Independent Reading

1
Independent Reading
2
The Scarlet Letter

• Written by Nathaniel Hawthorne
• Emotional and psychological drama
• Focuses on Hester Prynne who is convicted of
  adultery in colonial Boston by the civil and
  Puritan authorities.
• She is condemned to wear the scarlet
  letter "A" on her chest as a
  permanent sign of
  her sin.
• The narrative describes the effort to
  resolve the torment suffered by
  Hester and
  her co-adulterer.

3
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon

• Written by Stephen King
• Baseball parable where Trisha
  McFarland is separated from
  her family on a hiking trip
• Alone in the woods, Trisha must battle nature and
  her fears, along with an unknown creature that
  stalks her in the forest.
• Her active imagination conjures up her hero,
  Bostons Red Sox pitcher, Tom Gordon.
• No matter what curve balls are thrown Trishas
  way, he stays with her until the final inning..

4
White Fang

• Written by Jack London
• White Fang, 3 parts wolf and 1 part dog, faces
  famine, severe abuse, and forced dog fights.
• He learns to eat or be eaten, kill or be killed
• In the end, he meets a loving master who pledges
  to domesticate White Fang through compassion.
• Can wild beast within White Fang be tamed to
  enter into a world of love and affection or will
  he continue to live a life of reckless abandon?

5
Call of the Wild

• Written by Jack London
• Centered around Buck, a great St. Bernard, and
  his journey from civilization to the wild.
• Buck faces both cruelty and kindness as he
  battles human masters, Indians, wild animals and
  natures elements
• Will he be rescued or will he be the
  rescuer?

6
Kindred

• Written by Octavia E. Butler
• Dana, a modern day African American woman, is
  summoned back to the days of slavery by a white
  plantation owner named Rufus.
• Forced to face all the hardships slavery entails
  while exploring her true identity
• Can Dana find the strength to break
  free of her physical
  slavery and the
  hold that the past has on her, while
  ensuring her own
  survival in the
  present, or she can never again forget
  the struggles of
  her exploited
  ancestors?

7
The Awakening

• Written by Kate Chopin
• Set in New Orleans during the
  Victorian Era
• Edna Pontellier learns to think of
  herself as an self-sufficient
  human being
  and rebels against social norms by leaving her
  husband and having an affair.
• The novel focuses on her journey to
  self-discovery and her assertion of the diverse
  roles of women beyond the established stereotypes

8

• Written by Mitch Albom
• Details the relationship between Mitch and his
  former professor, Morrie as both deal with how to
  repair their lives that are being torn apart by
  disease, society, failing relationships, and
  stressful jobs
• Their journey together epitomizes and
  redefines the role of the teacher and
  the student as they try
  to re-capture the true
  meaning of life.