Accelerated+Readers

=__**Accelerated Readers**__=

=Title: //Therese Raquin//=

Genre: Fiction


Photo courtesy of: blogspot.com

Description:
// Thérèse Raquin // tells the story of a young woman, unhappily married to her first cousin by an overbearing aunt who may seem to be well-intentioned but in many ways is deeply selfish. Therese's husband, Camille, is sickly and egocentric, and when the opportunity arises, Thérèse enters into a turbulent affair with one of Camille's friends, Laurent. - wikipedia.com

Text complexity:
This novel is 240 pages long and deals with strong emotions, dark imagery, and translated text.

Rationale and connections:
This novel is an excellent showcase for sophisticated writing that creates haunting, lingering imagery fraught with perilous, private emotion. Selections from this book could also highlight creating tension and suspense within simple scenarios. Useful in a unit that examines the morality of the choices we make.

Additional Resources:
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= = =Title: //Ishmael//=

Genre: Fiction, Philosophical Novel
Photo courtesy of:

Description:
The narrator of this extraordinary tale is a man in search for truth. He answers an ad in a local newspaper from a teacher looking for serious pupils, only to find himself alone in an abandoned office with a full-grown gorilla who is nibbling delicately on a slender branch. "You are the teacher?" he asks incredulously. "I am the teacher," the gorilla replies. Ishmael is a creature of immense wisdom and he has a story to tell, one that no other human being has ever heard. It is a story that extends backward and forward over the lifespan of the earth from the birth of time to a future there is still time save. Like all great teachers, Ishmael refuses to make the lesson easy; he demands the final illumination to come from within ourselves. Is it man's destiny to rule the world? Or is it a higher destiny possible for him-- one more wonderful than he has ever imagined? - Amazon.com

Text complexity:
This novel is 263 pages long and deals with questions about the meaning of life and explores difficult, abstract topics.

Rationale and connections:
This book causes students to question what they know to be true and what type of life they want to lead. At this time in a student’s life, when they are going through self-discovery, this novel is appropriate to spur their curiosity and introspection. This novel can quite obviously be used in literature, philosophy and even psychology courses for its literary elements and its introspective nature. I would also recommend this novel as a companion read in sociology courses and could even be stretched to a biology course. The biology course would need to be done along with a unit on evolution and the comparison between man and ape.

Additional Resources:
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This link takes you to a selection of nine different interview segments with Daniel Quinn. These include: "Saving the World," "Wake up," "The End" and others.
=Title: //Life of Pi//=

Description:
Yann Martel's imaginative and unforgettable //Life of Pi// is a magical reading experience, an endless blue expanse of storytelling about adventure, survival, and ultimately, faith. The precocious son of a zookeeper, 16-year-old Pi Patel is raised in Pondicherry, India, where he tries on various faiths for size, attracting "religions the way a dog attracts fleas." Planning a move to Canada, his father packs up the family and their menagerie and they hitch a ride on an enormous freighter. After a harrowing shipwreck, Pi finds himself adrift in the Pacific Ocean, trapped on a 26-foot lifeboat with a wounded zebra, a spotted hyena, a seasick orangutan, and a 450-pound Bengal tiger named Richard Parker ("His head was the size and color of the lifebuoy, with teeth"). It sounds like a colorful setup, but these wild beasts don't burst into song as if co-starring in an anthropomorphized Disney feature. After much gore and infighting, Pi and Richard Parker remain the boat's sole passengers, drifting for 227 days through shark-infested waters while fighting hunger, the elements, and an overactive imagination. In rich, hallucinatory passages, Pi recounts the harrowing journey as the days blur together, elegantly cataloging the endless passage of time and his struggles to survive: "It is pointless to say that this or that night was the worst of my life. I have so many bad nights to choose from that I've made none the champion." -Amazon.com

Rationale and connections:
This is a challenging book that will cause students to have complicated discussions about faith, love, and survival. This is not a book for the light-hearted and can be very complicated to infer themes from. This novel is a fantastic companion to a religion unit as the author deals with both eastern and western religions. It could be used as a companion read in a biology course when discussing the food chain but would certainly be a stretch. This novel would work well with a geography unit even though it contains some made up places.

Text complexity: 313 pages, difficult themes, inferred storyline
Layout: Very Complex (very long uninterrupted passages with very little dialogue) Purpose and Meaning: Very Complex Structure: Complex Language Features: Complex Knowledge Demands Fiction: Very Complex (strange scenarios with hard to imagine circumstances)

Media Resources:
Book Cover Designs - [] Student Project for Movie Trailer - [] Interview with Yann Martel - []

=Title: The Samurai's Garden= =Author: Gayle Tsukiyama= =Genre: Fiction=

Description:
When tuberculosis strikes a seventeen year old boy named Stephen, his family sends him away from Hong Kong to a small Japanese village called Tarumi. While the move serves the practical purpose of improving his health (not to mention getting him away from the steadily advancing Japanese army), it also precipitates several meaningful friendships. These relationships deepen as Stephen comes of age in Tarumi, a sometimes painful process that pits the young man against everything from adultery and prejudice, to leprosy and suicide.

Rationale and connections:
Because it offers a personal connection to students of Chinese or Japanese decent, and because it is a good text for exploring the potential symbolism of diseases in literature. This novel could be used in a geography course as a companion reader. It would make sense in a health curriculum and connections can even be made for social studies and the issue of war and its affects.

Text Complexity:
This novel is 224 pages long. While the syntax and diction are manageable, the themes are complex. Students may struggle to understand them without ample contextual information.

Lexile Score:
Unknown

External Resources:
[|__http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5j8S2wkY8Y__] (author interview) [|__http://sen.parl.gc.ca/vpoy/english/Special_Interests/speeches/Speech_HK_1941.htm__] (military context) [|__http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/annabel-lee/__] (Edgar Allen Poe poem-intro to discussion of wasting diseases)

=**Title:** Frankenstein= =Author: Mary Shelley= =Genre: Gothic Fiction=



Description:
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a precocious scientist who manages to first cobble together a monster from human remains, and to then infuse his monster with life through a sort of alchemy. Once alive, the monster lurches through Europe causing mayhem and death, while simultaneously holding up an objective mirror to the world it encounters. This book is at once a tragedy, a campfire-tale, and an indictment of the industrial age.

Rationale and connections:
Because it is a great tool for understanding the complex ways that different themes can interact in a text, and also for its ability to open feminist discussion. This novel would work well in a social studies course while discussing anything from Suffrage to the discrepancy in pay based on sex. Some geographical connections could be made as well as biology and chemistry. Any text that deals with experimental procedures can help further the general understanding of science and its practical as well as unpractical uses.

Text Complexity:
This novel is 256 pages long. Not only are there a myriad of conflicting themes within this novel, but the vocabulary and sentence structure are especially difficult for many students to contend with. Further, the epistolary form demands a bit of explanation for those readers not previously acquainted with it.

Lexile:
940L

External Resources:
[] (Author Biography) [] (Description of the Gothic Novel) [] (BBC Broadcast on Epistolary Literature)

**Description:**
This novel is about the lives of fraternal twins Estha and Rahel and their family, in Ayemenem, India. The novel takes place primarily in 1969 when the twins are children. The story concerns the tragic events of one day in the life of the twins and their mother, and the repercussions of those events.

**Themes/Topics:**
Topics and themes include communism, India’s caste system, social inequality and injustice, abuse of power, forbidden love, betrayal, loss of innocence, corruption, family, and the idea that many small events make up a life.

**Rationale and connections:**
This novel explores relationships and love, and the political and social systems and taboos that control individuals’ lives and sanction certain kinds of love while prohibiting others. The story provides a good opportunity for students to examine the differences between convention or law and morality. This book also has cultural, historical, political, and social significance that resonates today. Students can explore themes of political corruption, racism, classicism, and oppression and how such phenomena become pervasive and negatively affect the lives of all parties, even those whom the system privileges. This novel would be a wonderful companion in a social studies class because of how well it introduces discrimination as well as geography and the connection between the US and India that grows stronger ever year

**Text Complexity:**
The novel is 321 pages long with a lexile level of 840. The subject matter is complex and there are several scenes that are graphic and would be inappropriate for younger readers.

**Additional Resources:**
[] -This is a video clip of the author reading an excerpt from the novel. []-This is a site (affiliated with Mt. Holyoke College) that gives a description and brief history of India’s caste system. [] - "The Girl Who Silenced the World for 5 Minutes." Severn Suzuki from ECO, the Environemal Children's Organization. ECO IS an organization made up of 12 and 13 year olds. Suzuki addresses the UN about environmental issues. A very inspiring and powerful speech about oppression and the destruction of the environment.

= Title: //Perfume// =

Genre: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Murder Mystery (Horror/Thriller)


Photo courtesy of: Amazon

In the slums of eighteenth-century France, the infant Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is born with one sublime gift-an absolute sense of smell. As a boy, he lives to decipher the odors of Paris, and apprentices himself to a prominent perfumer who teaches him the ancient art of mixing precious oils and herbs. But Grenouille's genius is such that he is not satisfied to stop there, and he becomes obsessed with capturing the smells of objects such as brass doorknobs and frest-cut wood. Then one day he catches a hint of a scent that will drive him on an ever-more-terrifying quest to create the "ultimate perfume"-the scent of a beautiful young virgin. **Perfume** is a hauntingly powerful tale of murder and sensual depravity.- Amazon.com ** Themes: 18th century, obsession, identity, morality of the human spirit **
 * Description: **

This novel is only 255 pages long however it might prove a difficult read for some. The novel has been translated from the original German and the language and sentence structure tends to be more formal.
 * Text complexity: **

Never have I read a book where I could SMELL the characters…. Here, you can. This text could be used in conjunction with a study of the 18 century; the author has created a rich, up-close, non-romantic view of 18th century living in Paris. But even more than that he develops an anti-hero character and a setting and draws the reader into a story that you almost don’t want to read it’s so horrific, but then you read it anyway because you have to know what and how and when…. This is a book to read for the story, and for the language, and the images…not to mention the smells.
 * Rationale and connections: **

= **Lexile Score**: Not available =

=** Additional Resources: **=

The song "Scentless Apprentice", by the American [|grunge] band [|Nirvana], was inspired by //Perfume//. It appears on their 1993 album // [|In Utero] – Wikipedia//

The song "Red Head Girl" by French [|downtempo] duo [|Air] is inspired by //Perfume – Wikipedia//

The episode " [|Sense Memory] " of the television show // [|Criminal Minds] // bears many similarities to the novel. – Wikipedia

Text set recommendations: []

Produced as a movie, 2006 // [] //