Ninth Grade Favorites

Coming Up Cuban by Sonia Manzano            
In the wake of a new regime in Cuba, Ana, Miguel, Zulema, and Juan learn to find a place for themselves in a world forever changed. In a tumultuous moment of history, we see the lasting effects of a revolution in Havana, the countryside, Miami, and New York. Through these snapshot stories, we are reminded that regardless of any tumultuous times, we are all forever connected in our humanity

Zara Hossain is Here by Sabina Khan
Seventeen-year-old Pakistani immigrant Zara Hossain has been leading a fairly typical life in Corpus Christi, Texas, since her family moved there for her father to work as a pediatrician. While dealing with the Islamophobia that she faces at school, Zara has to lay low, trying not to stir up any trouble and jeopardize their family's dependent visa status while they await their green card approval. But one day her tormentor, star football player Tyler Benson, leaves a threatening note in her locker and gets suspended. As an act of revenge against her for speaking out, Tyler and his friends vandalize Zara's house with racist graffiti, leading to a violent crime that puts Zara's entire future at risk.

The Sun Is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon
Natasha is a girl who believes in science and facts, not fate, not destiny, or dreams that will never come true. She’s definitely not the kind of girl who meets a cute boy on a crowded New York City street and falls in love with him. Not when her family is 12 hours away from being deported to Jamaica. Daniel has always been the good son, the good student, living up to his parents’ high expectations, never the poet, or the dreamer. But when he sees her, he forgets about all that. Something about Natasha makes him think that fate has something much more extraordinary in store – for both of them.

March. Vol 1 by John Lewis
March is a vivid first-hand account of John Lewis' lifelong struggle for civil and human rights, meditating in the modern age on the distance traveled since the days of Jim Crow and segregation. Rooted in Lewis' personal story, it also reflects on the highs and lows of the broader civil rights movement. Book One spans John Lewis' youth in rural Alabama, his life-changing meeting with Martin Luther King, Jr., the birth of the Nashville Student Movement, and their battle to tear down segregation through nonviolent lunch counter sit-ins, building to a stunning climax on the steps of City Hall.

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Compassionate, dramatic, and deeply moving, To Kill A Mockingbird takes readers to the roots of human behavior - to innocence and experience, kindness and cruelty, love and hatred, humor and pathos. Now with more than 18 million copies in print and translated into 40 languages, this regional story by a young Alabama woman claims universal appeal. Harper Lee always considered her book to be a simple love story. Today it is regarded as a masterpiece of American literature.

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
The circus arrives without warning. Within the canvas tents only open at night is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway – a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them, this is a game in which only one can be left standing. Despite themselves, however, Celia and Marco tumble headfirst into a deep, magical love. True love or not, the game must play out, and the fates of everyone involved, from the cast of extraordinary circus performers to the patrons, hang in the balance, suspended as precariously as the daring acrobats overhead.

American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang
When Jin Wang’s family moves to a new neighborhood, he suddenly finds that he's the only Chinese American student at his school. Born to rule over all the monkeys in the world, the story of the Monkey King is one of the oldest and greatest Chinese fables. Chin-Kee is the ultimate negative Chinese stereotype, and he's ruining his cousin Danny's life. In this story of three apparently unrelated characters, their lives come together with an unexpected twist.

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Largely set in a futuristic World State, inhabited by genetically modified citizens and an intelligence-based social hierarchy, this novel published in 1932 anticipates huge scientific advancements in reproductive technology, sleep-learning, psychological manipulation and classical conditioning that are combined to make a dystopian society challenged by only a single individual: the story's protagonist.

Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
Andrew "Ender" Wiggin thinks he is playing computer simulated war games; he is, in fact, engaged in something far more desperate. The result of genetic experimentation, Ender may be the military genius Earth desperately needs in a war against an alien enemy seeking to destroy all human life. The only way to find out is to throw Ender into ever harsher training, to chip away and find the diamond inside, or destroy him utterly. Ender Wiggin is 6 years old when it begins. He will grow up fast.

Openly Straight by Bill Konisburg
Rafe is a normal teenager from Boulder, Colorado. He plays soccer. He's won skiing prizes. He likes to write. And, oh yeah, he's gay. He's been out since eighth grade, isn't teased, and goes to other high schools and talks about tolerance and stuff. And while that's important, all Rafe really wants is to just be a regular guy. Not that GAY guy. To have it be a part of who he is, but not the headline, every single time. So, when he transfers to an all-boys' boarding school in New England, he decides to keep his sexuality a secret – not so much going back in the closet as starting over with a clean slate. But then he sees a classmate break down, meets a teacher who challenges him, and most of all, falls in love with Ben . . . who doesn't even know that love is possible.