Table Of ContentJESUIT COMMITMENT HEROIC JOURNEY READING LIST
2012 - 2013
FRESHMEN COMMITMENT
Boy in the Striped Pajamas – John Boyne
Chinese Cinderella – Adeline Yen Mah
Copper Sun – Susan Draper
In the Time of Butterflies – Julia Alvarez
Kaffir Boy – Mark Mathabane
The Weight of All Things – Sandra Benitez
Under a War Torn Sky - L. M. Elliott
Under the Sun – Arthur Dorros
SOPHOMORE COMMITMENT
A Bag of Marbles – Joseph Joffo
A Long Way Gone – Ishmael Beah
Angelina Jolie’s Notes from My Travels – Angelina Jolie
Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Super Athletes, and the Greatest Race…- Christopher McDougall
Left to Tell – Immaculee Ilibagiza
Shanghai Diary – Ursla Bacon
Snow Falling in Spring – Moying Li
The Long Walk – Slavomir Rawicz
Weeping Under This Same Moon – Jana Laiz
JUNIOR COMMITMENT
Cry, the Beloved Country – Alan Paton
Gifted Hands – Ben Carson
Mountains Beyond Mountains – Tracey Kidder
Sarah’s Key – Tatiana DeRosnay
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan – Lisa See
Stones into Schools – Greg Mortenson
The Book Thief – Markus Zusak
The Flying Carpet – Hala Jaber
The Help – Kathryn Stockett
The Power of One - Bryce Courtenay
This Our Exile – James Martin, S.J.
SENIOR COMMITMENT
A Mighty Heart – Mariane Pearl
A Thousand Splendid Suns – Khaled Hosseini
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet – Jamie Ford
Little Princes: One Man’s Promise to Bring Home the Lost Children of Nepal – Conor Grennan
Sold - Patricia McCormick
The Cellist of Sarajevo – Steven Galloway
The Housekeeper and the Professor – Yoko Ogawa
The Photographer: Into War-torn Afghanistan with Doctors Without Borders – E. Guibert
The Soloist – Steve Lopez
Three Cups of Tea – Greg Mortenson
LEADERSHIP BOOKS
Sophomores: Student Leadership Challenge – James Kouzes and Barry Posner
Juniors: Heroic Leadership – Chris Lowney
Seniors: Heroic Living – Chris Lowney
FRESHMEN COMMITMENT LIST
Boy in the Striped Pajamas – John Boyne
Boyne has written a sort of historical allegory–a spare, but vividly descriptive tale that clearly elucidates the
atmosphere in Nazi Germany during the early 1940s that enabled the persecution of Eastern European
Jews. Through the eyes of Bruno, a naive nine-year-old is raised in a privileged household by strict parents
whose expectations included good manners and unquestioning respect for parental authority, the author
describes a visit from the Fury and the family’s sudden move from Berlin to a place called Out-With in
Poland. There, not 50 feet away, a high wire fence surrounds a huge dirt area of low huts and large square
buildings. From his bedroom window, Bruno can see hundreds (maybe thousands) of people wearing
striped pajamas and caps, and something made him feel very cold and unsafe. Uncertain of what his father
actually does for a living, the boy is eager to discover the secret of the people on the other side. He follows
the fence into the distance, where he meets Shmuel, a skinny, sad-looking Jewish resident who, amazingly,
has his same birth date. Bruno shares his thoughts and feelings with Shmuel, some of his food, and his final
day at Out-With, knowing instinctively that his father must never learn about this friendship. While only
hinting at violence, blind hatred, and deplorable conditions, Boyne has included pointed examples of
bullying and fearfulness. His combination of strong characterization and simple, honest narrative make this
powerful and memorable tale a unique addition to Holocaust literature for those who already have some
knowledge of Hitler’s Final Solution.–Susan Scheps
Chinese Cinderella – Adeline Yen Mah
Chinese Cinderella is the perfect title for Adeline Yen Mah's compelling autobiography in which, like the
fairy-tale maiden, her childhood was ruled by a cruel stepmother. "Fifth Younger Sister" or "Wu Mei," as
Yen Mah was called, is only an infant when her father remarries after her mother's death. As the youngest
of her five siblings, Wu Mei suffers the worst at the hands of her stepmother Niang. She is denied carfare,
frequently forgotten at school at the end of the day, and whipped for daring to attend a classmate's
birthday party against Niang's wishes. Her father even forgets the spelling of her name when filling out her
school enrollment record. In her loneliness, Wu Mei turns to books for company: "I was alone with my
beloved books. What bliss! To be left in peace with Cordelia, Regan, Gonoril, and Lear himself--characters
more real than my family... What happiness! What comfort!" Even though Wu Mei is repeatedly moved up
to grades above those of her peers, it is only when she wins an international play-writing contest in high
school that her father finally takes notice and grants her wish to attend college in England. Despite her
parent's heartbreaking neglect, she eventually becomes a doctor and realizes her dream of being a writer.
Teens, with their passionate convictions and strong sense of fair play, will be immediately enveloped in the
gross injustice of Adeline Yen Mah's story. A complete glossary, historical notes on the state of Chinese
society and politics during Yen Mah's childhood, and the legend of the original Chinese Cinderella round out
this stirring testimony to the strength of human character and the power of education.
Copper Sun – Sharon Draper
This action-packed, multifaceted, character-rich story describes the shocking realities of the slave trade and
plantation life while portraying the perseverance, resourcefulness, and triumph of the human spirit. Amari
is a 15-year-old Ashanti girl who is happily anticipating her marriage to Besa. Then, slavers arrive in her
village, slaughter her family, and shatter her world. Shackled, frightened, and despondent, she is led to the
Cape Coast where she is branded and forced onto a boat of death for the infamous Middle Passage to the
Carolinas. There, Percival Derby buys her as a gift for his son's 16th birthday. Trust and friendship develop
between Amari and Polly, a white indentured servant, and when their mistress gives birth to a black baby,
the teens try to cover up Mrs. Derby's transgression. However, Mr. Derby's brutal fury spurs them to
escape toward the rumored freedom of Fort Mose, a Spanish colony in Florida. Although the narrative
1
focuses alternately on Amari and Polly, the story is primarily Amari's, and her pain, hope, and
determination are acute. Cruel white stereotypes abound except for the plantation's mistress, whose love
is colorblind; the doctor who provides the ruse for the girls' escape; and the Irish woman who gives the
fugitives a horse and wagon. As readers embrace Amari and Polly, they will better understand the impact of
human exploitation and suffering throughout history. In addition, they will gain a deeper knowledge of
slavery, indentured servitude, and 18th-century sanctuaries for runaway slaves.–Gerry Larson, Durham
School of the Arts, NC
In the Time of Butterflies – Julia Alvarez
From the author of How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents comes this tale of courage and sisterhood set in
the Dominican Republic during the rise of the Trujillo dictatorship. A skillful blend of fact and fiction, In the
Time of the Butterflies is inspired by the true story of the three Mirabel sisters who, in 1960, were
murdered for their part in an underground plot to overthrow the government. Alvarez breathes life into
these historical figures--known as "las mariposas," or "the butterflies," in the underground--as she imagines
their teenage years, their gradual involvement with the revolution, and their terror as their dissentience is
uncovered. Alvarez's controlled writing perfectly captures the mounting tension as "the butterflies" near
their horrific end. The novel begins with the recollections of Dede, the fourth and surviving sister, who fears
abandoning her routines and her husband to join the movement. Alvarez also offers the perspectives of the
other sisters: brave and outspoken Minerva, the family's political ringleader; pious Patria, who forsakes her
faith to join her sisters after witnessing the atrocities of the tyranny; and the baby sister, sensitive Maria
Teresa, who, in a series of diaries, chronicles her allegiance to Minerva and the physical and spiritual
anguish of prison life. n the Time of the Butterflies is an American Library Association Notable Book and a
1995 National Book Critics Circle Award nominee.
Kaffir Boy – Mark Mathabane
Kaffir Boy does for apartheid-era South Africa what Richard Wright's Black Boy did for the segregated
American South. In stark prose, Mathabane describes his life growing up in a nonwhite ghetto outside
Johannesburg--and how he escaped its horrors. Hard work and faith in education played key roles, and
Mathabane eventually won a tennis scholarship to an American university. This is not, needless to say, an
opportunity afforded to many of the poor blacks who make up most of South Africa's population. And yet
Mathabane reveals their troubled world on these pages in a way that only someone who has lived this life
can.
The Weight of All Things – Sandra Benitez
Set in El Salvador during the civil war of the 1980s, seamlessly blends fact with imagination, evoking the
trauma of war more vividly than any newspaper account. Nine-year-old Nicolas de la Virgen Veras lives with
his grandfather Tata in Chalatenango, El Salvador, but on March 30, 1980, his mother, Lety, who works in
San Salvador for Don Enrique, brings him to the city to witness the burial of a martyred saint, Archbishop
Romero. In a bloodbath based on a real-life event, 35 people in the crowd of 80,000 are killed and 450
wounded by soldiers' fire. Lety dies protecting Nicolas. When her body is taken away, Nicolas cannot
believe she is dead and tries first to find the hospital for the wounded, then to get home to find Don
Enrique's address. As he journeys through the bleak Salvadoran landscape, Nicolas is caught in the violent
clashes between the National Army and guerrilla rebels. Held at different times by each faction, Nicolas
must rely on his wits and faith in the Virgin Mary if he is to survive. Benitez's novel is both political and
spiritual, beautifully illuminating the effects of war on the innocent.
Under a War Torn Sky – L. M. Elliott
It's packed with action, intrigue, and suspense, but this novel celebrates acts of kindness and heroism
without glorifying war. American Henry Forester, a young flier with the RAF during World War II, is a
2
complex mix of insecurities, unresolved feelings about his punitive father, and heroic aspiration. On his
thirteenth bombing mission, he is shot down, having no idea where he has landed. His journey back
through Nazi-occupied Europe and his involvement with members of the French resistance are depicted
with chilling realism. Small details (bike wheels in France were made of wood because the Germans had
confiscated all the rubber) add both credibility and appeal to this gripping adventure, inspired by stories
told to the author by her father. An afterword concerns the resistance movement.
Under the Sun – Arthur Dorros
On the run from his war-torn home in Sarajevo, Bosnia, in the early 1990s, Ehmet, 13, sees his mother die
after an attack by soldiers. Hiding during the day and walking at night, he scavenges for food, tries to
contact his family, escapes a constrictive refugee camp, and finally finds home in a multiethnic orphan
community near the border. Acclaimed picture-book artist Dorros' first novel is a survival adventure that
speaks to cultural tolerance, showing and telling repeatedly that there is no clear division between "them"
and "us." Ehmet is part Muslim and part Catholic Croat; his friends and enemies are Serbian, Croat, Muslim,
Jewish, Christian. Racism is always there, but so is the kindness of strangers. In a final note, Dorros talks
about his visit to the area and to an ethnically diverse orphan village. The facts are astonishing, and the
contemporary war docu-novel will grab readers.
SOPHOMORE COMMITMENT LIST
A Bag of Marbles – Joseph Joffo
This is a beautiful book that tells the true story of two young Jewish boys on the run from the Gestapo in
war-torn France. The author, Joseph Joffo is never nostalgic about the ordeal he and his brother went
through in their bid to escape the Death Camps of Nazi Germany. He writes from the heart but he writes
with purpose. His story is a warning to future generations never to take their lives for granted. A Bag of
Marbles is a fantastic book that should be on the shelves of every school in the world, just to remind future
generations that life is not always a bed of roses...
A Long Way Gone – Ishmael Beah
This absorbing account by a young man who, as a boy of 12, gets swept up in Sierra Leone's civil war goes
beyond even the best journalistic efforts in revealing the life and mind of a child abducted into the horrors
of warfare. Beah's harrowing journey transforms him overnight from a child enthralled by American hip-
hop music and dance to an internal refugee bereft of family, wandering from village to village in a country
grown deeply divided by the indiscriminate atrocities of unruly, sociopathic rebel and army forces. Beah
then finds himself in the army—in a drug-filled life of casual mass slaughter that lasts until he is 15, when
he's brought to a rehabilitation center sponsored by UNICEF and partnering NGOs. The process marks out
Beah as a gifted spokesman for the center's work after his "repatriation" to civilian life in the capital, where
he lives with his family and a distant uncle. When the war finally engulfs the capital, it sends 17-year-old
Beah fleeing again, this time to the U.S., where he now lives. (Beah graduated from Oberlin College in
2004.) Told in clear, accessible language by a young writer with a gifted literary voice, this memoir seems
destined to become a classic firsthand account of war and the ongoing plight of child soldiers in conflicts
worldwide.
Angelina Jolie’s Notes from My Travels – Angelina Jolie
Angelina is living proof of the power we all have -- every one of us -- to make a difference. I was deeply
moved by her descriptions of individual refugees struggling to live with dignity and hope, and found her
personal commitment to be an inspiration. Angelina's journals document her awakening as a humanitarian
3
activist and I hope they will move readers to act. I look forward to my continued work with Angelina on
behalf of the United Nations.
Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Super Athletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen –
Christopher McDougall
Isolated by Mexico's deadly Copper Canyons, the blissful Tarahumara Indians have honed the ability to run
hundreds of miles without rest or injury. In a riveting narrative, award-winning journalist and often-injured
runner Christopher McDougall sets out to discover their secrets. In the process, he takes his readers from
science labs at Harvard to the sun-baked valleys and freezing peaks across North America, where ever-
growing numbers of ultra-runners are pushing their bodies to the limit, and, finally, to a climactic race in
the Copper Canyons that pits America’s best ultra-runners against the tribe. McDougall’s incredible story
will not only engage your mind but inspire your body when you realize that you, indeed all of us, were born
to run.
Left to Tell – Immaculee Ilibagiza
In 1994, Rwandan native Ilibagiza was 22 years old and home from college to spend Easter with her devout
Catholic family, when the death of Rwanda's Hutu president sparked a three-month slaughter of nearly one
million ethnic Tutsis in the country. She survived by hiding in a Hutu pastor's tiny bathroom with seven
other starving women for 91 cramped, terrifying days. This searing firsthand account of Ilibagiza's
experience cuts two ways: her description of the evil that was perpetrated, including the brutal murders of
her family members, is soul-numbingly devastating, yet the story of her unquenchable faith and connection
to God throughout the ordeal uplifts and inspires. Her account of the miracles that protected her is simple
and vivid. Her Catholic faith shines through, but the book will speak on a deep level to any person of faith.
Ilibagiza's remarkable path to forgiving the perpetrators and releasing her anger is a beacon to others who
have suffered injustice. She brings the battlefield between good and evil out of the genocide around her
and into her own heart, mind and soul. This book is a precious addition to the literature that tries to make
sense of humankind's seemingly bottomless depravity and counterbalancing hope in an all-powerful, loving
God.
Shanghai Diary – Ursla Bacon
By the late 1930s, Europe sat on the brink of a world war. As the holocaust approached, many Jewish
families in Germany fled to one of the only open port available to them: Shanghai. Once called "the armpit
of the world," Shanghai ultimately served as the last resort for tens of thousands of Jews desperate to
escape Hitler's "Final Solution." Against this backdrop, 11-year-old Ursula Bacon and her family made the
difficult 8,000-mile voyage to Shanghai, with its promise of safety. But instead of a storybook China, they
found overcrowded streets teeming with peddlers, beggars, opium dens, and prostitutes. Amid these
abysmal conditions, Ursula learned of her own resourcefulness and found within herself the fierce
determination to survive.
Snow Falling in Spring – Moying Li
In 1966 Moying, a student at a prestigious language school in Beijing, seems destined for a promising
future. Everything changes when student Red Guards begin to orchestrate brutal assaults, violent public
humiliations, and forced confessions. After watching her teachers and headmasters beaten in public,
Moying flees school for the safety of home, only to witness her beloved grandmother denounced, her
home ransacked, her father’s precious books flung onto the back of a truck, and Baba himself taken away.
From labor camp, Baba entrusts a friend to deliver a reading list of banned books to Moying so that she can
continue to learn. Now, with so much of her life at risk, she finds sanctuary in the world of imagination and
learning. This inspiring memoir follows Moying Li from age twelve to twenty-two, illuminating a complex,
4
dark time in China’s history as it tells the compelling story of one girl’s difficult but determined coming-of-
age during the Cultural Revolution.
The Long Walk – Slavomir Rawicz
Although The Long Walk is well written, that has nothing to do with why it's a good book. People should
read this book because it chronicles perhaps the most extraordinary true story of human endurance in
recorded history. Slavomir Rawicz is unjustly imprisoned by the Communist Russians early in World War II.
He is confined to a cell so small that he literally cannot sit, but must sleep by collapsing with his knees
against the wall and his feet steeped in his own waste. He is later transported to Siberia by train, and then
marched through the cold countryside to a Soviet Gulag, witnessing the death by exposure and exhaustion
of other unfortunate captives along the way. In the prison camp he is set in forced labor, kept in
horrendous conditions, over-worked, and underfed. Near the end of his rope, Rawicz and a handful of
companions orchestrate a daring and desperate escape, and then proceed to run for their lives, on foot,
toward freedom in India--4,000 miles away. Then the fun begins. They must conquer the frozen Siberian
tundra, the Gobi desert, the Himalayan Mountains, starvation, the Soviets, and their own inner demons.
Slavomir's ordeal overshadows every other survival tale I've every read, including Admiral Scott's Polar
expedition and Krakauer's Everest disaster. This is up there with the Donner Expedition in terms of grim
conditions and the indomitable human spirit. Trust me. If you've got a teenager who's complaining because
they think they have it rough, let them read this one. --Christopher Bonn Jonnes
Weeping Under This Same Moon – Jana Laiz
ForeWord Magazine Winner of Book of The Year and International Reading Association Notable Book,
Weeping Under This Same Moon is based on a true story of two teenage girls from different cultures,
whose paths intertwine, dramatically altering the course of their lives. Mei is an artist whose life has been
disrupted by the Vietnam War. Her anguished parents send her away on a perilous escape during the
exodus of thousands of Vietnamese refugees known as Boat People. In Mei's words we learn of the dangers
she faces caring for her two younger siblings on a sea journey fraught with hunger, thirst and deprivation,
leaving behind everything she loves to find refuge for her family. Hannah is an angry seventeen-year-old
American high school student. Friendless, neurotic, a social misfit - her passion for writing and the
environment only intensify her outcast state. Through Hannah's voice, we get inside her head, there to
discover a gentle soul beneath all the anger and turmoil. When Hannah learns of the plight of the Boat
People, she is moved to action. Destiny brings Mei and Hannah together in celebration of culture and
language, food and friendship, and the ultimate rescue of both young women from their own despair.
Weeping Under This Same Moon is a testament to the power of love and the spirit of volunteerism;
affirming that doing for others does so much for one's self.
JUNIOR COMMITMENT LIST
Cry, the Beloved Country – Alan Paton
Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that is the inheritor of our fear. Let him not love the earth
too deeply. Let him not laugh too gladly when the water runs through his fingers, nor stand too silent when
the setting sun makes red the veldt with fire. Let him not be too moved when the birds of his land are
singing, nor give too much of his heart to a mountain or valley. For fear will rob him of all if he gives too
much." The most famous and important novel in South Africa's history, and an immediate worldwide
bestseller when it was published in 1948, Alan Paton's impassioned novel about a black man's country
under white man's law is a work of searing beauty. The eminent literary critic Lewis Gannett wrote, "We
have had many novels from statesmen and reformers, almost all bad; many novels from poets, almost all
thin. In Alan Paton's Cry, the Beloved Country the statesman, the poet and the novelist meet in a unique
5
harmony." Cry, the Beloved Country is the deeply moving story of the Zulu pastor Stephen Kumalo and his
son, Absalom, set against the background of a land and a people driven by racial injustice. Remarkable for
its lyricism, unforgettable for character and incident, Cry, the Beloved Country is a classic work of love and
hope, courage and endurance, born of the dignity of man.
Gifted Hands – Ben Carson
A brief, easy-to-read autobiography of a black man who is one of today's leading neurosurgeons. While
pursuing his career, Carson encountered prejudice, negative peer pressure, and politics in getting a job. His
sense of humor, faith in God, patience, and his belief in the work ethic come through without preaching. In
the last chapter, Carson gives recommendations to students on ways to live and to achieve.
Mountains Beyond Mountains – Tracey Kidder
At the center of Mountains Beyond Mountains stands Paul Farmer. Doctor, Harvard professor, renowned
infectious-disease specialist, anthropologist, the recipient of a MacArthur “genius” grant, world-class Robin
Hood, Farmer was brought up in a bus and on a boat, and in medical school found his life’s calling: to
diagnose and cure infectious diseases and to bring the lifesaving tools of modern medicine to those who
need them most. This magnificent book shows how radical change can be fostered in situations that seem
insurmountable, and it also shows how a meaningful life can be created, as Farmer—brilliant, charismatic,
charming, both a leader in international health and a doctor who finds time to make house calls in Boston
and the mountains of Haiti—blasts through convention to get results.
Sarah’s Key – Tatiana DeRosnay
De Rosnay's U.S. debut fictionalizes the 1942 Paris roundups and deportations, in which thousands of
Jewish families were arrested, held at the Vélodrome d'Hiver outside the city, and then transported to
Auschwitz. Forty-five-year-old Julia Jarmond, American by birth, moved to Paris when she was 20 and is
married to the arrogant, unfaithful Bertrand Tézac, with whom she has an 11-year-old daughter. Julia
writes for an American magazine and her editor assigns her to cover the 60th anniversary of the Vél' d'Hiv'
roundups. Julia soon learns that the apartment she and Bertrand plan to move into was acquired by
Bertrand's family when its Jewish occupants were dispossessed and deported 60 years before. She resolves
to find out what happened to the former occupants: Wladyslaw and Rywka Starzynski, parents of 10-year-
old Sarah and four-year-old Michel. The more Julia discovers—especially about Sarah, the only member of
the Starzynski family to survive—the more she uncovers about Bertrand's family, about France and, finally,
herself. Already translated into 15 languages, the novel is De Rosnay's 10th (but her first written in English,
her first language). It beautifully conveys Julia's conflicting loyalties, and makes Sarah's trials so riveting, her
innocence so absorbing, that the book is hard to put down.
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan – Lisa See
Lily at 80 reflects on her life, beginning with her daughter days in 19th-century rural China. Foot-binding
was practiced by all but the poorest families, and the graphic descriptions of it are not for the fainthearted.
Yet women had nu shu, their own secret language. At the instigation of a matchmaker, Lily and Snow
Flower, a girl from a larger town and supposedly from a well-connected, wealthy family, become laotong,
bound together for life. Even after Lily learns that Snow Flower is not from a better family, even when Lily
marries above her and Snow Flower beneath her, they remain close, exchanging nu shu written on a fan.
When war comes, Lily is separated from her husband and children. She survives the winter helped by Snow
Flower's husband, a lowly butcher, until she is reunited with her family. As the years pass, the women's
relationship changes; Lily grows more powerful in her community, bitter, and harder, until at last she
breaks her bond with Snow Flower. They are not reunited until Lily tries to make the dying Snow Flower's
last days comfortable. Their friendship, and this tale, illustrates the most profound of human emotions:
love and hate, self-absorption and devotion, pride and humility, to name just a few. Even though the
6
women's culture and upbringing may be vastly different from readers' own, the life lessons are much the
same, and they will be remembered long after the details of this fascinating story are forgotten.–Molly
Connally, Chantilly Regional Library, VA
Stones into Schools – Greg Mortenson
Mortenson’s best-seller, Three Cups of Tea (2009), introduced his commitment to peace through education
and became a book-club phenomenon. He now continues the story of how the Central Asia Institute (CAI)
built schools in northern Afghanistan. Descriptions of the harsh geography and more than one near-death
experience impress readers as new faces join Mortenson’s loyal “Dirty Dozen” as they carefully plot a
course of school-building through the Badakshan province and Wakhan corridor. Mortenson also shares his
friendships with U.S. military personnel, including Admiral Mike Mullen, and the warm reception his work
has found among the officer corps. The careful line CAI threads between former mujahideen commanders,
ex-Taliban and village elders, and the American soldiers stationed in their midst is poetic in its political
complexity and compassionate consideration. Using schools not bombs to promote peace is a goal that
even the most hard-hearted can admire, but to blandly call this book inspiring would be dismissive of all the
hard work that has gone into the mission in Afghanistan as well as the efforts to fund it. Mortenson writes
of nothing less than saving the future, and his adventure is light years beyond most attempts. Mortenson
did not reach the summit of K2, but oh, the heights he has achieved.
The Book Thief – Markus Zusak
Zusak has created a work that deserves the attention of sophisticated teen and adult readers. Death
himself narrates the World War II-era story of Liesel Meminger from the time she is taken, at age nine, to
live in Molching, Germany, with a foster family in a working-class neighborhood of tough kids, acid-tongued
mothers, and loving fathers who earn their living by the work of their hands. The child arrives having just
stolen her first book–although she has not yet learned how to read–and her foster father uses it, The
Gravediggers Handbook, to lull her to sleep when she’s roused by regular nightmares about her younger
brother’s death. Across the ensuing years of the late 1930s and into the 1940s, Liesel collects more stolen
books as well as a peculiar set of friends: the boy Rudy, the Jewish refugee Max, the mayors reclusive wife
(who has a whole library from which she allows Liesel to steal), and especially her foster parents. Zusak not
only creates a mesmerizing and original story but also writes with poetic syntax, causing readers to
deliberate over phrases and lines, even as the action impels them forward. Death is not a sentimental
storyteller, but he does attend to an array of satisfying details, giving Liesel's story all the nuances of
chance, folly, and fulfilled expectation that it deserves. An extraordinary narrative.–Francisca Goldsmith,
Berkeley Public Library, CA
The Flying Carpet –Hala Jaber
In this stirring, frank account, Jaber, a Lebanese-British foreign correspondent depicts her professional work
covering the Gulf War and her personal engagement with an Iraqi family caught tragically in the crossfire.
Reporting for London's Sunday Times on the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, Jaber, accompanied by her
British photographer husband, Steve Bent, took up the cause of numerous hospitalized children grievously
wounded in the bombing and helped start a fund to provide them with better medical attention and
supplies. In particular, Jaber learned the extraordinary story of two orphans, the only survivors in a family
of seven children who had been engulfed in the firestorm with their parents while fleeing their Baghdad
neighborhood in April 2003. Three-year-old Zahra was burned over most of her body and in dire need of
sophisticated emergency attention, while her baby sister, Hawra, tossed from a car window, survived
unscathed. Jaber, with the help of young American journalist Marla Ruzicka (who eventually died in a car
bombing), was able to get Zahra airlifted out, though she later died in an American military hospital. Jaber
felt keenly for these orphans, as she had endured years of personal turmoil attempting to get pregnant in
7
her marriage, and she proposed to the girls' grandmother that she adopt them. Jaber demonstrates in this
affecting work how she employed her professional passion to aid Iraq's war victims.
The Help – Kathryn Stockett
Southern whites' guilt for not expressing gratitude to the black maids who raised them threatens to
become a familiar refrain. But don't tell Kathryn Stockett because her first novel is a nuanced variation on
the theme that strikes every note with authenticity. In a page-turner that brings new resonance to the
moral issues involved, she spins a story of social awakening as seen from both sides of the American racial
divide. Newly graduated from Ole Miss with a degree in English but neither an engagement ring nor a
steady boyfriend, Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan returns to her parents' cotton farm in Jackson. Although it's
1962, during the early years of the civil rights movement, she is largely unaware of the tensions gathering
around her town. Skeeter is in some ways an outsider. Her friends, bridge partners and fellow members of
the Junior League are married. Most subscribe to the racist attitudes of the era, mistreating and despising
the black maids whom they count on to raise their children. Skeeter is not racist, but she is naive and
unwittingly patronizing. When her best friend makes a political issue of not allowing the "help" to use the
toilets in their employers' houses, she decides to write a book in which the community's maids -- their
names disguised -- talk about their experiences. Fear of discovery and retribution at first keep the maids
from complying, but a stalwart woman named Aibileen, who has raised and nurtured 17 white children,
and her friend Minny, who keeps losing jobs because she talks back when insulted and abused, sign on with
Skeeter's risky project, and eventually 10 others follow. Aibileen and Minny share the narration with
Skeeter, and one of Stockett's accomplishments is reproducing African American vernacular and racy
humor without resorting to stilted dialogue. She unsparingly delineates the conditions of black servitude a
century after the Civil War. The murders of Medgar Evers and Martin Luther King Jr. are seen through
African American eyes, but go largely unobserved by the white community. Meanwhile, a room "full of
cake-eating, Tab-drinking, cigarette-smoking women" pretentiously plan a fundraiser for the "Poor Starving
Children of Africa." In general, Stockett doesn't sledgehammer her ironies, though she skirts caricature with
a "white trash" woman who has married into an old Jackson family. Yet even this character is portrayed
with the compassion and humor that keep the novel levitating above its serious theme.
The Power of One – Bryce Courtenay
Bryce Courtenay makes THE POWER OF ONE seems so authentic that the reader is carried right into the
story. The book begins when a five-year-old boy is being sent off to boarding school. He's small for his age,
white and of English descent. His name is Peekay and he lives in South Africa. Up to this point in his life he's
known only his family and his beloved black Nanny. Now, he's forced to take care of himself and survive
under the most brutal of circumstances. The time is World War II and Peekay spends years in a boarding
school where he's the only English student among Afrikaners who are sympathetic to the Nazi cause. He's
beaten, tortured and treated as a "prisoner of war" by the older boys. The Afrikaners are the descendents
of the Dutch and there has been a great deal of conflict between them and the English settlers who came
to South Africa at a later period of time. When I first started reading this novel, I wasn't sure if I could
handle the passages about the brutal treatment of the little boy. However, I quickly learned that Peekay is a
spirited survivor and would make it through that horrible period of his life. On his vacations from school, he
meets several people, both black and white who really influence him and teach him to work hard in order
to fulfill his dreams. I found an uplifting joy in every success that Peekay experienced.
This Our Exile – James Martin, S.J.
Seamlessly combining spiritual writing, reportage, travel narrative, humor, and recent history, bestselling
author James Martin recalls his time as a young Jesuit working with the refugees in the slums of Nairobi,
Kenya. Drawing on his previous experience in the business world, he imagined that he had much to teach
the refugees. But they would end up teaching him much more about life, about survival and faith, and
8
about love and friendship. With stories that are by turns frankly incredible, darkly comic, inspirational,
tragic, and always provocative, this compelling work is a wonderfully realized tribute to our shared
humanity.
SENIOR COMMITMENT LIST
A Mighty Heart – Mariane Pearl
When Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was kidnapped by terrorists in Pakistan in 2002, his very
pregnant wife, Mariane, was left to try to manage the search effort. In this memoir of the month between
Pearl's kidnapping and news of his death, she is unflinching, revealing every emotional detail with such
honesty that to call the book heart-wrenching is to minimize its power. A journalist herself, Mariane is
adept at detail and pacing, letting the events unfold as they happened, complete with their frustrating
dead-ends and the tangle of Karachi's bureaucracy. She weaves in memories and thoughts about Danny,
which give the book a keen poignancy. She describes how they first met at a party of her mother's, where
he looked like "an elegant extra-terrestrial casting a delighted but somewhat perplexed glance at the
earthly specimens." Later, after they were married and Mariane got pregnant, he would lean close to her
growing belly and talk to the baby in a made-up language he was sure the baby would learn post-birth.
After the kidnapping, as she searched his computer for clues, Mariane stumbled upon quirky lists he made,
like "Things I Love About Mariane." Such insight into Pearl's personality make the tragedy of his death even
sharper. As Mariane deals with his murder and faces the birth of their son alone, she acts with the same
sincerity and grace that brought her through the ordeal of the kidnapping. It's not difficult to see why, on
the list of things he loved about her, Pearl included: "Has incredible ability to see herself and others with
clear perspective."
A Thousand Splendid Suns – Khaled Hosseini
Afghan-American novelist Hosseini follows up his bestselling The Kite Runner with another searing epic of
Afghanistan in turmoil. The story covers three decades of anti-Soviet jihad, civil war and Taliban tyranny
through the lives of two women. Mariam is the scorned illegitimate daughter of a wealthy businessman,
forced at age 15 into marrying the 40-year-old Rasheed, who grows increasingly brutal as she fails to
produce a child. Eighteen later, Rasheed takes another wife, 14-year-old Laila, a smart and spirited girl
whose only other options, after her parents are killed by rocket fire, are prostitution or starvation. Against a
backdrop of unending war, Mariam and Laila become allies in an asymmetrical battle with Rasheed, whose
violent misogyny—"There was no cursing, no screaming, no pleading, no surprised yelps, only the
systematic business of beating and being beaten"—is endorsed by custom and law. Hosseini gives a forceful
but nuanced portrait of a patriarchal despotism where women are agonizingly dependent on fathers,
husbands and especially sons, the bearing of male children being their sole path to social status. His tale is a
powerful, harrowing depiction of Afghanistan, but also a lyrical evocation of the lives and enduring hopes of
its resilient characters.
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet – Jamie Ford
Ford's strained debut concerns Henry Lee, a Chinese-American in Seattle who, in 1986, has just lost his wife
to cancer. After Henry hears that the belongings of Japanese immigrants interned during WWII have been
found in the basement of the Panama Hotel, the narrative shuttles between 1986 and the 1940s in a
predictable story that chronicles the losses of old age and the bewilderment of youth. Henry recalls the
difficulties of life in America during WWII, when he and his Japanese-American school friend, Keiko,
wandered through wartime Seattle. Keiko and her family are later interned in a camp, and Henry, horrified
by America's anti-Japanese hysteria, is further conflicted because of his Chinese father's anti-Japanese
9
Description:frequently forgotten at school at the end of the day, and whipped for daring to .. Descriptions of the harsh geography and more than one near-death.
