children” are trapped in a more subtle kind of slavery before Matt can return to Opium to take his rightful place and transform his country.

Lexile Level	Content Rating	Number of Pages	Genre	Date Published	ISBN Number
660L	Middle School	380	Adventure	2002	0689852223

City of Beasts

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City of Beasts
by Isabel Allende

Fifteen-year-old Alexander Cold is about to join his fearless grandmother on the trip of a lifetime. An International Geographic expedition is headed to the dangerous, remote wilds of South America, on a mission to document the legendary Yeti of the Amazon known as the Beast.

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But there are many secrets hidden in the unexplored wilderness, as Alex and his new friend Nadia soon discover. Drawing on the strength of their spirit guides, both young people are led on a thrilling and unforgettable journey to the ultimate discovery.

Lexile Level	Content Rating	Number of Pages	Genre	Date Published	ISBN Number
1030L	High School	406	Fantasy	202	006050918X

Night

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Night
by Ellie Wiesel

Born in the town of Sighet, Transylvania, Elie Wiesel was a teenager when he and his family were taken from their home in 1944 to the Auschwitz concentration camp, and then to Buchenwald. Night is the terrifying record of Elie Wiesel’s memories of the death of his family, the death of his own innocence, and his despair as a deeply observant Jew confronting the absolute evil of man.e, a decision that will tear her family apart and have perhaps fatal consequences for the sister she loves.

Lexile Level	Content Rating	Number of Pages	Genre	Date Published	ISBN Number
590L	High School	109	Historical Fiction	1960	0553272535

My Sister’s Keeper

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My Sister’s Keeper
by Jodi Picoult

Anna is not sick, but she might as well be. By age thirteen, she has undergone countless surgeries, transfusions, and shots so that her older sister, Kate, can somehow fight the leukemia that has plagued her since childhood. The product of pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, Anna was conceived as a bone marrow match for Kate — a life and a role that she has never challenged…until now.

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Like most teenagers, Anna is beginning to question who she truly is. But unlike most teenagers, she has always been defined in terms of her sister — and so Anna makes a decision that for most would be unthinkable, a decision that will tear her family apart and have perhaps fatal consequences for the sister she loves.

Lexile Level	Content Rating	Number of Pages	Genre	Date Published	ISBN Number
840L	High School	423	Realistic Fiction	2004	0743454529

Chasing the Falconers

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Chasing the Falconers
by Gordon Korman

After their parents’ conviction for treason in a high-profile case, Aiden and Meg Falconer were given a different last name and placed at Sunnydale Farm, a juvenile corrections facility in Nebraska. Still, they remain convinced of their parents’ innocence. At the first opportunity, they escape and make their way across the country toward the family’s summer cottage in Vermont.

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With little chance of evading detection, the children do whatever it takes (lying, breaking and entering, hopping a freight train) to remain free and gather evidence that might overturn their parents’ conviction.

The children finally arrive at their family’s cottage. There, the young fugitives learn that they now have two pursuers: the police and a mysterious man who wants to kill them.

Lexile Level	Content Rating	Number of Pages	Genre	Date Published	ISBN Number
680L	Middle School	154	Adventure	2005	0439651360

Dracula

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Dracula
by Bram Stoker

This novel tells the story of Dracula’s attempt to move from Transylvania to England, and the battle between Dracula and a small group of men and women led by Professor Abraham Van Helsing.
It takes place largely in England and Transylvania during 1893. Jonathan Harker, a newly qualified English solicitor, visits Count Dracula in the Carpathian Mountains on the border of Transylvania, Bukovina, and Moldavia, to provide legal support for a real estate transaction overseen by Harker’s employer.

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Harker is at first enticed by Dracula’s gracious manners but soon realizes that he is Dracula’s prisoner. Wandering the Count’s castle against Dracula’s admonition, Harker encounters three female vampires, called “the sisters”, from whom he is rescued by Dracula. Harker barely escapes from the castle with his life. Not long afterward, a Russian ship, the Demeter, having weighed anchor at Varna, runs aground on the shores of Whitby.

Lexile Level	Content Rating	Number of Pages	Genre	Date Published	ISBN Number
990L	High School	666	Fantasy	2014	1500371432

Son of the Mob

Posted on September 15, 2013 by webmaster

Son of the Mob
by Gordon Korman

Vince Luca, 17, has a problem. His wealthy family runs the, uh, vending machine business in New York, and Vince is determined not to be part of it. Especially after a hot date is ruined when he finds that his older brother Tommy has conducted some business with Jimmy the Rat and hidden the messy and temporarily unconscious body in the trunk of Vince’s car.

His dad, the King of the Mob, is reasonable, sensible, lots of fun, gives great presents to his kids–and his name strikes the hearts of other mobsters to stone.

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Although Vince keeps a low profile at school, his family connection brings him unwanted advantages, like the birthday Porsche that gets him arrested on stolen vehicle charges, or the football game in which he makes touchdown after touchdown because word has gotten around and nobody is willing to tackle him. Even private conversations at home have to be carried on in the basement because the FBI has bugged the house and an agent is always listening.

Vince’s life is inextricably tangled up with the family business, no matter how hard he tries to stay out of it. How can he show them he’s serious? Then he meets Kendra, and when she innocently reveals that her father’s an FBI agent–that FBI agent–it’s a match made in heaven. He thinks.

Lexile Level	Content Rating	Number of Pages	Genre	Date Published	ISBN Number
690L	Middle School	262	Thriller/Suspense	2002	0786807695

Gospel According to Larry

Posted on September 15, 2013 by webmaster

The Gospel According to Larry
by Janet Tashjian

Josh Swensen isn’t your average teenager – when he observes America, he sees a powerhouse of consumerism and waste. He’s even tried to do something about it, with his start-up controversial website. But when Josh rises to messiah status of the internet world, he discovers that greed and superficiality are not easily escaped.

Trapped inside his own creation, Josh feels his only way out is to stage his death and be free of his internet alter-ego, “Larry.” But this plan comes with danger, and soon Josh finds himself cut off from the world, with no one to turn to for help.

Lexile Level	Content Rating	Number of Pages	Genre	Date Published	ISBN Number
800L	Middle School	219	Drama	2001	0805063781

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