Tom Stechschulte
1) Plainsong
Author
Series
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 4.6 - AR Pts: 13
Lexile measure
770L
Language
English
Description
Ambitious, but never seeming so, Kent Haruf reveals a whole community as he interweaves the stories of a pregnant high school girl, a lonely teacher, a pair of boys abandoned by their mother, and a couple of crusty bachelor farmers. From simple elements, Haruf achieves a novel of wisdom and grace--a narrative that builds in strength and feeling until, as in a choral chant, the voices in the book surround, transport, and lift the reader off the ground....
3) The road
Author
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 4 - AR Pts: 8
Lexile measure
670L
Language
English
Description
America is a barren landscape of smoldering ashes, devoid of life except for those people still struggling to scratch out some type of existence. Amidst the destruction, a father and his young son walk, always toward the coast, but with no real understanding that circumstances will improve once they arrive. Still they persevere, and their relationship comes to represent goodness in a world that is utterly devastated.
Author
Series
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 4.5 - AR Pts: 11
Language
English
Description
When rodeo champion Cody Gunner returns to Colorado Springs, he has no intention on keeping his deathbed promise to his beloved wife--to love again. But when his concern for his brother Carl takes him to the Independent Learning Center, he sees how much Carl and his fellow Down syndrome students are progressing. He also notices their teacher Ellie Downs, who glows with such infectious joy and inner beauty that he almost forgets their philosophical...
5) Rumble fish
Author
Series
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 4.1 - AR Pts: 3
Lexile measure
680L
Language
English
Description
Rusty-James wants to be as tough a teen as his older brother, Motorcycle Boy, who has always helped him out of tough spots. But one day, when Rusty-James faces danger, Motorcycle Boy is not around.
Author
Series
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 4.9 - AR Pts: 12
Lexile measure
HL 670L
Language
English
Description
Sara's terrified. She's falling in love with a famous man. In the witness protection program, her safety depends on staying invisible -- and loving Adam could get her killed. Hidden away in the witness protection program, she's falling in love with former pro football player Adam Black. FBI agent Dave Richman has his hands full keeping her safe from her sister's killer. When events bring Sara face-to-face with terror, will she rely on God for protection....
Author
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 4.5 - AR Pts: 12
Language
English
Description
In the year 1954, U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels and his new partner, Chuck Aule, come to Shutter Island, home of Ashecliffe Hospital for the Criminally Insane, to investigate an unexplained disappearance. Multiple murderess Rachel Solando is loose somewhere on this barren island, despite having been kept under constant surveillance in a locked, guarded cell. As a killer hurricane bears relentlessly down on the island, hints of radical experimentation...
8) The oath
Author
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 5.1 - AR Pts: 25
Language
English
Description
When a series of bizarre incidents plagues the isolated Pacific Northwest mining town of Hyde River, wildlife biologist Steve Benson and sheriff's deputy Tracy Ellis join forces to investigate, finding themselves drawn to each other as they unearth a terrifying predator.
Author
Series
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 4.8 - AR Pts: 14
Language
English
Description
FBI agent Dave Richman from Danger in the Shadows is back. He's about to meet Kate O'Malley, and his life will never be the same. Shes a hostage negotiator. He protects people. Hes about to find out that falling in love with a hostage negotiator is one thing, but keeping her safe is another!
10) The guardian
Author
Series
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 5.1 - AR Pts: 14
Lexile measure
HL 690L
Language
English
Description
A federal judge has been murdered. There is only one witness. And someone wants her dead. U.S. Marshal Marcus O'Malley thought he knew the risks of the assignment going in ... until he fell in love. Book number two in the popular O'Malley series brings back Marcus O'Malley from The Negotiator in a tense investigative thriller. Marcus has a case to solve, an assassin to stop, and a lady to convince he's right for her future. To do that he's going to...
Author
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 5.9 - AR Pts: 21
Lexile measure
900L
Language
English
Description
The author traces the boyhood enthusiasm for rockets that eventually led to a career at NASA, describing how he built model rockets in the family garage in West Virginia, inspired by the launch of the Soviet satellite "Sputnik"
Author
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 7.2 - AR Pts: 17
Language
English
Description
"Yamacraw Island was haunting, nearly deserted, and beautiful. Separated from the mainland of South Carolina by a wide tidal river, it was accessible only by boat. But for the handful of families that lived on Yamacraw, America was a world away. For years these families lived proudly from the sea until waste from industry destroyed the oyster beds essential to their very existence. Already poor, they knew they would have to face an uncertain future...
13) Ava's man
Author
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 6.1 - AR Pts: 12
Lexile measure
1150L
Language
English
Description
No one writes about the South like Pulitzer Prize winner Rick Bragg (All Over But the Shoutin). Once again, he lends his voice to the working people of the deep South, and tells the story of a memorable figure in a singular time-a man on a lost stretch of dirt road along the Alabama-Georgia border. The Pulitzer Prizewinning journalist and author of All Over But the Shoutin' continues his personal history of the Deep South with an evocation of his...
14) A virtuous woman
Author
Series
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 5.3 - AR Pts: 6
Language
English
Description
Blinking Jack Stokes was a skinny tenant farmer, and Ruby Pitt Woodrow was "the carefully raised daughter of Carolina gentry.....They didn't fall in love so much as they simply found each other and held on for dear life."--Pbk. cover.
15) The yearling
Author
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 5 - AR Pts: 19
Lexile measure
750L
Language
English
Description
A young boy living in the Florida backwoods is forced to decide the fate of a fawn he has lovingly raisesd as a pet.
Author
Series
Gettysburg trilogy volume 1
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 7 - AR Pts: 27
Language
English
Description
A fictionalized account of an alternate American Civil War, based on five years of research, considers how history might have transpired if General Robert E. Lee had won the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863.
Author
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 5.1 - AR Pts: 7
Lexile measure
720L
Language
English
Formats
Description
In 1938, with the help of a doctor and her elderly, horse-thieving father, a seventeen-year-old orphan steals thirteen horses from Chickalookee, Florida's doomed rodeo, and finds a family in the process.
18) Mudbound
Author
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 5.1 - AR Pts: 12
Language
English
Description
"Mudbound takes on prejudice in its myriad forms on a Mississippi Delta farm in 1946. City girl Laura McAllen attempts to raise her family despite questionable decisions made by her husband. Tensions continue to rise when her brother-in-law and the son of a family of sharecroppers both return from WWII as changed men bearing the scars of combat."--from NoveList.
19) Crazy in Alabama
Author
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 4.9 - AR Pts: 21
Lexile measure
660L
Language
English
Formats
Description
In the racially restless summer of 1965, an orphan boy comes of age and his aunt escapes from an unhappy marriage.
Author
Accelerated Reader
IL: UG - BL: 5.3 - AR Pts: 18
Lexile measure
770L
Language
English
Description
Thirteen-year-old Anna, conceived specifically to provide blood and bone marrow for her sister Kate who was diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia at the age of two, decides to sue her parents for control of her body when her mother wants her to donate a kidney to Kate.