Literature Circles

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Literature Circles
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The Giver

• The Giver is the story of a twelve-year-old boy
  named Jonas.  In a world with no poverty, no
  crime, no sickness and no unemployment, and where
  every family is happy, Jonas is chosen to be the
  community's Receiver of Memories.

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Tuck Everlasting

• Imagine coming upon a fountain of youth in a
  forest. To live forever--isn't that everyone's
  ideal?
• For the Tuck family, eternal life is a reality,
  but their reaction to their fate is surprising.
  Kidnapping, murderers, and adventure.

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The Hobbit

• "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.
  Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the
  ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry,
  bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down
  on or to eat it was a hobbit-hole, and that
  means comfort."

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The Hobbit

• Bilbo Baggins is a Hobbit. Like most of his
  kind, he is well off, well fed, and best pleased
  when sitting by his own fire with a pipe, a glass
  of good beer, and a meal to look forward to.
• Soon 13 dwarves have arrived on the hobbit's
  doorstep in search of a burglar, and before he
  can even grab his hat or an umbrella, Bilbo
  Baggins is swept out his door and into a
  dangerous adventure.

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Chocolate River Rescue

• Shawn leaped back onto the ice. He took a breath
  and jumped over the widening crack, grabbing his
  little brother by the coat as he flew through the
  air. Both boys fell heavily to the ice on the
  other side. The boys stared in horror as the
  crack widened to reveal an eddy of churning,
  foaming brown water.
• Tony, Craig, and Shawn are trapped on an ice
  floe on the Petitcodiac River in the dead of
  winter, and the rapid current is pulling them
  toward the ocean. Twelve-year-old Petra arrives
  and the boys think theyre saved, but their
  dangerous journey is only just beginning.

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Bridge to Terabithia

• Jess Aarons is eager to start fifth grade. He's
  been practicing his sprints all summer,
  determined to become the fastest runner at
  school. All seems to be on track, until the new
  girl in class (who also happens to be Jess's new
  next-door neighbor), Leslie Burke, leaves all the
  boys in the dust, including Jess. After this
  rather frustrating introduction, Jess and Leslie
  soon become inseparable. Together, they create an
  imaginary, secret kingdom in the woods called
  Terabithia that can be reached only by swinging
  across a creek bed on a rope. But one morning a
  tragic accident befalls Leslie as she ventures
  alone to Terabithia, and Jess's life is changed
  forever.

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The Pigman

• To John and Lorraine, the world feels
  meaningless nothing is important. They certainly
  can never please their parents, and school is a
  chore. To pass the time, they play pranks on
  unsuspecting people. It's during one of these
  pranks that they meet the "Pigman"--a fat,
  balding old man with a zany smile plastered on
  his face. In spite of themselves, John and
  Lorraine soon find that they're caught up in Mr.
  Pignati's zest for life. In fact, they become so
  involved that they begin to destroy the only
  corner of the world that's ever mattered to them.

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The Present Tense of Prinny Murphy

• An alcoholic mother, a distracted father, a best
  friend who spends all his time with his new
  girlfriend, and three relentless schoolyard
  bullies Prinny Murphy's past, present, and
  future certainly are tense. Adding to her
  misery, she still can't read well enough to
  escape from remedial lessons with the dour Mrs.
  Dooks. But when a kindly substitute teacher
  introduces her to LaVaughn's inner-city world in
  the free verse novel, Make Lemonade, Prinny
  discovers that life can be full of possibilities
  and poetry.

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The Nine Lives of Travis Keating

• After his mother's death, Travis Keating and his
  father move to Ratchet, Newfoundland, to start a
  new life. Some life. Travis soon discovers that
  only a few oddballs show any interest in him
  Cole, a talker who soon makes himself scarce
  Hector, a strange kid whose ears stick out and
  Prinny, a girl as scraggly as her skinny
  ponytail. Nobody you can really call a friend.
  And then there's Hud, the toughest, nastiest
  bully in school, who hates "townies" and promises
  to make Travis's life an utter misery. But Travis
  doesn't care. He's got his "funeral face," a
  tight mask that gives away nothing and allows him
  to hide his feelings. The face also makes him
  reckless

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Cowboys Dont Cry

• Shane Morgan's world is shattered when his
  mother is killed in a car accident. His father
  and hero, a famous rodeo star, drowns his sorrow
  in booze and soon is just a rodeo clown with a
  drinking problem. Then the two inherit a small
  ranch, and Shane looks forward to having a real
  home, making friends, and getting through a whole
  school year in the same place. But things don't
  go well at school or at home. In fact, Shane and
  his father seem to be growing further and further
  apart.
• Will his father ever change? Will things ever be
  different?

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Gathering Blue

• Having suffered numerous unnamed disasters (aka,
  the Ruin), civilization has regressed to a
  primitive, technology-free state disorder,
  savagery, and self-interest rule. Kira, a
  crippled young weaver, has been raised and taught
  her craft by her mother, after her father was
  allegedly killed by "beasts." When her mother
  dies, Kira fears that she will be cast out of the
  village. Instead, the society's Council of
  Guardians installs her as caretaker of the
  Singer's robe, a precious ceremonial garment
  depicting the history of the world and used at
  the annual Gathering.

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No Escape

• Chloe teams up with her kid sister Phoebe to
  clear the name of a falsely accused young man.
  When Caleb Darke is released from prison, nobody
  in town wants him back. Nobody will even give him
  a chance - except Chloe. She's sure he didn't
  commit the crime he was convicted of. The trouble
  is, how is she going to prove it? And if Caleb
  didn't do it, who did? Because that person is
  going to do everything possible to keep Chloe
  from finding out...

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The Subtle Knife

• What is he? A friend, or an enemy? He is a
  murderer. Will has just killed a man. Hes on
  the run. His escape will take him far beyond his
  own world, to the eerie disquiet of a deserted
  city and to a girl, Lyra. Her fate is strangely
  linked to his own, and together they must find
  the most powerful weapon in all the word.

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Trials of Death

• Crepsley has brought Darren to Vampire Mountain
  to undergo the Trials of Death, an elective
  ritual periodically undergone by vampires in
  order to bond with the clan and prove their
  worth. As a half-vampire, Darren is in more
  danger of failing the trials than the others who
  usually participate, but he is determined to go
  ahead. The penalty for failing without dying is
  execution.

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The Gravesavers

• In the wake of a family tragedy, twelve-year-old
  Minn Hotchkiss is sent to spend the summer with
  her sour grandmother in the tiny seaside town of
  Boulder Basin, Nova Scotia. Almost as soon as she
  arrives, Minn discovers the skull of a human
  child on the beach. She is swiftly caught up in a
  mystery that reaches back more than a century, to
  the aftermath of the most tragic shipwreck in
  Maritime history before the Titanic.By summers
  end, Minn will solve a ghostly mystery and, most
  importantly, finally be able to give up the
  terrible secret she has kept locked in her
  heart.

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The Bar Code Tattoo

• It's 2025, and the thing to do on your 17th
  birthday is to get a bar code tattoo, which is
  used for everything from driver's licenses to
  shopping. Kayla, almost 17, resists because she
  hates the idea of being labelled. Then the
  tattoos begin to drive people to commit suicide,
  Kayla's father among them, and she soon finds out
  that the markings contain detailed information
  about their bearers, including their genetic
  code.

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Schools Out Forever
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Peak