Rachel Baack
Summary: Blain Roberts walks readers through the development of beauty practices and culture in the American South during the twentieth century. She addresses the ways in which beauty culture impacted and developed among Black and White Southern women differently, and she explores what Southern beauty culture can tell us about racism, patriarchy, and class structure.
Summary: This text focuses on what is known about the lives of the five canonical victims of Jack the Ripper, from before their birth to the time of their murders. The book challenges the notion that Jack the Ripper was a “prostitute killer”; in fact, only two of them can be said with any degree of certainty to have ever engaged in prostitution. Rubenhold’s writing humanizes these victims while also revealing the conditions under which working-class women in 19th-century England lived.
Summary: This nonfiction novel chronicles the lives of Tsar Nicholas (Russia’s last tsar), his family, and the Russian people. It is a fascinating read that tells of the atrocities committed against the Russian people, the drama surrounding the royal family and their relationship to the mysterious Rasputin, and the uprising of the lower classes.
Summary: This novel tells the true story of a young Hmong girl whose family recently came to America. This girl has a slew of medical issues, but, because of cultural barriers, her family has difficulty communicating with and following the orders of the doctors. This is an eye-opening work that reveals issues in America’s health care system and broader society regarding cultural injustice.
Summary: This biography of Charles and Emma Darwin gives an overview of their lives together with a focus on the role that Christianity played in their lives.
Summary: This work is the autobiographical account of Donald Miller’s road trip with his friend Paul.
The book is thought-provoking and leaves readers with a sense of the beauty that surrounds them.
Summary: This book is a series of stories about the American soldiers of the Alpha Company who fought in the Vietnam War. The stories include tales from the war as well as what life was like after the soldiers returned home. The book gives a heartbreaking and emotionally gripping look into the lives and minds of the men who have been scarred by the things they have witnessed in war.
Summary: This is the heartbreaking and autobiographical story of Elie Wiesel, a Jewish boy who was forced into a concentration camp during World War II. The book reveals the horrors of the Holocaust and the emotional toll that it took on the Nazis’ victims.
Summary: In this nonfiction work, Austin Channing Brown powerfully relates her experience with racism as a Black woman, and specifically a Black woman in the Church and in Christian ministry. This book is one that will inspire empathy on the deepest level and challenge complacent white Christians to take their place in the fight for true racial justice and reconciliation—justice and reconciliation that require structural change and real work, not just empty words and tokenistic acknowledgement of the presence of people of color. This book is, in a word, excellent.
Summary: Former actress Jennette McCurdy rests her shocking autobiography on the axis of her mother’s death: from birth to age 21, Jennette saw her life (including her reluctant pursuit of an acting career) largely directed by her mother, and after her mom’s death in 2013, she experienced a kind of unraveling and rebuilding, the unraveling having been largely spurred by behaviors and attitudes she had developed as the result of her mother’s influence.
I would recommend listening to the audiobook read by the author.
Summary: This autobiography tells the story of the life of Tara Westover, who was raised in near isolation with her six siblings by highly religious parents who trusted neither the medical establishment nor the government. As a child, Tara did not attend school and did not have a birth certificate until the age of nine.
Her story is at times shocking, and readers who may have experienced any kind of physical or domestic abuse should be made aware that this book may be difficult to read.
Summary: This autobiography recounts the exciting journey of a missionary to the Barí tribes (called the Motilones in the book) of Venezuela and Colombia. Bruce encounters several life-threatening situations, but continues to work to build relationships with the Barí people and to integrate into their society.
Summary: Donald Miller tells a series of stories, mostly centered on his time at Reed College, exploring God and spirituality.
It is challenging and refreshingly genuine.
Summary: In this autobiography, Michelle Obama recounts her experience growing up on Chicago’s Southside, getting a higher education at Princeton and Harvard, meeting Barack Obama—the man who would become her husband and the 44th president of the United States—seeking purpose in her career, becoming a mother, and taking on the role of First Lady.
When reading this book, I was struck by just how incredibly impressive Michelle Obama is: she is an intelligent, driven woman who has worked to improve the lives of others on a gigantic scale, remained dedicated to raising her daughters well and with love, supported the political career of her husband without ever losing herself, and, through it all, carried herself with grace.
Summary: Malachi Constant is one of the richest and most morally corrupt men on Earth, and he has been invited to attend the materialization of Winston Niles Rumsfoord, another fabulously wealthy man who, as the result of accidentally entering some kind of time warp on a trip to space, materializes on Earth at predictable intervals and is able to see across time. After Rumsfoord tells Constant what his future holds, Constant tries desperately to avoid the fate that Rumsfoord has declared will be his. The rest of the story unfolds in a way that challenges the concept of free will while taking the reader across the galaxy to meet a cast of characters that includes humans, extraterrestrials, and robots alike.
Summary: After finding an individual of ambiguous racial and gender identity sleeping on a church pew, members of the church in their small town in the American South begin taking turns playing host to the individual who, because they have not spoken a word (including their name) since being found in the church, is given the name “Pew.” As Pew moves from house to house, they become witness to both the community’s efforts to prepare for the mysterious Forgiveness Festival and to the inner lives of individuals in the town who begin sharing their innermost selves with them.
Summary: From the beginning of his story, narrator Ernest Cunningham tells his reader that everyone in his family has, in fact, killed someone: some have committed outright homicide, some have killed in self-defense, some have committed manslaughter, but all have in some way contributed to someone’s demise. Ernie also provides the reader with a list of the page numbers of the book on which deaths will occur.
Despite all these giveaways in the books preface, the story that follows of Ernie’s family’s reunion at a ski resort, and the mystery that unfolds there is compelling and surprising, not to mention an absolute delight to read. The book elicits a similar feeling to the one that Richard Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club inspires.
Summary: When Alicia Berenson is found at the scene of her husband’s murder, she doesn’t speak a word. She maintains her silence through the criminal investigation and court proceedings that follow, through her conviction and sentencing, and, so far, for the entirety of her institutionalization at The Grove. Psychologist Theo Faber, however, believes that he may be able to get to the bottom of what really happened between Alicia and her husband and get her to finally creak her silence.
Summary: A lone house stands after a nuclear disaster, continuing its automated tasks.
Summary: Leonard Mead goes for a walk around nightfall in the year 2053. He is stopped by a robotic police car because, despite being a seemingly non-threatening activity, walking for enjoyment is a highly unusual pastime in this futuristic world where electronic entertainment has consumed people’s leisure time.
Summary: When Sanger Rainsford falls off his boat and swims to the nearest island, he receives help from big-game hunter General Zaroff. Rainsford doesn’t realize when he helps Zaroff’s help, however, that the general’s intentions are less than altruistic.
Summary: After learning from her detective husband that he wants a divorce, a pregnant housewife has a drastic reaction, which she must then try to cover up.
Summary: Fourteen-year-old Harrison Bergeron lives in a world where all people have been made as equal as the powers that be know how to make them: intelligent people wear earpieces that emit though-interrupting noises, beautiful people wear masks to obscure their faces, strong people wear heavy weights to make movement just as difficult for them as it is for everyone else. Unfortunately for Harrison, he is a little to exceptional to be subdued.
Summary: The narrator of this spooky story by Niel Gaiman has offered to babysit his girlfriend’s little brother, who tells him about the frightening creatures known as “click-clacks.”
This is a great scary story for students in middle grades: not overly gory or horrifying, but still thoroughly creepy.