12th Grade Reading List

his most popular book in Britain, and perhaps the oddest Christian mystic novel since FlanneryO'Connor's work. Irving fans will find much that is familiar: the New England prep-schooltownsetting, symbolic amputations of man and beast, the Garp-like unknown father of thenarrator (Owen's orphaned best friend), the rough comedy. The scene of doltish the doltishheadmaster driving a trashed VW down the school's marble staircase is a marvelous set piece.So are the Christmas pageants Owen stars in. But it's all, as Highlights magazine used to put it,"fun with a purpose." When Owen plays baby Jesus in the pageants, and glimpses a tombstonewith his death date while enacting A Christmas Carol, the slapstick doesn't cancel the fact thathe was born to be martyred. The book's countless subplots add up to a moral argument,specifically an indictment of American foreign policy--from Vietnam to the Contras. *Arollicking entertainment, Owen Meany is also a meditation on literature, history, and God. --TimAppeloWhere am I Wearing: A Global Tour to the Countries, Factories, and People that Make OurClothes by Kelsey Timmerman. Globalization makes it difficult to know where the things youbuy come from. Journalist and travel writer Kelsey Timmerman wanted to know where hisclothes came from and who made them, so he traveled from Honduras to Bangladesh toCambodia to China and back. Along the way, he met the people who made his favorite clothesand learned as much about them as he did about globalization itself. Enlightening andcontroversial at once, this book puts a human face on globalization.Divergent (16 AR) by Veronica Roth Divergent is the debut novel of American authorVeronica Roth and is the first installment in a trilogy. It is set within a dystopian version ofChicago.