Classics and Challenging Reading for Ninth Graders
Just click on the title to see if the book is in the library at this
time.
***There may be additional copies available. Ask a librarian for help
in finding them.***
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All Creatures Great and Small - James Herriot
- Herriot tells the amazing, funny and sad true tales of his life
as a veterinarian in rural England.
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All Quiet on the Western Front - Erich Maria Remarque
- Four young German men experience the horrors of trench warfare
during WWII.
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And Then There Were None - Agatha Christy
- A group of ten strangers are invited to an island by a mysterious
host. Once there, each of them is accused of murder. As they start
to reveal their secrets to each other, one by one they are killed.
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The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman - Ernest Gaines
- The fictional memoirs of a 110-year-old former slave.
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Black Boy - Richard Wright
- Autobiography of the African-American writer who grew up in the
Jim Crow South and who was brutally taught his place in life by his
family.
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Bridge Over the River Kwai - Pierre Boulle
- Set in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp, a British officer is
forced to build a bridge, but rebels against his own allies when they
arrive to halt the project.
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Call of the Wild - Jack London
- A domestic dog is stolen from his family and forced to work in a
dog sled team in Alaska.
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Cheaper by the Dozen - Frank Gilbreth
- A humorous story about the Gilbreth family: a family with 12
children, and a father who believes a family can be run just like a
factory.
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The Chosen - Chaim Potok
- Two Jewish boys from very different Jewish faith backgrounds
become unlikely friends despite their different beliefs.
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Christy - Catherine Marshall
- Set in 1912 Appalachia, Christy ventures into the poor areas of
the mountains to teach. The basis of the TV mini-series starring Kellie
Martin.
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A Death in the Family - James Agee
- Focuses on a family in the South dealing with the sudden and
accidental death of the father.
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The Fellowship of the Ring - J.R.R. Tolkein
- The first part of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Dwarfs,
hobbits, and men fight together for good against evil in this
fantasy.
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Flowers for Algernon - Daniel Keyes
- The fictional journal of Charlie a severely handicapped man who
becomes a genius after an experimental brain operation.
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Gone with the Wind - Margaret Mitchell
- Scarlett O'Hara fights to save her plantation home, Tara, during
the Civil War.
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Green Darkness - Anya Seton
- A monk in the 1500s falls in love and forsakes his vows. Four
hundred years later he find himself reincarnated into a very similar
situation.
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Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
- A very funny and adventurous science-fiction tale about a man who
is saved from the planet Earth moments before it is destroyed in
order to build a space freeway.
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The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkein
- A prelude to the Lord of Rings trilogy. Tells the tale of Bilbo
Baggins, a hobbit, and his adventure of attempting to regain stolen
treasure from the dragon Smaug.
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The Human Comedy - William Saroyan
- Homer Macauley, a 14-year-old telegraph messenger during WWII, is
faced with the complete range of human emotions as he often must
deliver notices causing great joy or pain.
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I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings - Maya Angelou
- An African-American woman recounts her painful growth to
maturity.
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Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
- A poor young woman finds both intense fear and love while working
as a governess for Mr. Rochester. But what is all that horrible
noise in the attic?
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The Learning Tree - Gordon Parks
- A coming of age story of a young black man in 1920s Kansas.
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Light in the Forest - Conrad Richter
- As a very young child John Bulter was stolen and raised by a
Lenni Lanape tribe. Now, at age 15, John (known now as True Son) is
being forced to leave the only family he knows and live with the
white man, a society he has learned to hate.
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Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
- The story of the March family and their four daughters.
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The Man in the Iron Mask - Alexandre Dumas
- Another tale featuring the three musketeers, this one revolving
around the hidden indentity of the man in the iron mask.
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My Name is Asher Lev - Chaim Potok
- A young Jewish man struggles between his desire to create art and
his strict orthodox beliefs.
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The Once and Future King - T.H. White
- The legend of King Arthur and his land of Camelot.
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The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie - Muriel Spark
- Focuses on the relationship between an unusual teacher and her students
in a private girls' school in Edinburgh.
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Rebecca - Daphne DuMaurier
- A suspenseful romance about a young, timid woman who marries a
wealthy widow and soon becomes obsessed with the idea of his first wife,
Rebecca.
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The Robe - Lloyd Douglas
- As a result of gambling, a Roman soldier wins Christ's robe, then
becomes obsessed with finding out about the truth of its story.
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The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
- A swashbuckling tale of D'Artagnan and his three musketeer
friends, and their fight for justice against the powerful Cardinal
Richelieu.
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A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith
- The story of Francie, a young woman growing up in a very poor
section of Brooklyn in the early 1900s.
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The Trees - Conrad Richter
- The story of the Lucketts, a pioneer family close to the Ohio
river.
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Up the Down Staircase - Bel Kaufman
- A humorous story about a young teacher at a high school in New
York.
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Watership Down - Richard Adams
- An allegorical epic about a warren of rabbits searching for a new
home.
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When the Legends Die - Hal Borland
- When his parents die, Thomas Black Bull, a Native American, must
enter the white man's world and deal with all its prejudicesa against
him.