Battle of the Books
2016-2017
ASD High Schools
ASD Battle of the Book competition ~ Wednesday, February 1, 2017
February 28, 2017 ~ state Battle of the Books competition for HS
WHAT IS THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS?
Wednesday, Feb 1, 2017, 08:00 AM
ASD Battle 2/1/17 @ LOUSSAC Library in the Innovation Lab ~ 8AM
The 5th Wave
by Rick Yancey
Now, it's the dawn of the 5th wave, and on a lonely stretch of highway, Cassie runs from Them. The beings who only look human, who roam the countryside killing anyone they see. Who have scattered Earth's last survivors. To stay alone is to stay alive, Cassie believes, until she meets Evan Walker. Beguiling and mysterious, Evan Walker may be Cassie's only hope for rescuing her brother--or even saving herself. But Cassie must choose: between trust and despair, between defiance and surrender, between life and death. To give up or to get up.
"Remarkable, not-to-be-missed-under-any-circumstances."—Entertainment Weekly
Book Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKkEAIs4pJc
Code Talker
by Joseph Bruchac
Throughout World War II, in the conflict fought against Japan, Navajo code talkers were a crucial part of the U.S. effort, sending messages back and forth in an unbreakable code that used their native language. They braved some of the heaviest fighting of the war, and with their code, they saved countless American lives. Yet their story remained classified for more than twenty years.
But now Joseph Bruchac brings their stories to life for young adults through the riveting fictional tale of Ned Begay, a sixteen-year-old Navajo boy who becomes a code talker. His grueling journey is eye-opening and inspiring. This deeply affecting novel honors all of those young men, like Ned, who dared to serve, and it honors the culture and language of the Navajo Indians.
"Nonsensational and accurate, Bruchac's tale is quietly inspiring..."—School Library Journal
Book Trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41utSa8wurw
and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JPIeyBPum0
summary via YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41utSa8wurw
Dirt Bikes, Drones and Other Ways to Fly
by Conrad Wesselhoeft
Seventeen-year-old Arlo Santiago lives for the “Drone Zone”—that free, joyful, anti-gravity feeling. He achieves the Zone with risky motorcycle stunts on New Mexico roads, or while playing his favorite video game, Drone Pilot. His gaming skills are so off-the-charts, he’s recruited by the U.S. Air Force to remotely operate real-life drones in Pakistan. How can he refuse the paycheck when his little sister’s health is at stake? This pull-no-punches novel soars, with poetic style, focus on friends and family, philosophical life-and-death musings, and vividly drawn setting of a land “at the intersection of mesa dust and tractor rust.”
Book Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQSQL6pVfn0
Etiquette and Espionage
by Gail Carriger
It's one thing to learn to curtsy properly. It's quite another to learn to curtsy and throw a knife at the same time. Welcome to Finishing School.
Fourteen-year-old Sophronia is a great trial to her poor mother. Sophronia is more interested in dismantling clocks and climbing trees than proper manners--and the family can only hope that company never sees her atrocious curtsy. Mrs. Temminnick is desperate for her daughter to become a proper lady. So she enrolls Sophronia in Mademoiselle Geraldine's Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality.
But Sophronia soon realizes the school is not quite what her mother might have hoped. At Mademoiselle Geraldine's, young ladies learn to finish...everything. Certainly, they learn the fine arts of dance, dress, and etiquette, but the also learn to deal out death, diversion, and espionage--in the politest possible ways, of course. Sophronia and her friends are in for a rousing first year's education.
Set in the same world as the Parasol Protectorate, this YA series debut is filled with all the saucy adventure and droll humor Gail's legions of fans have come to adore.
Book Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CCTCH_h9L0
and
the first part last
by Angela Johnson
It's not going to happen....
Bobby is your classic urban teenaged boy -- impulsive, eager, restless. On his sixteenth birthday he gets some news from his girlfriend, Nia, that changes his life forever. She's pregnant. Bobby's going to be a father. Suddenly things like school and house parties and hanging with friends no longer seem important as they're replaced by visits to Nia's obstetrician and a social worker who says that the only way for Nia and Bobby to lead a normal life is to put their baby up for adoption.
With powerful language and keen insight, Johnson looks at the male side of teen pregnancy as she delves into one young man's struggle to figure out what "the right thing" is and then to do it. No matter what the cost.
Book Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGHa8_3xknA
The Impossible Knife of Memory
by Laurie Halse Anderson
For the past five years, Hayley Kincaid and her father, Andy, have been on the road, never staying long in one place as he struggles to escape the demons that have tortured him since his return from Iraq. Now they are back in the town where he grew up so Hayley can attend school. Perhaps, for the first time, Hayley can have a normal life, put aside her own painful memories, even have a relationship with Finn, the hot guy who obviously likes her but is hiding secrets of his own. Will being back home help Andy’s PTSD, or will his terrible memories drag him to the edge of hell, and drugs push him over? The Impossible Knife of Memory is Laurie Halse Anderson at her finest: compelling, surprising, and impossible to put down.
Book Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXXVfptySF8
Snow Child
by Eowyn Ivey
This little girl, who calls herself Faina, seems to be a child of the woods. She hunts with a red fox at her side, skims lightly across the snow, and somehow survives alone in the Alaskan wilderness. As Jack and Mabel struggle to understand this child who could have stepped from the pages of a fairy tale, they come to love her as their own daughter. But in this beautiful, violent place things are rarely as they appear, and what they eventually learn about Faina will transform all of them.
Book Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSS0lK6Fy24
Lord of the Flies
by William Golding
Lord of the Flies remains as provocative today as when it was first published in 1954, igniting passionate debate with its startling, brutal portrait of human nature. Though critically acclaimed, it was largely ignored upon its initial publication. Yet soon it became a cult favorite among both students and literary critics who compared it to J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye in its influence on modern thought and literature.
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William Golding's compelling story about a group of very ordinary small boys marooned on a coral island has become a modern classic. At first it seems as though it is all going to be great fun; but the fun before long becomes furious and life on the island turns into a nightmare of panic and death. As ordinary standards of behaviour collapse, the whole world the boys know collapses with them—the world of cricket and homework and adventure stories—and another world is revealed beneath, primitive and terrible.Labeled a parable, an allegory, a myth, a morality tale, a parody, a political treatise, even a vision of the apocalypse, Lord of the Flies has established itself as a true classic.
Before The Hunger Games there was Lord of the Flies
"As exciting, relevant, and thought-provoking now as it was when Golding published it in 1954."
—Stephen King
Book Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEWqIIyoODs and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeiA7eeVyEM
short summary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jWkotCjK0A
Notorious Benedict Arnold
by Steve Sheinkin
Most people know that Benedict Arnold was America's first, most notorious traitor. Few know that he was also one of its greatest Revolutionary War heroes. Steve Sheinkin's accessible biography, The Notorious Benedict Arnold, introduces young readers to the real Arnold: reckless, heroic, and driven. Packed with first-person accounts, astonishing American Revolution battle scenes, and surprising twists, this is a gripping and true adventure tale from history.
Book Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ROCRoZ5ED4 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfGGt6Ze7_E
Libery's Kids video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7iEYAhANMs
The Young Elites
by Marie Lu
Teren Santoro works for the king. As Leader of the Inquisition Axis, it is his job to seek out the Young Elites, to destroy them before they destroy the nation. He believes the Young Elites to be dangerous and vengeful, but it’s Teren who may possess the darkest secret of all.
Enzo Valenciano is a member of the Dagger Society. This secret sect of Young Elites seeks out others like them before the Inquisition Axis can. But when the Daggers find Adelina, they discover someone with powers like they’ve never seen.
Adelina wants to believe Enzo is on her side, and that Teren is the true enemy. But the lives of these three will collide in unexpected ways, as each fights a very different and personal battle. But of one thing they are all certain: Adelina has abilities that shouldn’t belong in this world. A vengeful blackness in her heart. And a desire to destroy all who dare to cross her.
It is my turn to use. My turn to hurt.
Darth Vader, Voldemort, Maleficent. Witness the rise of a new villain.
Book trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9VTgbB0dWg and