Grade 12: All Honors level students read three books; all CP1 students read two;  CP2 students read one.
Click on the image to see if a copy is available at the Peabody Institute Library.
Most titles are also available as a sound recording and/or downloadable audio book.



Escape from Slavery: The True Story of My Ten Years in Captivity -- and My Journey to Freedom in America by Francis Bok.  Set in Sudan with its present "civil war" and refugee camps in Darfur, Francis Bok, a Black African Christian, tells the story of his capture as a boy by an Islamic Arab raider who enslaves him for ten years.  At age 17, Bok escapes, finding his way to Darfur, and tells the story of the horrifying conditions there and his eventual rescue and emigration to the United States.  Mr. Bok has been a speaker at PVMHS.  This autobiography won the Boston Freedom Award and the 2003 Books for a Better Life/Suze Orman First Book Award.


The Alchemist by Paul Coelho
A young hero, Santiago, goes on a far-reaching journey in quest of a great treasure and his purpose in life.  This journey leads him away from all family expectations, often endangers him and has him encounter all kinds of people as he finds, friends, enemies, mentors and the love of his life.  This novel won the Best Fiction Corinne International Award in 2002.

* Dean Koontz's Frankenstein: Book I Prodigal Son by Dean Koontz and Kevin Anderson
In the first of three planned novels, Koontz and Anderson revisit the classic Mary Shelley novel with the question what if Dr. Frankenstein and his Monster were still alive today and living in New Orleans?  The authors write an action-based detective novel full of references to "monster" movies and literature.  His two tough detectives face solving strange serial murders and questions of money, power, autism, cloning and what it means to be human in today's society. Can the monsters be tamed today?  Nominated in 1995 for the Prometheus Award for Best Novel, this book the 2005 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award.

* The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World
by Eric Weiner
In this contemporary book, NPR foreign correspondent and 1994 Peabody Award Winner Erin Weiner sets out to visit some of the likeliest and unlikeliest places in the world to find the keys to happiness.  In his travels, he explores the nature of happiness as it applies in each culture and looks for a definition that could be applicable to all humankind.  As the title implies, some of his discoveries and experiences reveal his grumpiness and some show his capacity for pleasant surprises; some lead him to thought-provoking conclusions about cultures with which some readers may disAgree.

* This book contains mature subject matter.

Advance Placement Students

Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison

How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas Foster