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"William Waters grew up in a house silenced by tragedy, where his parents could hardly bear to look at him, much less love him. So it's a relief when his skill on the basketball court earns him a scholarship to college, far away from his childhood home. He soon meets Julia Padavano, a spirited and ambitious young woman who surprises William with her appreciation of his quiet steadiness. With Julia comes her family; she is inseparable from her three...
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Oscar Starling never wanted to come to Chicago. But then Oscar finds himself not just in the heart of the big city but in the middle of a terrible fire! No one knows exactly how it began, but one thing is clear: Chicago is like a giant powder keg about to explode. An army of firemen is trying to help, but this fire is a ferocious beast that wants to devour everything in its path, including Oscar! Will Oscar survive one of the most famous and devastating...
3) Divergent
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In a future Chicago, sixteen-year-old Beatrice Prior must choose among five predetermined factions to define her identity for the rest of her life, a decision made more difficult when she discovers that she is an anomaly who does not fit into any one group, and that the society she lives in is not perfect after all.
4) Ghost boys
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Twelve-year-old Jerome is shot by a police officer who mistakes his toy gun for a real threat. As a ghost, he observes the devastation that's been unleashed on his family and community in the wake of what they see as an unjust and brutal killing.
5) The jungle
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A documentary novel portraying industry's conditions at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. Sinclair's novel prompted public outrage which led President Theodore Roosevelt to demand an official investigation. This eventually led to the passage of the Pure Food and Drug laws.
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In celebration of the tenth anniversary of its initial publication, and with a new introduction by the author, here is Sandra Cisnero's greatly admired and best-selling novel of a young girl growing up in the Latino section of Chicago. Acclaimed by critics, beloved by children and their parents and grandparents, taught everywhere from inner-city grade schools to universities across the country, and translated all over the world, The House on Mango...
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Being a cop runs in Billy Harney's family. The son of Chicago's Chief of Detectives whose twin sister, Patty, also followed in their father's footsteps, there's nothing Billy won't give up for the job, including his life. Left for dead alongside his tempestuous former partner and a hard-charging assistant district attorney out for blood, Billy miraculously survives. But he remembers nothing about the events leading up to the shootout. Charged with...
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Twelve-year-old T'Challa is content spending his days learning how to one day rule his nation, Wakanda. But trouble in his homeland leads his father, the reigning Black Panther, to send him to Chicago where he must assimilate into American life alongside his best friend M'Baku. Hiding his true identity becomes increasingly difficult when strange things start happening at his middle school. And he'll have to step into his destiny as future superhero...
10) Die trying
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In a plot to overthrow the U.S. government, Montana neo-Nazis abduct the daughter of the nation's top general and her male companion. The companion is Jack Reacher, a former military policeman and he turns the tables on the captors.
11) The good girl
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The daughter of a prominent Chicago judge and his socialite wife, inner-city art teacher Mia Dennett is taken hostage by her one-night stand, Colin Thatcher, who, instead of delivering her to his employers, hides her in a secluded cabin in rural Minnesota to keep her safe from harm.
12) Escape
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"New York Times bestselling detective Billy Harney of The Black Book is chasing down a billionaire crime boss and a prison escape artist while a young girl's life hangs in the balance. As Chicago PD's special-ops leader, Detective Billy Harney knows well that money is not the only valuable currency. The filthy rich man he's investigating is down to his last twenty million. He's also being held in jail. For now. Billy's unit is called in when an escape...
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3rd Grade Reading
Children's and Middle Grade Novels in Spanish and English/Novelas juveniles en español e inglés
Fun Family Read-Alouds for 2nd Grade and Older
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Children's and Middle Grade Novels in Spanish and English/Novelas juveniles en español e inglés
Fun Family Read-Alouds for 2nd Grade and Older
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Twelve-year-old María Luisa O'Neill-Morales (who really prefers to be called Malú) reluctantly moves with her Mexican-American mother to Chicago and starts seventh grade with a bang--violating the dress code with her punk rock aesthetic and spurning the middle school's most popular girl in favor of starting a band with a group of like-minded weirdos.
14) Simon B. Rhymin'
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Chicago fifth-grader Simon, an aspiring rapper who lacks self-confidence, uses his rhymes to help bring his community together.
15) Pretty baby
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Things go dangerously wrong when a middle-class wife and mother impulsively opens her home to a homeless teen and her tiny baby.
16) Scritch scratch
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Haunted after helping her father on his ghost-themed Chicago bus tour, twelve-year-old Claire must discover what the spectral boy from the bus wants before it is too late.
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Built-In Besties or Baddies: Siblings in YA Books
High School Project Lit Titles
Hispanic Heritage Month
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High School Project Lit Titles
Hispanic Heritage Month
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Description
"Perfect Mexican daughters do not go away to college. And they do not move out of their parents' house after high school graduation. Perfect Mexican daughters never abandon their family. But Julia is not your perfect Mexican daughter. That was Olga's role. Then a tragic accident on the busiest street in Chicago leaves Olga dead and Julia left behind to reassemble the shattered pieces of her family. And no one seems to acknowledge that Julia is broken,...
19) Native son
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Right from the start, Bigger Thomas had been headed for jail. It could have been for assault or petty larceny; by chance, it was for murder and rape. Native Son tells the story of this young black man caught in a downward spiral after he kills a young white woman in a brief moment of panic. Set in Chicago in the 1930s, Richard Wright's novel is just as powerful today as when it was written -- in its reflection of poverty and hopelessness, and what...