All Books
The Catcher in the Rye
J.D. Salinger
Synopsis: Anyone who has read J.D. Salinger's New Yorker stories, particularly A Perfect Day for Bananafish, Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut, The Laughing Man, and For Esme--With Love and Squalor, will not be surprised by the fact that his first novel is full of children.

The hero-narrator of THE CATCHER IN THE RYE is an ancient child of sixteen, a native New Yorker named Holden Caulfield. Through circumstances that tend to preclude adult, secondhand description, he leaves his prep school in Pennsylvania and goes underground in New York City for three days.

The boy himself is at once too simple and too complex for us to make any final comment about him or his story. Perhaps the safest thing we can say about Holden is that he was born in the world not just strongly attracted to beauty but, almost, hopelessly impaled on it.

There are many voices in this novel: children's voices, adult voices, underground voices--but Holden's voice is the most eloquent of all. Transcending his own vernacular, yet remaining marvelously faithful to it, he issues a perfectly articulated cry of mixed pain and pleasure. However, like most lovers and clowns and poets of the higher orders, he keeps most of the pain to, and for, himself. The pleasure he gives away, or sets aside, with all his heart. It is there for the reader who can handle it to keep.
Publication Date: 05/01/91
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
The Face on the Milk Carton
Caroline B. Cooney
Synopsis: No one ever really paid close attention to the faces of the missing children on the milk cartons. But as Janie Johnson glanced at the face of the ordinary little girl with her hair in tight pigtails, wearing a dress with a narrow white collar--a three-year-old who had been kidnapped twelve years before from a shopping mall in New Jersey--she felt overcome with shock. She recognized that little girl--it was she. How could it possibly be true?


Janie can't believe that her loving parents kidnapped her, but as she begins to piece things together, nothing makes sense. Something is terribly wrong. Are Mr. and Mrs. Johnson really Janie's parents? And if not, who is Janie Johnson, and what really happened?
Publication Date: 04/01/91
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
The Turn of the Screw
Henry James
Synopsis:

Widely recognized as one of literature's most gripping ghost stories, this classic tale of moral degradation concerns the sinister transformation of two innocent children into flagrant liars and hypocrites. The story begins when a governess arrives at an English country estate to look after Miles, aged ten, and Flora, eight. At first, everything appears normal but then events gradually begin to weave a spell of psychological terror.
One night a ghost appears before the governess. It is the dead lover of Miss Jessel, the former governess. Later, the ghost of Miss Jessel herself appears before the governess and the little girl. Moreover, both the governess and the housekeeper suspect that the two spirits have appeared to the boy in private. The children, however, adamantly refuse to acknowledge the presence of the two spirits, in spite of indications that there is some sort of evil communication going on between the children and the ghosts.
Without resorting to clattering chains, demonic noises, and other melodramatic techniques, this elegantly told tale succeeds in creating an atmosphere of tingling suspense and unspoken horror matched by few other books in the genre. Known for his probing psychological novels dealing with the upper classes, James in this story tried his hand at the occult — and created a masterpiece of the supernatural that has frightened and delighted readers for nearly a century.

Publication Date: 01/01/91
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Ethan Frome
Edith Wharton
Synopsis: Perhaps the best-known and most popular of Edith Wharton's novels, Ethan Frome is widely considered her masterpiece. Set against a bleak New England background, the novel tells of Frome, his ailing wife Zeena and her companion Mattie Silver, superbly delineating the characters of each as they are drawn relentlessly into a deep-rooted domestic struggle.
Burdened by poverty and spiritually dulled by a loveless marriage to an older woman. Frome is emotionally stirred by the arrival of a youthful cousin who is employed as household help. Mattie's presence not only brightens a gloomy house but stirs long-dormant feelings in Ethan. Their growing love for one another, discovered by an embittered wife, presages an ending to this grim tale that is both shocking and savagely ironic.
Publication Date: 01/01/91
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
The Upstairs Room
Johanna Reiss
Synopsis:

Newbery Honor Book • ALA Notable Book • An SLJ Best Book • A Jane Addams Award Honor Book • Winner of the Jewish Book Council Children’s Book Award

A classic WWII survivor story based on award-winning author Johanna Reiss’s own childhood during the Holocaust.

When the German army occupied Holland in 1940, Annie was only eight years old. Because she was Jewish, the occupation put her in grave danger. Most people thought the war wouldn’t last long, but Annie knew that if she wanted to stay alive, she would have to go into hiding.

Fortunately, a Gentile family, the Oostervelds, offered refuge to Annie and her older sister, Sini. For two years they hid in the cramped upstairs room of the Oostervelds’s remote farmhouse. There, Annie and Sini would struggle to hold on to hope—separated from their family and confined to one tiny room—as a frightful and seemingly endless war raged on outside their window.

This classic autobiographical novel is a strong choice for classroom sharing and independent reading.

Publication Date: 10/30/90
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Historical Fiction
A Boy's Will
Troy Howell, Erik C. Haugaard
Synopsis: Patrick defies his unloving grandfather, a smuggler from the Irish island of Valentia, by warning John Paul Jones and the American fleet about an English ambush.
Publication Date: 10/01/90
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Historical Fiction
Something Upstairs
Synopsis:

The mystery deepends

The room was shabby and dirty, heavy with heat. None of the things which Kenny called his own remained. Even the painted walls and skylight were gone.

Baffled, he wondered if other things -- even outside -- had changed. Kenny went to one of the windows and looked down. On a stoop across the dark street a man was standing, gazing straight at Kenny's window. He was wearing what appeared to be a long black cape which reached his knees, and a hat, triangular in shape. Its brim obscured his face.

As if suddenly realizing he was being observed, the man moved quickly into the shadows. Keeping his face averted, he fled up the street.

Publication Date: 10/01/90
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
The Devil's Arithmetic
Synopsis: "A triumphantly moving book."  —Kirkus Reviews, starred review

Hannah dreads going to her family's Passover Seder—she's tired of hearing her relatives talk about the past. But when she opens the front door to symbolically welcome the prophet Elijah, she's transported to a Polish village in the year 1942. Why is she there, and who is this "Chaya" that everyone seems to think she is? Just as she begins to unravel the mystery, Nazi soldiers come to take everyone in the village away. And only Hannah knows the unspeakable horrors that await. A critically acclaimed novel from multi-award-winning author Jane Yolen. 


"[Yolen] adds much to understanding the effects of the Holocaust, which will reverberate throughout history, today and tomorrow." —SLJ, starred review

"Readers will come away with a sense of tragic history that both disturbs and compels." —Booklist

Winner of the National Jewish Book Award
An American Bookseller "Pick of the Lists"
Publication Date: 10/01/90
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Historical Fiction
The Voyage of the Frog
Gary Paulsen
Synopsis: Slowly, David opened his eyes and looked around the horizon, wincing again with the new movement. There was nothing sticking above the water as far as he could see.



He was alone.



Fourteen-year-old David Alspeth intended only to fulfill his uncle's last wish when he set sail in the Frog, but when a savage storm slams into the tiny sailboat, David is stranded. No wind. No radio. Little water. Seven cans of food. And the storm is just the first challenge David must face...
Publication Date: 10/01/90
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
The Sound and the Fury
William Faulkner
Synopsis:

The Sound and the Fury is the tragedy of the Compson family, featuring some of the most memorable characters in literature: beautiful, rebellious Caddy; the manchild Benjy; haunted, neurotic Quentin; Jason, the brutal cynic; and Dilsey, their black servant. Their lives fragmented and harrowed by history and legacy, the character’s voices and actions mesh to create what is arguably Faulkner’s masterpiece and  one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century.


“I give you the mausoleum of all hope and desire. . . . I give it to you not that you may remember time, but that you might forget it now and then for a moment and not spend all of your breath trying to conquer it. Because no battle is ever won he said. They are not even fought. The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools.” —from The Sound and the Fury

Publication Date: 10/01/90
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Heart of Darkness
Stanley Appelbaum, Joseph Conrad
Synopsis:

Although Polish by birth, Joseph Conrad (1857–1924) is regarded as one of the greatest writers in English, and Heart of Darkness, first published in 1902, is considered by many his "most famous, finest, and most enigmatic story." — Encyclopaedia Britannica. The tale concerns the journey of the narrator (Marlow) up the Congo River on behalf of a Belgian trading company. Far upriver, he encounters the mysterious Kurtz, an ivory trader who exercises an almost godlike sway over the inhabitants of the region. Both repelled and fascinated by the man, Marlow is brought face to face with the corruption and despair that Conrad saw at the heart of human existence.
In its combination of narrative and symbolic power, masterly character study and acute psychological penetration, Heart of Darkness ranks as a landmark of modern fiction. It is a book no serious student of literature can afford to miss.

Publication Date: 07/01/90
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
The Call of the Wild
Jack London
Synopsis:

Jack London's novels and ruggedly individual life seemed to embody American hopes, frustrations, and romantic longings in the turbulent first years of the twentieth century, years infused with the wonder and excitement of great technological and historic change. The author's restless spirit, taste for a life of excitement, and probing mind led him on a series of hard-edged adventures from the Klondike to the South Seas. Out of these sometimes harrowing experiences — and his fascination with the theories of such thinkers as Darwin, Spencer, and Marx — came the inspiration for novels of adventure that would make him one of America’s most popular writers.
The Call of the Wild, considered by many London's greatest novel, is a gripping tale of a heroic dog that, thrust into the brutal life of the Alaska Gold Rush, ultimately faces a choice between living in man's world and returning to nature. Adventure and dog-story enthusiasts as well as students and devotees of American literature will find this classic work a thrilling, memorable reading experience.

Publication Date: 07/01/90
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
Around the World in Eighty Days
Synopsis: In 1872 Phileas Fogg wins a bet by traveling around the world in seventy-nine days, twenty-three hours, and fifty-seven minutes.
Publication Date: 03/01/90
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Fiction
The Phantom of the Opera
Lowell Bair, Gaston Leroux
Synopsis: Gaston Leroux is one of the originators of the detective story, and The Phantom of the Opera is his tour de force, as well as being the basis for the hit Broadway musical. A superb suspense story and a dark tale of obsession, The Phantom of the Opera has thrilled and entertained audiences in adaptations throughout the century.

This new translation—the first completely modern and Americanized translation—unfurls the full impact of this classic thriller for modern readers. It offers a more complete rendering of the terrifying figure who emerges from the depths of the glorious Paris Opera House to take us into the darkest regions of the human heart. After the breathtaking performance of the lovely Christine Daae and her sudden disappearance, the old legend of the “opera ghost” becomes a horrifying reality as the ghost strikes out with increasing frequency and violence—always with the young singer at the center of his powerful obsession. Leroux has created a masterwork of love and murder—and a tragic figure who awakens our deepest and most forbidden fears.

This is the only complete, unabridged modern Americanized translation available. Lowell Bair is the acclaimed translator of such Bantam Classics as Madame Bovary, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, and Candide.
Publication Date: 01/01/90
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Romance
The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders
Synopsis: ‘I grew as impudent a Thief, and as dexterous as ever Moll Cut-Purse was’

Born and abandoned in Newgate Prison, Moll Flanders is forced to make her own way in life.  She duly embarks on a career that includes husband-hunting, incest, bigamy, prostitution and pick-pocketing, until her crimes eventually catch up with her. One of the earliest and most vivid female narrators in the history of the English novel, Moll recounts her adventures with irresistible wit and candour—and enough guile that the reader is left uncertain whether she is ultimately a redeemed sinner or a successful opportunist. Based on the first edition of 1722, this volume includes a chronology, notes on currency and maps of London and Virginia in the late seventeenth century.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Publication Date: 10/03/89
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Classic
Lincoln, A Photobiography
Russell Freedman
Synopsis: This work is perhaps the most complete and enjoyable children's book ever written about one of the nation's most fascinating and important figures, Abraham Lincoln. Russell Freedman covers Lincoln's life and career in a balanced treatment that is enhanced by period photographs and drawings. The book won the Newbery Medal, the Jefferson Cup Award and the Golden Kite Honor Book Award, and earned a citation as School Library Journal Best Book of the Year.
Publication Date: 09/25/89
Age Level: 12 and up
Genre: Nonfiction

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