What does my teacher mean by “a

CHALLENGING book”?

GENRE

A genre is a specific type of writing, film, or music. Your favorite literary genre might be science fiction, and your favorite film genre might be horror flicks about cheerleaders.

Example 1:

Historical Fiction is a story that is made up, but is set in the past and borrows true characteristics, people, and events from the time period in which it is set.

Suggested Titles:The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly

Crow by Barbara Wright

The Lions of Little Rock by Kristin Levine

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly

Listen to the Moon by Michael Morpurgo

Example 2:

Narrative non-fiction is a true, factual accounting of something that happened, written by someone who was not there, but who has meticulously researched the event/story.

Suggested Titles:Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics by Daniel James Brown

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

The Reason I Jump: the Inner Voice of a 13-Year-Old Boy with Autism by Naoki Higashida

Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vietnam War by Steve Sheinkin

The Underground Girls of Kabul: in Search of a Hidden Resistance in Afghanistan by Jenny Nordberg

LENGTH

Suggested Titles:Diviners by Libba Bray

HIld by Nicola Griffith

The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness

Alive: the story of the Andes Survivors by Piers Paul Read

A Perfect Spy by John Le Carre

Alex Award Books

The Alex Awards are given to ten books written for adults that have special appeal to young adults, ages 12 through 18. The winning titles are selected from the previous year's publishing. The Alex Awards were first given annually beginning in 1998 and became an official ALA award in 2002.

Link and suggested titles:http://www.ala.org/yalsa/alex-awards#alex

All Involved by Ryan Gattis

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nahesi Coates

Undocumented: A Dominican Boy’s Odyssey from a Homeless Shelter to the Ivy League by Dan-el Padilla Peralta

All the Light we Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

The Martian by Andy Weir

CLASSICS

Literature that is widely acknowledged as having outstanding or enduring qualities. *Use of language

Suggested Titles:Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

Othello by Shakespeare

Moby Dick by Herman Melville

The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

CULTURE/SETTING

Suggested Titles:In Darkness by Nick Lake (Haiti)

Wild Ginger by Anchee Min (China)

First They Killed My Father by Loung Ung (Cambodia)

Burma Rifles by Frank Bonham (Burma)

Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer (Mormonism)

All Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (Nigeria)

People of the Dream by James Forman (First Nations/Native Americans)

CONTENT

Suggested titles:“Speak” or “Wintergirls” by Laurie Halse Anderson (rape) (eating disorders)

Rules of Survival by Nancy Werlin (domestic violence)

Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls (alcoholism and child neglect)

Sunrise Over Fallujah by Walter Dean Myers (war)

All American Boys by Jason Reynolds (racism)

How It Went Down by Kekla Magoon (racism)

Over a Thousand Hills I Walk with You by Hanna Jansen (genocide)