Please check out these selected titles... - 2004 College Bound - History

Albom, Mitch Tuesdays With Morrie (1997)Maybe it was a grandparent, or a teacher, or a colleague. Someone older, patient and wise, who understood you when you were young and searching, helped you see the world as a more profound place, gave you sound advice to help you make your way through it.

For Mitch Albom, that person was Morrie Schwartz, his college professor from nearly twenty years ago.

Best, Joel Damned Lies and Statistics: Untangled Numbers from the Media, Politicians, and Activists (2001)Does the number of children gunned down double each year? Does anorexia kill 150,000 young women annually? Do white males account for only a sixth of new workers? Startling statistics shape our thinking about social issues. But all too often, these numbers are wrong. This book is a lively guide to spotting bad statistics and learning to think critically about these influential numbers. Damned Lies and Statistics is essential reading for everyone who reads or listens to the news, for students, and for anyone who relies on statistical information to understand social problems.

Corwin, Miles And Still We Rise (2000)

Author and journalist Miles Corwin spent the entire 1996-97 school year with a remarkable group of individuals: the students in the senior Advanced Placement English class at Crenshaw High School—-young ghetto scholars who have managed to excel despite living in the hostile world of South Central Los Angeles. This book is a moving account of their courage, achievements, strength, and resilient spirit—-their personal crises, setbacks, catastrophes, and triumphs. It is an unforgettable ten-month visit to the dynamic, electrically charged classroom of Toni Little, an inspiring but volatile and wildly unpredictable white educator determined to imbue her minority students with a passion for great literature. Corwin also spent the year with Anita "Mama" Moultrie, a flamboyant black teacher whose Afrocentric teaching style was diametrically opposed to Little's traditional approach. These exceptional students—-all classified as gifted—-provide a ground zero perspective on the affirmative action debate and will remain with the readers always.

In Light at the Edge of the World, Davis-best known for The Serpent and the Rainbow-presents an intimate survey of the ethnosphere in 80 striking photographs taken over the course of his wide exploration. In eloquent accompanying text, Davis takes readers deep into worlds few Westerners will ever experience, worlds that are fading away even as he writes. From the Canadian Arctic and the rain forests of Borneo to the Amazon and the towering mountains of Tibet, readers are awakened to the rituals, beliefs, and lives of the Waorani, the Penan, the Inuit, and many other unique and endangered traditional cultures. The result is a haunting and enlightening realization of the limitless potential of the human imagination of life.

Dershowitz, Alan M. Why Terrorism Works (2002)The greatest danger facing the world today, says Alan M. Dershowitz, comes from religiously inspired, state sponsored terrorist groups that seek to develop weapons of mass destruction for use against civilian targets. In his newest book, Dershowitz argues passionately and persuasively that global terrorism is a phenomenon largely of our own making and that we must and can take steps to reduce the frequency and severity of terrorist acts.

Doyle, William An American Insurrection (2001)In 1961, a black veteran named James Meredith applied for admission to the University of Mississippi — and launched a legal revolt against white supremacy in the most segregated state in America. Meredith’s challenge ultimately triggered what Time magazine called “the gravest conflict between federal and state authority since the Civil War,” a crisis that on September 30, 1962, exploded into a chaotic battle between thousands of white civilians and a small corps of federal marshals. To crush the insurrection, President John F. Kennedy ordered a lightning invasion of Mississippi by over 20,000 U.S. combat infantry, paratroopers, military police, and National Guard troops.
Based on years of intensive research, including over 500 interviews, JFK’s White House tapes, and 9,000 pages of FBI files, An American Insurrection is a minute-by-minute account of the crisis.

Ehrenreich, Barbara Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America (2001)To understand life beyond boom-time America, Barbara Ehrenreich spent months laboring as a cleaning woman; as a waitress; and as a Wal-Mart sales clerk. Her revelations about these hard, supposedly "unskilled" jobs and the difficulty of making ends meet in the U.S. gives this book a powerful, personal edge.

Haddon, Mark The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (2003) (F Had) Christopher Boone is a fifteen and has Asperger's, a form of autism. He knows a great deal about math and very little about human beings. When he finds his neighbors's dog murdered he sets out on a terrifying journey which will turn his world upside down.

Hart, Elva Trevino The Barefoot Heart: Stories of a Migrant Child (1999)Barefoot Heart is a vividly told autobiographical account of the life of a child growing up in a family of migrant farm workers. Elva Trevino Hart was born in south Texas to Mexican immigrants and spent her childhood moving back and forth between Texas and Minnesota, eventually leaving that world to earn a master's degree in computer science/engineering.

Hosseini, Khaled The Kite Runner (2003) (F Hos)"I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975." So begins The Kite Runner, a poignant tale of two motherless boys growing up in Kabul, a city teetering on the brink of destruction at the dawn of the Soviet invasion.

Geeks are the leaders of the new computer-reliant economy—they're the people who know the mechanics and workings of machines and programs. But that doesn't mean the world shows them respect. When parents, politicians, or pundits attack the Internet and other aspects of geek culture, the group is constantly misrepresented, ridiculed, and looked upon as corks about to pop.

Geeks is also Jon Katz's story of how two members of this knowledge-privileged class walked out of their Idaho town and down the path toward respect.

Latifa My Forbidden Face: Growing Up Under the Taliban (2002)This haunting book details daily life inside Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. It is both a horrifying and extremely poignant journal, written by a young woman coming of age in 1996 as the oppressive white Taliban flag is first raised over Kabul. "Latifa," a lycée graduate, has just taken her exams to enter the university; she wants to be a journalist. Her father is prosperous, her mother a doctor. Their lives are good ones -- Latifa reads movie magazines, watches videos, plays games with her family, and has high hopes for her own future.

Martinez, Ruben Crossing Over: a Mexican Family on the Migrant Trail (2001)A journalist/editor with Pacific News Service and PBS's Religion & Ethics Newsweekly traces the journey of a Mexican family who lost three sons in a 1996 border incident as illegal migrants to US farms and slaughterhouses, and the bilateral cultural impacts. Includes photos from both sides of the border.

Pipher, Mary The Middle of Everywhere: the World's Refugees Come to Our Town (2002)The Middle of Everywhere moves beyond the headlines into the homes of refugees from around the world. Working as a cultural broker, teacher, and therapist, Mary Pipher has once again opened our eyes--and our hearts--to those with whom we share the future.

Salzman, Mark True Notebooks (2003)When Mark Salzman is invited to visit a writing class at Central Juvenile Hall, a lockup for Los Angeles's most violent teenage offenders, he scrambles for a polite reason to decline. He goes -- expecting the worst -- and is so astonished by what he finds that he becomes a teacher there himself. True Notebooks is an account of Salzman's first years teaching at Central. Through it, we come to know his students as he did: in their own words. At times impossible and at times irresistible, they write with devastating clarity about their pasts, their fears, their confusions, their regrets, and their hopes. They write about what led them to crime and to gangs, about love for their mothers and anger toward their (mostly absent) fathers, about guilt for the pain they have caused, and about what it is like to be facing life in prison at the age of seventeen. Most of all, they write about trying to find some reason to believe in themselves -- and others -- in spite of all that has gone wrong.

Schlosser, Eric Fast Food Nation (2001)Journalist Schlosser argues that the fast food industry has triggered the growth of malls in America's landscape, widened the gap between rich and poor, fueled an epidemic of obesity, and propelled American cultural imperialism abroad. He discusses facts about food production and preparation, the ingredients and taste-enhancers in the food, the chains' efforts to reel in young, susceptible consumers, and other unsettling facts.

Birdie Lee, the protagonist of Caucasia, grows up in 1970s Boston with her older sister, Cole, her radical WASP mother, Sandy, and her intellectual African American father, Deck. Sandy was raised in nearby Cambridge -- the daughter of a Harvard professor and a socialite mother whose lineage extended back to Cotton Mather -- while Deck's more amorphous history originated in the depths of the Louisiana bayou. Although Sandy's practice of housing political exiles in many ways complements Deck's revolutionary theories about race, their explosive and intense relationship is a source of instability and concern for both Birdie Lee and Cole. Eventually, the marriage collapses, and Deck finds a new romantic interest, Carmen, a black woman who ignores Birdie Lee and favors Cole.

Simon, Rachel Riding the Bus With My Sister (2002)Rachel Simon's sister Beth is a spirited woman who lives intensely and often joyfully. Beth, who has mental retardation, spends her days riding the buses in her Pennsylvania city. The drivers, a lively group, are her mentors; her fellow passengers are her community. One day, Beth asked Rachel to accompany her on the buses for an entire year. This wise, funny, deeply affecting book is the chronicle of that remarkable time. Rachel, a writer and college teacher whose hyperbusy life camouflaged her emotional isolation, had much to learn in her sister's extraordinary world.

In this remarkable novel set in postwar London, 24-year-old Smith has cleverly created an unlikely friendship between Archie Jones, a simple working-class Brit, and Samad Iqbal, a Muslim Bengali waiter in an Indian restaurant, who meet in the English army in WWII. After the war, the two commiserate over their lives and those of their children; their dreams, disappointments and expectations unfolding with riotous humor as the characters in both generations struggle to carve out their own cultural identities. As Samad himself says, "…you begin to give up the very idea of belonging. Suddenly, this thing, this belonging, it seems like some long, dirty lie."

Steinberg, Jacques The Gateskeepers: Inside the Admissions Process of a Premier College (2002)Based on a much discussed New York Times front-page series, The Gatekeepers takes you inside the admissions department of a top American college to reveal every step of the decision-making process. Granted unfettered access to the admissions offices at Connecticut's prestigious Wesleyan University, Steinberg follows several high school seniors as they vie for entry into college. He takes you through every phase of the selections; from reading applicants' essays to evaluating interviewees to comparing test scores. While examining factors such as high school grades, SAT scores, and extracurricular activities, he discusses hot educational topics such as affirmative action, standardized testing, test preparation courses, and the real value of "name-brand" colleges.

Turner, Sugar and Tracy Bachrach Ehlers Sugar's Life in the Hood: the Story of a Former Welfare Mother (2003)All her life, Sugar Turner has had to hustle to survive. An African American woman living in the inner city, she has been a single mother juggling welfare checks, food stamps, boyfriends and husbands, illegal jobs, and home businesses to make ends meet for herself and her five children. Her life's path has also wandered through the wilderness of crack addiction and prostitution, but her strong faith in God and her willingness to work hard for a better life pulled her through. Today, Turner is off welfare and is completing her education. She is computer literate, holds a job in the local school system, has sent three of her children to college, and is happily married.

Wheelan, Charles Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science (2002)Finally! A book about economics that won't put you to sleep. In fact, you won't be able to put this one down.Naked Economics makes up for all of those Econ 101 lectures you slept through (or avoided) in college, demystifying key concepts, laying bare the truths behind the numbers, and answering those questions you have always been too embarrassed to ask. For all the discussion of Alan Greenspan in the media, does anyone know what the Fed actually does? And what about those blackouts in California? Were they a conspiracy on the part of the power companies? Economics is life. There's no way to understand the important issues without it. Now, with Charles Wheelan's breezy tour, there's no reason to fear this highly relevant subject.