John Irving
Author
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 7.7 - AR Pts: 42
Lexile measure
1050L
Language
English
Description
I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice-- not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother's death, but because he is the reason I believe in God; I am a Christian because of Owen Meany. In the summer of 1953, two eleven-year-old boys--best friends--are playing in a Little League baseball game in Gravesend, New Hampshire. One of the boys hits a foul ball that...
Author
Language
English
Description
"In Aspen, Colorado, in 1941, Rachel Brewster is a slalom skier at the National Downhill and Slalom Championships. Little Ray, as she is called, finishes nowhere near the podium, but she manages to get pregnant. Back home, in New England, Little Ray becomes a ski instructor. Her son, Adam, grows up in a family that defies conventions and evades questions concerning the eventful past. Years later, looking for answers, Adam will go to Aspen. In the...
Author
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 6.7 - AR Pts: 33
Language
English
Formats
Description
The bestselling coming-of-age classic novel by John Irving-now in a limited 40th anniversary edition with a new introduction by the author. The opening sentence of John Irving's breakout novel, The World According to Garp, signals the start of sexual violence, which becomes increasingly political. "Garp's mother, Jenny Fields, was arrested in Boston in 1942 for wounding a man in a movie theater." Jenny is an unmarried nurse; she becomes a single...
Author
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 7 - AR Pts: 34
Language
English
Description
In 1954, in the cookhouse of a logging and sawmill settlement in northern New Hampshire, an anxious twelve-year-old boy mistakes the local constable's girlfriend for a bear. Both the twelve-year-old and his father become fugitives, forced to run from Coos County-to Boston, to southern Vermont, to Toronto-pursued by the implacable constable. Their lone protector is a fiercely libertarian logger, once a river driver, who befriends them. A tale that...
Author
Language
English
Description
"Juan Diego - a fourteen-year-old boy, who was born and grew up in Mexico - has a thirteen-year-old sister. Her name is Lupe, and she thinks she sees what's coming - specifically, her own future and her brother's. Lupe is a mind reader; she doesn't know what everyone is thinking, but she knows what most people are thinking. Regarding what has happened, as opposed to what will, Lupe is usually right about the past; without your telling her, she knows...
Author
Language
English
Description
The story of the actor Jack Burns. His mother, Alice, is a Toronto tattoo artist. When Jack is four, he travels with Alice to several North Sea ports; they are trying to find Jack's missing father, William, a church organist who is addicted to being tattooed. But Alice is a mystery, and William can't be found. Even Jack's memories are subject to doubt. Jack Burns goes to schools in Canada and New England, but what shapes him are his relationships...
Author
Language
English
Description
While reporting a story from India, a New York television journalist has his left hand eaten by a lion; millions of TV viewers witness the accident. A well-known Boston hand surgeon wants to perform the first hand transplant on the reporter, but the problem is there is no hand available. A married woman from Wisconsin wants to give the reporter her husband's left hand--that is, after her husband dies.
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
A collection of short stories and essays. The story, My Dinner at the White House, is an amusing piece on a dinner with President Reagan, The Imaginary Girlfriend is on the arts of writing and wrestling, while the title story is on a pig farmer who is being harassed by boys.
Author
Language
English
Description
It is 1967 and two Viennese university students want to liberate the Vienna Zoo, as was done after World War II. But their good intentions have both comic and gruesome consequences, in this first novel written by a twenty-five year old John Irving, already a master storyteller.
13) Simon Birch
Pub. Date
[1999?]
Language
English
Description
Ever since doctors proclaimed Simon Birch's birth as a miracle, Simon's sure he's going to be a hero, he's just not sure how.
Series
Language
English
Formats
Description
Homer Wells grows up in an orphanage in remote St. Cloud, Maine. Dr. Larch, who also provides medically safe, if illegal, abortions, runs the orphanage. Homer is Dr. Larch's favorite, and over the years, Dr. Larch trains Homer as his successor. Homer thus becomes a skilled, albeit unlicensed, physician. Homer, however, yearns for a life outside the orphanage. When Wally and pregnant Candy come for an abortion, Homer leaves with them to work on Wally's...