1 2007 Summer Reading Program (juniors & seniors) Su

one long nonevent - no challenge, no girls, no mischief, and no real friends. Seeking whatRabelais called the "Great Perhaps," he leaves Florida for a boarding school in Birmingham,AL. His roommate, Chip, is a dirt-poor genius scholarship student who lives to one-up theschool's rich preppies. Chip's best friend is Alaska Young, with whom Miles and every othermale in her orbit falls instantly in love. She and Chip teach Miles to drink, smoke, and plotelaborate pranks. Alaska's story unfolds and the depth of her unhappiness becomesobvious. (School Library Journal)Gruen, Sara. Water for Elephants: A Novel Life is good for Jacob Jankowski. He's aboutto graduate from veterinary school and about to bed the girl of his dreams. Then his parentsare killed in a car crash, leaving him in the middle of the Great Depression with no home, nofamily, and no career. Almost by accident, Jacob joins the circus. There he falls in love withthe beautiful performer Marlena, who is married to the circus' psychotic animal trainer. Healso meets the other love of his life, Rosie the elephant. The book is partially based on realcircus stories and illustrated with historical circus photographs. (Booklist)Hegi, Ursula. Stones from the River Protagonist Trudi Montag is a dwarf living inGermany during the two World Wars. Trudi's mother slowly goes insane living in an "earthnest" beneath the family house; Trudi's best friend Georg’s parents dress him as the girlthey always wanted; and Trudi herself seems doomed to long for an impossible normalcy.Stones from the River is a nightmare journey with an unforgettable guide. (School LibraryJournal)Hosseini, Khaled. A Thousand Splendid Suns Another powerful story of hardship,survival and hope by Afghan-American novelist Hosseini. The author follows his bestsellingThe Kite Runner with a story that covers three decades of Taliban tyranny through the livesof two women. (Not yet in paperback, but we could not resist including this compelling workby the same author of The Kite Runner.)Lamb, Wally. She’s Come Undone Dolores has suffered almost every abuse that exists:Her father is a violent liar; her mother has the mental and emotional consistency of Jell-O;and the men in her life are loathsome creatures. While most kids her age were dealing withthe monumental importance of the latest Beatles single, Dolores was grappling with suchissues as divorce, rape, and mental illness. Whether you're disgusted by her antics ormoved by her pathetic ploys, you'll be drawn into Dolores's warped, hilarious, Mallomarmunchingworld. (Amazon.com)Lawson, Mary. Crow Lake The story, narrated by 26-year-old Kate Morrison, is set inCrow Lake, an isolated rural community where time has stood still. The reader dives in andout of a year's worth of Kate's childhood memories--when she was 7 and her parents werekilled in an automobile accident that left Kate, her younger sister Bo, and two olderbrothers, Matt and Luke, orphaned. When Kate, the successful zoologist and professor whois accustomed to dissecting everything through a microscope, receives an invitation toMatt's son's 18th birthday party, she must suddenly come to terms with her past.(Amazon.com)Malloy, Brian. The Year of Ice It's 1978 and a typical January day in Minnesota's TwinCities - except for Kevin Doyle, whose mother died two years ago when her car plunged intothe icy waters of the Upper Mississippi. A high school senior, Kevin is a marginal studentobsessed with keggers, rock and roll, maintaining his place in the pecking order of highschool males, and - unbeknownst to anyone else - a boy in his school with thick eyelashesand a bad attitude. In the past two years, Kevin's relationship with his father, Patrick, hasgrown increasingly distant, and as lonely women vie for his father's attention, Kevindiscovers Patrick's own closely guarded secret: At the time of his wife's death, he hadplanned to abandon his family for another woman. More disturbing, his mother's death may8