It's Not About the Bike by Lance Armstrong

In this non fictional autobiography by Lance Armstrong, Lance tells the story of his life, mainly focusing on his ordeal through cancer. Lance Armstrong is the current record holder for the most wins in the world's most prestigious bike race, the Tour de France. That is an amazing feat in itself, but it's even more amazing that Armstrong had a battle with highly aggressive testicular cancer in the middle of his career. The cancer spread quickly to his lungs, and then to his brain. Doctors were almost sure he would not make it. He was given a generous 2-3% chance of survival. Throughout the book, Armstrong tells how hard it was for him to deal with the cancer. People doubted him, said he would never race again. His contract with his sponsor was taken back by the sponsor, because they thought he would die. But he fought. He told doctors to give him the harshest chemicals they had to kill cancer. He went through many gruesome months of sickness; he couldn't sleep, he vomitted constantly, but he kept at it. All the while he kept a positive attitude. In his book he said how he treated the cancer like an opponent, and he would talk to the cancer and tell it that it would lose, and that it messed with the wrong guy. After many months, his condition turned around. He started to get better, and eventually, he was completely cured. He lost much weight because of the cancer and the chemical's toll on his body. Ironically, the new light weight body Armstrong had would help him win the Tour de France six more consecutive times, and make him the record holder for Tour de France wins.

1. Armstrong focuses a lot on telling the reader his positive mental attitude. Do you think any obstacle is able to be overcome with hard work and a positive attitude?

2. Cancer changed Armstrong's life. He became less arrogant, and focused more on people around him. He founded the Lance Armstrong Foundation to help cancer patients and their families cope with the disease. How would your life change if you had life-threatening cancer but then became completely cured of it?

Shattering Glass. By: Gail Giles

Within the first paragraph of Gail Giles' novel Young Stewerd, who is narrating the story, explains that Simon Glass was hated by many people for different reasons. In the next sentence Young says he and his friends realized this only after they killed him. Young then tells the story of how he and his friends ended up befriending the outsider Simon, and as a simple nice gesture started to spiral out of control.
The idea of making Simon popular was Young's friend Rob's idea and Rob enlists Young, Bob, and Coop to help him with his mission. The only reason Rob wants to help Simon is for the sheer fact that he wants to know if it can be done. Each of the boys are responsible in helping Simon in different ways. As Young begins to spend more time with Simon he begins to dislike him more and more. He also sees how far Rob will go to help Simon out, even if it means hurting others along the way. And when Simon begins to go in a different direction of Rob's initial plan, everything does not go so smoothly. Unfortunately I can not say anything more about the story with out ruining it.

1) Simon Glass is a disliked loner at Young's high school, he is picked on and has no friends. Even in his situation, he does not accept Rob's gesture to make him popular at first. After Rob somewhat charms him into it, Simon decides to give it a shot. Rob then begins to instigate his plan of changing Simon completely to become popular. If you were in Simon's situation would you accept an invitation offered by one of the most liked people in the school to change who you are?

2) In the novel, Rob enlists Young, Bob, and Coop to help him with Simon's transformation. However Rob leaves out the part of his plan where he turns Lance into the new Simon. If one of your really good friends asked you to help them make somebody more popular at the stake of diminishing another person's social status, would you?

The Runaway Jury By: John Grisham

The Runaway Jury by John Grisham is about a tobacco trial in Mississippi. The victim in this trial has been dead for years and his widowed wife Celeste Woods files a lawsuit against the tobacco company Pynex. This book focuses on the jury and its members more than anything. The selection process is very intense and is scrutinized by both sides. Millions and millions of dollars are spent by each side to select the perfect jury. One juror is there only to get the verdict he thinks is right and is not who he appears to be. Nicholas Easter, which isn't his real name, has registered and gotten into many important jurys across the country and is intent on getting onto this one. In the end he is put on the jury and begins to execute his plan. He eliminates jurors he feels aren't helping the cause and gets in the alternates that he wants. He quickly becomes the leader and the voice of the jury and demands and recieves several things from the judge. He doesn't work alone though. He has a partner known only as Marlee who is there to make bribes for getting a jurors vote and make money off of the trial and she does this to great success. This is an important trial for both sides as the tobacco companies have never lost and this trial could shift the legal balance. Will this trial change the balance or will it remain the same with the tobacco companies winning again?

Questions

1. If you were on the jury would you vote for the tobacco company saying he knowing smoked cigarettes and deserves no compenstation or would you vote for Celeste Woods saying that the tobacco companies shouldn't put nicotine in or lower the amounts of nicotine in cigarettes?

2. If you were one of the lawyers and were aproached by Marlee with a bribe would you accept the bribe to get a jurors vote knowing that it is unethical?

The Runaway Jury By: John Grisham

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

This book is the first of the Harry Potter series that would change the world. In this book a boy named Harry Potter is sent to live with his aunt and uncle after the death of his parents. His aunt and uncle did not want to have Harry live with them and they made that clearly understood. Harry lived under the wide shadow casted by his cousin, and he never got any attention at home. He got hand-me-down clothes, leftovers for every meal, and forced to live in the cupboard under the stairs. For ten years Harry felt like this would be his life forever, until one day a giant man named Hagrid came to him and told him a secret that would change his life forever. Harry found out that he was a wizard and that his parent were not killed in a car crash but murdered by a dark wizard named Lord Voldemort. This man had once tried to kill Harry too. Hagrid told Harry that he was invited to go to Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry, where he would learn all about the Wizarding world and how to use magic. Once at the school Harry makes many new friends and learns many new things that he never could have imagined in his wildest dreams. One thing that fascinates him the most is a mirror, however when you look into it you do not see your reflection but you see your hearts deepest desire. When Harry looked into the mirror he saw his family. He had never had a real family, I mean he had, but never one who loved him. Harry became obsessed with going to the mirror, until one day Professor Dumbledore told him that men have wasted their lives in front of it, because they spent their whole lives trying to have what they wanted instead of trying to achieve it.

1. If you were Harry would you go with Hagrid to Hogwarts despite not knowing who he was, if he was crazy, or if where he was going could be worse, but just being optimistic about going to a new place? Or would you stay home even though what you have to live with everyday was horrible, but you knew what you had and there would be no surprises?

2. If you had the image of anything you wanted right in front of you would you spend as much time as you could there or would you try and go get it keeping in mind that people cannot be brought back from the dead, but maybe the memory of them could live on? Would spending time with the image of someone you loved be worth wasting the life you could have?

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

Susie Salmon was a typical fourteen-year-old girl in December of 1973 when she was raped and murdered by her neighbor, Mr. Harvey, on her way home from school. The novel, narrated by Susie from her heaven, follows her family’s life after the murder and how each of them attempts to deal with losing her. Throughout the book Susie’s father, mother, sister Lindsey and brother Buckley all cope in various ways with Susie’s loss and the fact the her murderer never was found by the police. Though the road is very rocky and long, her death ultimately brings the family closer by the end of the novel. The best description of The Lovely Bones is from the New York Times saying the book is “a keenly observed portrait of familial love and how it endures and changes over time.”

Throughout the book, Susie watches her smart, strong younger sister, Lindsey, grow up. Lindsey constantly faces the looks and whispers about her, and becomes known as “the dead girl’s sister” throughout high school. She makes the boy’s varsity soccer team and graduates as valedictorian of her class. She and her boyfriend Samuel go to college together, and eventually get married and have a child by the end of the novel. Throughout the book, Lindsey also becomes a sort of cornerstone for the family. She is the strong one, and is always watching out for her little brother Buckley and her father. She deals with her loss of her sister and her best friend by taking care of the family, and often shutting her own feelings out.

For Susie’s mother, her death changes the way that she felt about the family and her role in it. She feels responsible for Susie’s death because she feels that it is punishment for never really wanting children. She realizes that all her life she compromised her own dreams for her family and she cannot deal with that. Susie says, “It was my father who grew toward us as the years went by; it was my mother who grew away” (153). She seeks to end her pain by escape. She has an affair with a police officer covering Susie’s murder case, and eventually abandons her family and goes to California for about three years, trying to find herself and rebuild her dreams. Eventually however, her family calls her home when Susie’s father has a narrow escape from death, and she returns home, trying to start over once again.

In many ways, Susie’s father is the hero of the novel. He and Susie had a very special bond, and for a while he sees her everywhere, especially in Lindsey. But he is strong for his family, and basically raises Lindsey and Buckley after his wife leaves. He struggles with himself because he feels that he is the reason she left, and that he could really never make her happy. But when she returns they both find renewed hope that they could rebuild their lives together, and he forgives her for leaving almost immediately.

As Susie watches all of this from her heaven she must deal with the fact that she can never see her family on earth again. She must let go of them, and go on into heaven, instead of being constantly attached to earth. As her family grows stronger throughout the novel and copes with her death, she in turn begins to be able o let go of them as well. Susie finally moves on to a place called “wide heaven” and leaves her family behind to live their lives. Still, at the end of the book, she says, “If I’m to be honest with you, I still sneak away to watch my family sometimes. I can’t help it, and sometimes they still think of me. They can’t help it,” (323).

1) Do you think Susie's mother is justified in abandoning her family and going to California because she had to cope with herself and her loss?

2) In the book Susie constantly watches her family and is very connected to life on earth. Do you personally believe that this life and whatever comes after death are connected, or totally separate? Do you think the dead are connected with life on earth?

The Five People You Meet in Heaven

The book is about an old maintenance man named Eddie who works at the Ruby Pier amusement park. He spent his whole childhood playing at the amusement park with his friends and older brother. On one normal routine day, an amusement park ride malfunctions because of a loose wire. He did everything he could to fix the ride but his best was not good enough. The wire was cut off and the ride fell off its tracks. He then died suddenly while trying to save a girl from the falling amusement park ride. After he died, he was sent to Heaven where he meets five people that played some important part in his life. Each person he meets explains to Eddie how they died and the reason for encountering one another again. Each person had some kind of life lesson to teach Eddie. After he died, he realized the point of his life. Eddie did not have a good relationship with his drunken father who beat him. Eddie home from war one day and his father took a drunken swing at him. Eddie resisted by grabbing his father's arm and they never spoke again. A few years later his father died from pneumonia. Eddie's mother could not cope with the death of her husband so her and Eddie moved to the apartment where he grew up. Eddie has always wanted to be an engineer but his father thought differently and wanted Eddie to follow his footsteps and become a maintenance man. Eddie fell in love to a woman named Marguerite and soon after they were hitched. I can not say the five people Eddie met without ruining the story. The theme of The Five People You Meet in Heaven is it is a story of a man's journey to eternal piece after he struggled all his life.

1. If you were in Eddie's position, would you try to save the little girl's life even if you were risking your own?

2. Would you have done what Eddie did when his father took a drunken swing at him even if you knew you may never speak to him again?

The Lucky One by Nicholas Sparks

The novel's main character, Logan Thibault is in war on a tour of duty overseas when he comes across a picture of a young woman standing in the middle of pine trees. He suddenly experiences some luck by surviving in combat and winning poker games with buddies. He met his best friend Victor while in combat over seas and once their tour is complete they separate but plan to meet again for a fishing trip.

Victor's only explanation for that sudden stroke of luck is the photograph. It seems like its Logan's lucky charm and he can not seem to get the young lady out of his head. His solution is to embark on a journey to find her. He walked day in and day out across the country. His search is stopped when he meets a young, divorced mother from a small town, Elizabeth.

The picture is kept a secret as their relationship grows. Logan is given a job from Elizabeth's Nana at the kernel and he finds a place to stay. Keith Clayton, Elizabeth's ex-husband threatens to ruin their relationship and he does not want Logan anywhere near their son, Ben. Clayton does not trust Logan at all. He begins sneaking around Logan's home and finding out as much information he can. Clayton becomes aware that Logan is hiding something and his secret now plays an important part in his relationship. Even though they are divorced Clayton does not let other guys into Elizabeth's life. If something becomes to serious, he will run the guys right out of her life and being a police officer makes that fairly simple.

Tension begins to grow, and Ben runs away into a storm... I can't give many more details without ruining the ending.

1) The photograph made a huge impact on Logan's life while overseas in Iraq. Do you think it is possible to have love at first sight from a picture?

2)Do you believe Clayton had a right to be meddling in Elizabeth's life like that. Do you think part of it was jealousy, even though they are divorced?

Hamlet by William Shakespeare

Late one night an apparition baring a striking resemblance to the recently deceased King Hamelet visits the Elsinore Castle. The watchmen and a scholar named Horatio quickly seek out the dead king's son, Prince Hamlet, and brings him to see the ghost who speaks to him. Prince Hamlet is told that the ghost is indeed his father and that he was murdered by his brother Claudius who later becomes king and marries the widowed queen. Before his father's spirit disappears, Hamlet is ordered to get revenge against Claudius for his injustices.

Hamlet dedicates himself to seeking revenge, but he is often delayed in his plans because of his contemplative and thoughtful behaviors. He becomes so melancholy that he seems to reach a certain level of madness. Claudius and Hamlet's mother worry for him and try to find a cause for his despair, using two of his friends to watch him. Around this time Polonius suggests that Hamlet is simply madly in love with his daughter Ophelia. Wanting to know if that is the truth, Claudius spies on one of their conversations but does not find any indication that Hamlet is in love with her.

Still trying to avenge his father, Hamlet comes up with an idea to test his uncle's guilt. A group of traveling actors come to Elsinore and Hamlet has them act out a play that closely resembles the way Claudius murdered his brother. He believes that if his uncle truly did kill his father, then he would react in some way. When the murder scene comes, Claudius leaves the room. Convinced of his uncle's guilt, Hamlet follows him to finally get revenge. However, he finds Claudius praying, and thinking it would send him to heaven, Hamlet waits to extract his revenge. Claudius, who is scared for his well-being, orders that Hamlet be sent to England.

Before he leaves, Hamlet goes to confront his mother but ends up accidentally killing Polonius. He is immediately sent to England with his two friends. What Hamlet does not know is that Claudius has a secret plot in which he demands that Hamlet be put to death in England. Ophelia, mad with grief over her father, drowns herself in the river.

Afterwards, Polonius' son Laertes comes back to find his family all dead. Claudius then convinces Laertes that Hamlet is to blame for all his misfortune. Hamlet ends up coming back because of pirates that attacked his ship and Claudius uses this opportunity to use Laertes desire for revenge to finally kill Hamlet. Claudius declares that Laertes and Hamlet have a fencing duel and to ensure that Hamlet dies, he poisons Laertes blade. As another precaution he poisons a goblet in case Hamlet wins. Hamlet comes back just as Ophelia's funeral is taking place. Grievous, he attacks Laertes and declares that he had always loved her.

The fight begins and Hamlet wins the first score. When Claudius offers him the goblet, he declines and instead his mother drinks from it, dying immediately. Laertes then wounds Hamlet but he does not die from the poison immediately. Laertes then wounds himself with his own sword and before dying, he tells Hamlet that Claudius is responsible for his mother's death as well. Hamlet soon stabs Claudius with the poisoned sword and forces him to drink all of the poisoned wine. Claudius dies and with his revenge full filled, Hamlet dies immediately after. The kingdom is then taken over by a man named Fortinbras, who after learning of Hamlet's story from Horatio, has the dead prince carried away in the manner of a fallen soldier.

Questions:

1. Do you think Hamlet's revenge was justified? Should he have forgotten about it and just continued on with his life?

2. If Hamlet had not tried to get revenge, how do you think his life would have changed?

No Limits by Michael Phelps

No Limits by Michael Phelps with Alan Abrahamson is a nonfictional book that chronicles Michael Phelp's life leading up to his eight Olympic gold medals at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. "I think that everything is possible as long as you put your mind to it and you put the work and time into it. I think your mind really controls everything" (117). Phelps went into detail about the sport of swimming and how you have to be mentally strong to be able to swim. People always think of swimming as being an easy sport, but it is actually one of the hardest sports in the world. People aren't just born good at swimming, to be really good you have to have that extra something, mental strength. Phelps then goes on to explain all of his training and the things he had to go through leading up to the Olympics.

1. "So many people along the way, whatever it is you aspire to do, will tell you it can't be done. But all it takes is imagination. You dream. You plan. You reach. There will be obstacles. There will be doubters. There will be mistakes. But with hard work, with belief, with confidence and trust in yourself and those around you, there are no limits." Do you think that anything is achievable in life? If you want something bad enough and are willing to work for it will you get it, or are some things not achievable?

2. "I engaged in behavior which was regrettable and demonstrated bad judgement. I'm twenty-three years old and, despite the successes I've had in the pool, I acted in a youthful and irresponsible way, not in a manner people have come to expect form me. For this, I am sorry. I promise my fans and the public it will not happen again" (237). Do you think it is right to judge Phelps for the illegal activities he was caught doing? Should people talk poorly about an entire sport because of one person's mistake?

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls is a remarkable story about Jeannette’s life. She grew up with stubborn parents who were very poor and the family moved very often. They never had a place to call home. “We moved around like nomads. We lived in dusty little mining towns in Nevada, Arizona, and California. They were usually nothing but a tiny cluster of sad, sunken shacks, a gas station, a dry-goods store, and a bar or two” (19). Her father, Rex Walls was an alcoholic and would waste needed money on unnecessary items. “But Dad drank hard liquor only when we had money, which wasn’t often, so life was mostly good in those days” (23). However, when he was sober, he was a very smart and intelligent man. Her mother, Rose Mary Walls was a creative artist and enjoyed writing more then taking care of her four children. Jeannette lived through a rough life as a child. When money became short, the Walls family moved to West Virginia. Jeannette’s parents were not responsible enough to take care of a family so Jeannette and her siblings were forced to fend for themselves. She even managed to get a job and make her own money. After saving a lot of money in a safe, Jeannette found to her surprise that her father stole the money only to waste it on alcohol. The kids realized that it was not safe for them to live with their parents. Their mother and father could no longer provide good food to eat or clothes to wear. Jeannette’s older sister Lori was the first to escape. Soon, Jeannette and her other siblings moved to New York to join Lori. Jeannette did very well in High School and ended up at Barnard College. Even though the four children lived through a rough childhood that was hard to live through, they all managed to stay strong and pull through.

1. Despite everything, Jeannette Walls refuses to condemn her parents. If you were living in Jeannette’s shoes, how would you feel living with parents who did not take care of you? What actions would you take in order to take care of yourself? Would you still honor your parents?

2. As Jeannette grew older and lived in New York she still kept very close touch with her parents. They too later moved down to New York. If you were Jeannette would you still want to be close with your parents? Why?

Wherever Nina Lies

Wherever Nina Lies by Lynn Weingarten is about a girl named Ellie Wringley who has a missing sister, Nina. Ellie tries to find Nina many times but fails. One day Ellie goes to her friend Amanda's work, The Attic. While there Ellie finds a book with a picture in it that Nina drew. The picture has a phone number on it. Ellie and Amanda call the number and learn that the guy has parties all the time at a big house called Mothership. Ellie remembers that Nina used to go to these parties all the time. So Ellie and Amanda go to Mothership. At the party Ellie tries to find Nina and asks people if they know her. Nina meets a boy, Sean. While talking to Sean, Ellie sees the guy that she had talked with on the phone. The guy is not helpful and makes Ellie mad. She runs upstairs and takes a sledgehammer; the party is a destruction party. Ellie hits the wall and the next thing she knows is the house is burning to the ground.

The next day Sean finds Ellie at her work. Sean takes Ellie home. Ellie tells Sean about Nina. He tells her that his brother died and he would love to help Ellie find Nina because there is nothing he can do to help his brother. Ellie and Sean find a credit card of Nina's and go online to see what she bought with it. One purchase was a snowboard and the other purchase was a breakfast at a diner, Sweetie's in Nebraska. Ellie and Sean go to Nebraska.

When they get to Sweetie's there is a tour bus in the parking lot. Ellie goes to the bathroom which is covered in Sharpie drawings. Ellie sees a drawing of a boy and a bus with the writting Cakey <3's J and the bus number 257. Cakey was Nina's nickname. Ellie runs out and tells Sean. The bus in the parking lot has the number 257. So Ellie and Sean follow the bus.

The bus takes them to Denver. In Denver Ellie sees a sign that says, "Get a tattoo at Bijoux Ink. 2740 Colfax Avenue" (157). Ellie and Nina had an imaginary dog named, Bijoux. They go to Bijoux Ink and find a picture of Nina and a band. Ellie takes the picture and they go to Bottom Forty, a music store. There they meet Jamie and Jamie. The Jamies tell them that the band is The Monsterhands and they are having a concert in Phoneix in the Spit Pavillion. Ellie, Sean and the Jamies go to Phoneix.

When they get there Ellie goes and talks to the band. To get in she tells the guard she is Nina. The band tells Ellie that the last time they saw Nina was when they dropped her off at a house in Big Sur with a snowboard. Ellie goes to find Sean and tells him.

On their way to Big Sur they stop at a gas station. Sean tells Ellie he hired a privatae investigator and the investigator told him Nina was dead. Ellie doesn't believe him. She screams and cries. Instead of going to Big Sur, they stop at a hotel. Ellie wakes up in the morning and remembers what strange things happened that night. She remembers tracing scars on Sean and him putting a breifcase in the back of a closet. Ellie askes Sean to get her a salad for breakfast. While he is gone she finds the briefcase and the combination is Cakey.

1. Do you think Ellie finds Nina?

2. If your sibling went missing would you try to find him/her to such extremes as Ellie did? (Ellie's mom didn't help her in finding Nina. Everytime she would ask her mom for help her mom would tell her to stop).

Found (The Missing, Book 1) by Margaret Peterson Haddix

At the beginning of the novel, a brand-new airline employee, Angela DuPre, experiences an event that she is later told never to talk about.She sees a plane carrying 36 babies, and no one else, not even a pilot. After 13 years, two friends, Chip and Jonah, receive mysterious notes, with messages like "You are one of the missing" and "Beware! They're coming back to get you." Only then does Chip learn that he is adopted, just like Jonah. With the help of Jonah's sister, Katherine, who is not adopted, the boys investigate. They end up discovering that this FBI agent, James Reardon, has to do with their adoptions. Jonah and his family visit him. Reardon avoids offering any information, but on a trip to the restroom, Jonah meets a shady janitor who tells him to secretly look at a file on Reardon's desk and memorize as much as he can. These smart kids do a great job using modern technology like camera phones, photo-editing programs, etc. to get information and track down other adoptees.They call the other adoptees, including one named Daniella McCarthy. Chip calls her early in the morning, asking if she lives at Robin's Egg Lane in Liston, Ohio (near their location); he had read about this in the files that Katherine had taken pictures of earlier in Reardon's office. Daniella says she lives in Michigan and she has never heard about that location, so she hangs up because she doesn't know him. Later that day, she calls back, with a shaky voice, telling him that her parents had just mentioned that address at breakfast and that they had made an offer on the house after discussing it with the children. They also meet a women named Angela DuPre, who was working at the airport for one day, thirteen years ago. She tells them that she believes they came from the mysterious plane that was really a time machine. She also says that she thinks all of the babies were adults and the time machine was an experiment that had somehow gone wrong, resulting in the adults turning into babies. Before she is able to finish her story, the kids have to escape because a man rushes in trying to stop their meeting. The kids later discover they are caught in a battle between two opposing forces that want very different things for Jonah and Chip's lives, and then they both end up at an adoption convention, along with the other 34 children from the mysterious flight! By the end of the book they are trapped by some suspicious characters, learn that they are among the most famous missing children in history, like Virginia Dare, (the first person born in the Americas to English parents) and get sent back in time. This is a great page-turner and there are still two more books to the series if anyone is interested in reading this mystery (Sent and Sabotaged).


Question #1: In Daniella's case, do you think that the FBI could predict the future, because the boys found out about her new house before she did, looking through the files? What do you think the FBI is trying to do?


Question #2: Who do you think are the suspicious characters that trapped them at the adoption convention?

Twilight by: Stephanie Meyer

Bella Swan moves to Forks, Washington to live with her father Charlie. Upon her arrival, Bella finds her welcome home gift, a big red truck. Bella attends Forks High school in the small cold and rainy town. At Forks High School, Bella meets new friends, which for her, was surprising. She has a quiet and shy personality and down in Pheonix, Arizona she had never accumulated a bunch of friends. Also at Forks High School, she meets Edward Cullen. At first, Edward is cold towards Bella, but as time progresses he shows more of an interest in her and even saves her life for the first time from an SUV sliding out of control in the parking lot. He grabs her and smashes the car inward to prevent it from hitting the both of them. At this point, Bella begins to suspect that the boy she feels so fond of isn't exactly human. She begins to question him and is tipped off by her friend Jacob Black the the Cullen family is actually a clan of vampires. Unphased, Bella confronts Edward about this belief and he reveals his secret to her on the condition she must keep his secret. Edward and Bella fall deeply in love and are unable to be apart for long. However, underneath Edward's love for Bella lies a lust for her blood and he must resist this longing while he is near Bella. Although the Cullens are 'vegetarians', there are still vampires that still rely on human blood to satisfy their thirst and while playing baseball with Edward's family, Bella's scent is discovered by a tracker, James, who begins to hunt Bella for sport. The Cullens do everything in their power to keep Bella safe, but James loves his sport and is cunning. He tricks Bella into thinking he has her mother, Renee, by recording an old family movie with her mother's voice and Bella gives herself up to James in return for her mother's safety. James is about to deliver the fatal blow to Bella right as Edward arrives and kills James. Bella is nursed back to health by Carlisle, and continues her life with Edward in Forks, even attending school prom.

Edward has a special power and is able to hear people's thoughts, however, he is unable to hear Bella's. Why do you think he is unable to hear the thoughts of the one most important to him?

Edward was created by Carlisle 90 years ago when he was on the brink of death because of an illness plaguing where he lived. Edward's mother had pleaded, and was also dying, to Carlisle to do everything in his power to ensure that Edward lived. Carlisle, lonely and wanting companionship, changed Edward into a vampire thinking he would teach Edward his way of hunting animals instead of humans. Do you think Carlisle did the right thing in turning Edward into a vampire, or was it selfish?

The Silence by Nathaniel Ewert-Krocker

The Silence is about a young boy named Sinclair Vox who is a story teller. When Paxton (the town Sinclair lives in) is taken by a plague of silence, Sinclair finds himself the only one left with a voice. Shortly after he discovers what has happened to his town, a mysterious man named Alden appears at his house and explains what this strange plague is and why Sinclair still has his voice. It turns out that people who have a powerful story, one worth telling, have the power to keep their voice. Sinclair also learns that in order to save Paxton, he will have to travel two hundred miles out of his town, to the Island City of Rieve. Before Alden and Sinclair set off on this journey, Alden reviles to Sinclair that ultimately it will be his own story that saves his town.

On their way to Rieve, Sinclair and Alden find themselves in Leighton, where they meet a musician named Joliette. At almost the same time Alden receives a telegram from an old friend saying the silence has taken the city of Veradane, and the person responsible is named Alicia Rhona. Alden suddenly becomes flustered and gives instructions to Sinclair to go to the great library in Rieve and speak to a man named Joshua who will give them an artifact to help them fight the silence. Sinclair and Joliette stick together and run into Sarah Averielle, the governor's daughter who is travelling alone. These three decide to stay together while they wait for a festival in Leighton to end so they can take a train to Rieve. Whilst waiting for the festival to end Sinclair and his companions visit the festival where they first encounter Alicia Rhona. Alicia is described as a raven haired woman who is filled with only sorrow and rage. Before they know what is happening Alicia has spread the silence over Leighton, and only Joliette's powerful songs can relieve the people of the silence. While Joliette stays back to fight off the silence Sinclair and Sarah are forced to take a train to Rieve separating them from Joliette.

On the train to Rieve, Sinclair and Sarah run into a major problem, Alicia sought them out to get information about Alden . When she discovers that Alden is on his way to Veradne, she insists upon visiting the front of the train to make it turn around and go to Veradane. Sinclair tries to stop Alicia but finds that the silence that had taken his hometown was nothing compared to what Alicia could summon, and that he is not strong enough to fight it off completely. Alicia also suggests to Sinclair that she had killed Joliette back in Leighton before getting on the train. This makes Sinclair so enraged that for the slightest moment he is able to summon the silence himself. Eventually Sinclair and Sarah are able to escape Alicia and they arrive at Rieve where Sarah's father lives.

In Rieve, Sinclair discovers that Alden was not able to meet him at the train station where he said he would, so Sinclair and Sarah make their way to the great library alone. Here they meet Joshua and discover the artifact they were meant to receive was the book in which an old, powerful storyteller, kept all of his notes. Before Joshua can give it to Sinclair though, Alicia arrives and takes not only the artifact, but Sinclair's notebook in which he keeps all of his notes about the story he is creating. Sinclair chases after Alicia to get his notebook back, while Sarah, worried about her father, runs off to his home. Sinclair manages to retrieve his notebook, but in the process Alicia takes him hostage, meanwhile Sarah is kidnapped by an associate of her father who has a plot to overthrow his place as governor. Knowing that Alden would show up for Sinclair, Alicia took Sinclair to the Governor's house where Sarah was being held hostage in an attempt to make her father step down as Governor. Sinclair manages to save Sarah as Alden makes his timely arrival to save Sinclair (exactly what Alicia would have suspected). When Alden shows up, Alicia tries to silence Alden will all her might, but Alden tells her that she can't silence him nor can anyone else, and this was a gift Alicia's sister gave to him. Alicia then flees the scene and Alden and the rest set off after her before she is able to do any more damage.

When Alden, Sinclair and Sarah find Alicia again she is even more enraged than she normally seems and when she tries to bring down her final wrath and silence everything and everyone once and for all, she instead creates the silence into a giant deformed monster that even she is appalled at. The monster looks as if it is heading west back to Paxton so Alden, Sinclair and Sarah set off after it. When the three arrive in Paxton, Alden is injured and is not able to go with Sinclair and Sarah to fight the silence. Alden reminds Sinclair that it will be his own story that saves his town. Sinclair runs after the monster And Sarah is not able to keep up. When Sinclair reaches the monster though he realizes he has no idea what he is supposed to do, finally when The monster is about to take over him, Sinclair has an epiphany about how his story will all come together, which makes the story powerful enough to destroy the silence.

Once the silence is destroyed, Sinclair discovers the people who had been taken by it still did not have their voices back. When Sinclair goes to tell them his story to heal them, he discovers he cannot remember what it was that completed his story. Then he realizes it is not the story he was writing which would save his town, but the story he had created by going on this dangerous journey. The power of the story he created was able to heal his hometown.

1) Was Alden's plan all along to send Sinclair on this journey alone so Sinclair would have the power to heal his town, or did he think the artifact that Sinclair was meant to retrieve at the great library would strengthen the story he was writing so he could heal his town?

2) Alden says that Alicia's sister gave him the gift to never be taken by the silence, does this mean the story they had lived together was so powerful that he could never be taken, or was there something else Alicia's sister gave to Alden which protected him?

Love You Hate You Miss You by Elizabeth Scott

Amy and Julia had been friends since 6th grade, when Julia moved into their town. Amy, almost 6 feet tall, always felt out of place, until the outgoing Julia befriended her and swept her into a more exciting life. By the end of sophomore year, they remained best friends, and Amy had become much more confident.
One night at a party, however, Amy saw that her friend's boyfriend Kevin was cheating on her again, and set Julia up to walk in on them. She only wanted to open her friend's eyes to the pointlessness of continuing to forgive Kevin, and was shocked when Julia broke down in tears. Amy regretted her plan, and promised Julia that everything would be all right- that they just had to leave, and she would feel better. Julia drove, despite how upset she was, because Amy drank a lot at parties. She quickly got into an accident. Amy escaped barely harmed, but Julia was killed.
The story starts 75 days after the accident. Amy is about to return to school after a time spent in rehab, recovering from a dependence on alcohol. The memory of the crash continues to haunt her, and she frequently reminds herself of how she believes the accident to be her own fault for making Julia drive. She cites guilt as the only thing that kept her from killing herself after the funeral. Amy says, "I didn't because living with what I'd done to you was what I deserved. I deserved to be alone" (61-62). Amy's school life is not much better, although her grades improve dramatically because she spends so much time studying. She cannot bring herself to talk to any of her old friends, because it is too painful for her, and she is sure that they must also blame her for Julia's death. She spends much of her time alone, although she does eventually start talking to an old friend from elementary school, and a boy she once met at a party who understands her grieving.

The author does not ultimately give a moral to the story, perhaps as a way of illustrating the senseless pain of losing someone. Amy has made steps towards a better future, but still spends most of her time grieving for her friend. She writes, "Wherever I go, I'll always see you. You'll always be with me. And there's no happy ending coming here, no way a story that started on a night that's burned into my heart will end the way I wish it would. You're really gone, no last words, and no matter how many letters I write to you, you're never going to reply" (176). The novel ends almost half a year after the accident.

1) Amy dealt with many of her emotions about her friend's death by writing to her in letters. Do you think this was an effective method of grieving, or do you think it prevented her from moving on?

2) Amy spends a lot of time thinking about things she should have done differently when Julia was still alive, like telling her about a boy she liked. She also must come to terms with mistakes Julia made that had harmed her. Amy seems reluctant to admit that Julia ever did wrong. Do you think that working through these things is more beneficial than remembering Julia in the best light?

Out of Egypt by Anne Rice

Out of Egypt is a book by Anne Rice in biblical times. It is a historical fiction book, which Mrs. Rice wrote from the first person perspective of Jesus. It begins when he and his family move to Egypt to escape King Herod, who wants to kill him. He grows up there and becomes connected to his friends and teachers. When he is 7, they prepare to leave since King Herod is dead. It is painful for him to leave Egypt, since he has known nothing else. That is why the book is called Out of Egypt. When he returns to Jerusalem, it is a new life, where he must make new friends and learn new things. As he gets older, he learns about his birth and his power. He doesn't know what it all means, and it takes time for him to realize who he really is. He is told all the stories leading up to his birth, why they had to move, and why he must return. It was a very interesting book to be told from this perspective.

1. Do you think it is right for someone to tell a story and be Jesus? No one can ever be him, no one is God or sinless. Do you think it is morally right and okay, or is it sinful and immoral to tell a story like you know what went through his mind?

2. As he realizes he is the Son of God and has power, he realizes he cannot misuse it, and he does use it for many good things and miracles throughout his life. If you had the ability to do anything, what would you do as long as you could not sin?

Abhorsen by Garth Nix

Abhorsen is the third book of Garth Nix's best selling series. It continues off from where Lirael left off. Lirael and prince Sameth are desperately trying to stop Orannis's. Lirael has just found out she is the abhorsen in waiting and Sameth is starting to conquer his fear of the undead. Nix states, "Sam had been open about his fear of Death and the Dead, and his desire to hide out here in the heavily protected house. But he had over come his fear, at least for now."(28).

The two travel from the abhorsen's safe house to the battles of war. They are alone in their conquest, and more then likely they will be killed trying to save both the old kingdom and the new one. Lirael and Sameth eventually find Nick, Sameth's friend who has been possessed by the evil Orannis. The two manage to drag him away from the undead however he is captured by the undead again and they travel to the new kingdom.

There they find out that the place is swarming with the undead armies, and they are preparing a way to unleash the Destroyer, Orannis, on the world. Nix writes, "She's waiting for the second lot of Dead. Close to a thousand..."(350). The two fight a desperate battle and finally meet up with prince Sameth's parents, who they were told had died before. Several other people from their journey appear as well. As Orannis is being unleashed they prepare a binding spell to control him. Eventually they succeed, but they almost lose their lives. Lirael is cost her friend and her hand in such a risky endeavor. However she knows she has done the right thing.

1) If you were told that you were the only hope for defeating a monster that destroyed worlds, what would you do? Do you think you would have enough courage to complete your task at such a young age even if it meant you might die in the process?

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

Mockingjay is the third and final book in the "Hunger Game" series. Previously, Katniss' district, the seam, was burned to the ground because of her inevitable role in an uprising that was catching fire. After the horrific end to the quarter quarrel Katniss is rescued by rebels of District 13, which was said to have been destroyed many years ago. She reluctantly agrees to become the Mockingjay, the symbol of the rebellion towards the capitol. She tries to make the best of her stay at District 13 but finds it difficult to cope with when her "significant other", Peeta, appears on television looking very deranged and unlike himself. Sometime later Peeta is rescued by rebels, and when Katniss goes to see him, he tries to kill her. Not able to deal with what happened, Katniss hastily agrees to kill President Snow herself, and she takes a team to start fighting within the Capitol. Once they reach the square, Katniss sees her sister Prim, and tries to signal for her to get away from the parachutes, but it is too late and she, along with many other children, are killed. Snow is captured and on the day she is scheduled to execute him, she unexpectedly kills Coin, the president of District 13. Snow is said to have died, either by choking on his blood or getting trampled by the crowd. Katniss and Peeta eventually live happily ever after and have two children...

1.) If your boyfriend or girlfriend was "captured and brainwashed" and tried to kill you, would you abandon hope or hope for the best?

2.) Coin suggested that they have a hunger games for the children of the capitol (notorious for wrongdoing) but the hunger games is what this war is trying to end. Do you think Katniss killed Coin instead of Snow for this reason?