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Classics and Challenging Reads Titles link to catalog records for copies in the Reading List Collection which is located in the Young Adult area. ***There may be additional copies available. Ask a librarian for help in finding them.*** The Adventures of Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens 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. All Quiet on the Western Front - Erich Maria Remarque Four young German men experience the horrors of trench warfare during WWII. And Then There Were None - Agatha Christie 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. The Andromeda Strain - Michael Crichton Animal Farm - George Orwell Around the World in Eighty Days - Jules Verne The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman - Ernest Gaines The fictional memoirs of a 110-year-old former slave. The Bean Trees - Barbara Kingsolver 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. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley 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. The Caine Mutiny - Herman Wouk Catch-22 - Joseph Heller 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. The Chosen - Chaim Potok Two Jewish boys from very different Jewish faith backgrounds become unlikely friends despite their different beliefs. 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. The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas Cry, The Beloved Country - Alan Paton A Death in the Family - James Agee Focuses on a family in the South dealing with the sudden and accidental death of the father. Dune - Frank Herbert Exodus - Leon Uris Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury Fantastic Voyage - Isaac Asimov A Farewell to Arms - Ernest Hemingway The Fellowship of the Ring - J.R.R. Tolkien Part One of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Dwarfs, hobbits, and men fight together for good against evil in this fantasy. Flowers for Algernon - Daniel Keyes The fictional journal of Charlie a severely handicapped man who becomes a genius after an experimental brain operation. For Whom the Bell Tolls - Ernest Hemingway Force 10 - Alistair MacLean Frankenstein - Mary Shelley Franny and Zooey - J.D. Salinger Gone with the Wind - Margaret Mitchell Scarlett O'Hara fights to save her plantation home, Tara, during the Civil War. The Good Earth - Pearl S. Buck The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck Great Expectations - Charles Dickens 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. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood The Heart is a Lonely Hunter - Carson McCullers The Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad 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. 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. The Hunchback of Notre Dame - Victor Hugo I Heard the Owl Call My Name - Margaret Craven Ice Station Zebra - Alistair MacLean The Incredible Journey - Sheila Burnford The Island of the Blue Dolphins - Scott O'Dell 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? Julie of the Wolves - Jean Craighead George The Learning Tree - Gordon Parks A coming of age story of a young black man in 1920s Kansas. The 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. Little Women - Louisa May Alcott The story of the March family and their four daughters. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy - J.R.R. Tolkien See The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King. The Man in the Iron Mask - Alexandre Dumas Another tale featuring the three musketeers, this one revolving around the hidden identity of the man in the iron mask. The Man Without a Face - Isabelle Holland Available by request. Mrs. Mike: The Story of Katherine Mary Flannigan - Benedict Freedman Murder on the Orient Express - Agatha Christie My Antonia - Willa Cather My Name is Asher Lev - Chaim Potok A young Jewish man struggles between his desire to create art and his strict orthodox beliefs. The Natural - Bernard Malamud 1984 - George Orwell The Once and Future King - T.H. White The legend of King Arthur and his land of Camelot. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey Ordinary People - Judith Guest Point Counter Point - Aldous Huxley Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen 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. 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. Red Sky at Morning - Richard Bradford Available by request. The Return of the King - J.R.R. Tolkien The third and final part of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. 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. Schindler's List - Thomas Keneally The Secret Agent - Joseph Conrad A Separate Peace - John Knowles Shane - Jack Shaefer Shoeless Joe - W.P. Kinsella Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut Something Wicked This Way Comes - Ray Bradbury A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens The Thorn Birds - Colleen McCullough 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. 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. The Trees - Conrad Richter The story of the Lucketts, a pioneer family close to the Ohio river. The Two Towers - J.R.R. Tolkien Part two of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Up the Down Staircase - Bel Kaufman A humorous story about a young teacher at a high school in New York. Watership Down - Richard Adams An allegorical epic about a warren of rabbits searching for a new home. We Have Always Lived in the Castle - Shirley Jackson 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 prejudices against him. The World According to Garp - John Irving A Wrinkle in Time - Madeline L'Engle Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte Back to the School Reading Lists page