2013 High school summer reading list-Nonfiction

B95 can feel it: a stirring in his bones and feathers. It's time. Today is the day he will once again cast himself into the air, spiral upward into the clouds, and bank into the wind.

He wears a black band on his lower right leg and an orange flag on his upper left, bearing the laser inscription B95. Scientists call him the Moonbird because, in the course of his astoundingly long lifetime, this gritty, four-ounce marathoner has flown the distance to the moon―and halfway back!

B95 is a robin-sized shorebird, a red knot of the subspecies rufa. Each February he joins a flock that lifts off from Tierra del Fuego, headed for breeding grounds in the Canadian Arctic, nine thousand miles away. Late in the summer, he begins the return journey.

B95 can fly for days without eating or sleeping, but eventually he must descend to refuel and rest. However, recent changes at ancient refueling stations along his migratory circuit―changes caused mostly by human activity―have reduced the food available and made it harder for the birds to reach. And so, since 1995, when B95 was first captured and banded, the worldwide rufa population has collapsed by nearly 80 percent. Most perish somewhere along the great hemispheric circuit, but the Moonbird wings on. He has been seen as recently as November 2011, which makes him nearly twenty years old. Shaking their heads, scientists ask themselves: How can this one bird make it year after year when so many others fall?

National Book Award–winning author Phillip Hoose takes us around the hemisphere with the world's most celebrated shorebird, showing the obstacles rufa red knots face, introducing a worldwide team of scientists and conservationists trying to save them, and offering insights about what we can do to help shorebirds before it's too late. With inspiring prose, thorough research, and stirring images, Hoose explores the tragedy of extinction through the triumph of a single bird. Moonbird is one The Washington Post's Best Kids Books of 2012.

Is there anything new to say about Thomas Jefferson and slavery? The answer is a resounding yes. Master of the Mountain, Henry Wiencek's eloquent, persuasive book―based on new information coming from archaeological work at Monticello and on hitherto overlooked or disregarded evidence in Jefferson's papers―opens up a huge, poorly understood dimension of Jefferson's world. We must, Wiencek suggests, follow the money.

So far, historians have offered only easy irony or paradox to explain this extraordinary Founding Father who was an emancipationist in his youth and then recoiled from his own inspiring rhetoric and equivocated about slavery; who enjoyed his renown as a revolutionary leader yet kept some of his own children as slaves. But Wiencek's Jefferson is a man of business and public affairs who makes a success of his debt-ridden plantation thanks to what he calls the "silent profits" gained from his slaves―and thanks to a skewed moral universe that he and thousands of others readily inhabited. We see Jefferson taking out a slave-equity line of credit with a Dutch bank to finance the building of Monticello and deftly creating smoke screens when visitors are dismayed by his apparent endorsement of a system they thought he'd vowed to overturn. It is not a pretty story. Slave boys are whipped to make them work in the nail factory at Monticello that pays Jefferson's grocery bills. Parents are divided from children―in his ledgers they are recast as money―while he composes theories that obscure the dynamics of what some of his friends call "a vile commerce."

Many people of Jefferson's time saw a catastrophe coming and tried to stop it, but not Jefferson. The pursuit of happiness had been badly distorted, and an oligarchy was getting very rich. Is this the quintessential American story?

In a true story of family ties, journalist Mei-Ling Hopgood, one of the first wave of Asian adoptees to arrive in America, comes face to face with her past when her Chinese birth family suddenly requests a reunion after more than two decades.

In 1974, a baby girl from Taiwan arrived in America, the newly adopted child of a loving couple in Michigan. Mei-Ling Hopgood had an all-American upbringing, never really identifying with her Asian roots or harboring a desire to uncover her ancestry. She believed that she was lucky to have escaped a life that was surely one of poverty and misery, to grow up comfortable with her doting parents and brothers.

Then, when she's in her twenties, her birth family comes calling. Not the rural peasants she expected, they are a boisterous, loving, bossy, complicated middle-class family who hound her daily—by phone, fax, and letter, in a language she doesn't understand—until she returns to Taiwan to meet them. As her sisters and parents pull her into their lives, claiming her as one of their own, the devastating secrets that still haunt this family begin to emerge. Spanning cultures and continents, Lucky Girl brings home a tale of joy and regret, hilarity, deep sadness, and great discovery as the author untangles the unlikely strands that formed her destiny.

At forty-four years old, Tim Wakefield is the longest-serving member of one of baseball's most popular franchises. He is close to eclipsing the winning records of two of the greatest pitchers to have played the game, yet few realize the full measure of his success. That his career can be characterized by such words as dependability and consistency defies all odds because he has achieved this with baseball's most mercurial weapon—the knuckleball.

Knuckler is the story of how a struggling position player bet his future on a fickle pitch that would define his career. The pitch may drive hitters crazy, but how does the pitcher stay sane? The moment Wakefield adopted the knuckleball, his career sought to answer that question. With the Red Sox, Wakefield began to master his pitch only to find himself on the mound in 2003 for one of the worst post-season losses in history, followed the next year by one of the most vindicating of championships. Even now, as Wakefield battles, we see the twists and turns of a major league career pushed to its ultimate extreme.

A remarkable story of one player's success despite being the exception to every rule, Knuckler is also a lively meditation on the dancing pitch, its history, its mystique, and all the ironies it brings to bear.

A riveting investigation of the brutal murders of two Dartmouth professors –– a book that, like In Cold Blood, reveals the chilling reality behind a murder that captivated the nation.

On a cold night in January 2001, the idyllic community of Dartmouth College was shattered by the discovery that two of its most beloved professors had been hacked to death in their own home. Investigators searched helplessly for clues linking the victims, Half and Susanne Zantop, to their murderer or murderers. A few weeks later, across the river, in the town of Chelsea, Vermont, police cars were spotted in front of the house of high school senior Robert Tulloch. The police had come to question Tulloch and his best friend, Jim Parker. Soon , the town discovered the incomprehensible reality that Tulloch and Parker, two of Chelsea's brightest and most popular sons, were now fugitives, wanted for the murders of Half and Susanne Zantop.

Authors Mitchell Zuckoff and Dick Lehr provide a vivid explication of a murder that captivated the nation, as well as dramatic revelations about the forces that turned two popular teenagers into killers. Judgement Ridge conveys a deep appreciation for the lives (and the devastating loss) of Half and Susanne Zantop, while also providing a clear portrait of the killers, their families, and their community –and, perhaps, a warning to any parent about what evil may lurk in the hearts of boys.

Meet rock and roll's party crashers. They are the guitar-wielding heroes who came into an established musical framework, rearranged the furniture, tipped over a few chairs, and ditched - leaving the stragglers to pick up the pieces. Guitar Gods showcases the 25 players who made the greatest impact on rock's long and winding history.

Meet rock and roll's party crashers. They are the guitar-wielding heroes who came into an established musical framework, rearranged the furniture, tipped over a few chairs, and ditched - leaving the stragglers to pick up the pieces. Chuck Berry, for example, the first guitar player to jumpstart rock and roll, left audience eyeballs in spirals when he blasted them with his patented Chuck Berry intro, a clarion call that served as rock and roll's reveille. A few years later, Jimi Hendrix, inspired in part by Chuck, made a lasting impression on rock and roll in so many ways, leaving us all in a purple haze, and sending guitar players scurrying to take a new look at their instruments. The ripple-like effect of Hendrix continues to this day.

Guitar Gods showcases the 25 players who made the greatest impact on rock and roll's long and winding history. All the players profiled in this book threw fans for a loop; their advancements in music left the genre in a different place than when they arrived.

A L.A. Times Non-Fiction Hardcover Best Seller

Hendrix on Hendrix includes the most important interviews from the peak of Jimi Hendrix's career, 1966 to 1970, carefully selected by one of the world's leading Jimi Hendrix historians.

In this book Hendrix recalls for reporters his heartbreaking childhood and his grueling nights on the Chitlin' Circuit. He jokes with the judge and the jury on the witness stand, telling them that the incense in his bag was for hiding bad kitchen odors. He explains to an American TV audience that his concept of “Electric Church Music” is intended to wash their souls and give them a new direction. And in his final interview, just days before his death, he discloses that he wants to be remembered as not just another guitar player.

In addition to interviews from major mainstream publications, Hendrix on Hendrix includes new transcriptions from European papers, the African-American press, and counterculture newspapers; radio and television interviews; and previously unpublished court transcripts—including one of the drug bust that nearly sent him to prison.Though many respected books have been written about Hendrix, none have completely focused on his own words. This book is as close to a Hendrix autobiography as we will ever see.

     Eric was seventeen when he heard the doctor's verdict about the disease that wanted his life. At first he and his family could not believe it. Eric was the picture of everything a youth should be--a champion athlete, a splendid human being, vibrant with energy and loved by all who knew him.

     The doctors could promise little. They would do as much as was medically possible. Eric had to do as much as was humanly possible. But if the odds were not good, they were good enough for Eric. Given the choice between life and death, Eric chose to live.

Although Beyoncé Knowles is not yet 30, the sensual superstar has already succeeded on many levels: as a dancer, singer, composer, model, music producer, video director and actress. Like rap star/entrepreneur Jay-Z, with whom Beyoncé recently married, she has evolved into a businesswoman, who with her designer-mother, Tina Knowles, markets Beyoncé's personal fashion line, House of Dereon. The multi-talented, global entertainer lends her name and image to many commercial and philanthropic ventures. She is the spokeswoman for L'Oreal and appears in ads for Pepsi and Ford.

This biography tells the story of a young, talented woman's meteoric rise in the entertainment industry. From a shy, demure Catholic schoolgirl growing up in Houston, Texas, Beyoncé Knowles eventually morphed into the first African-American woman to win the Songwriter of the Year Award from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers Pop Music Awards. The once-shy suburban schoolgirl has gone far beyond her original dream of becoming a first-rate musician and vocalist. With the assistance of her manager-father―former Xerox executive Mathew Knowles―and as lead singer of the R&B girl group Destiny's Child (the world's all-time bestselling female group), Beyoncé has won 10 Grammy Awards and two Golden Globe nominations. Her albums have reached more than 20 million people worldwide, and she has become a cultural icon to music lovers everywhere as well as a role model for young women. Author Janice Arenofsky gives students and general readers alike an insightful look at a music and fashion icon who has a unique niche in popular culture today. Complete with photos, a timeline, and a thorough bibliography.

In December of 1938, a chemist in a German laboratory made a shocking discovery: When placed next to radioactive material, a Uranium atom split in two. That simple discovery launched a scientific race that spanned 3 continents. In Great Britain and the United States, Soviet spies worked their way into the scientific community; in Norway, a commando force slipped behind enemy lines to attack German heavy-water manufacturing; and deep in the desert, one brilliant group of scientists was hidden away at a remote site at Los Alamos. This is the story of the plotting, the risk-taking, the deceit, and genius that created the world's most formidable weapon. This is the story of the atomic bomb.

Bomb is a 2012 National Book Awards finalist for Young People's Literature.
Bomb is a 2012 Washington Post Best Kids Books of the Year title.

Bomb is a 2013 Newbery Honor book.

With no knowledge of the secret development of the atomic bomb, senior American sub force commanders, desperate to avoid an invasion of the home islands, believed that if these enemy ships, vitally important to the enemy's war effort, were sunk, Japan would be forced to surrender.

For the first time ever, author Peter Sasgen tells the complete, incredible story of Operation Barney, the daring plot to penetrate the dense minefields protecting the Sea of Japan and decimate the enemy fleet. The brainchild of the dedicated sub commander Vice Admiral Charles Lockwood, the mission would hinge on a new experimental sonar system that would, with luck, guide American submarines safely past the mines and into the open sea.

The nine submarines chosen, nicknamed Hellcats, were tasked with the impossible—the combined crews of 760 submariners all knew their chances of survival were slim. Based on original documents and the poignant personal letters of one doomed Hellcat commander, Sasgen crafts a classic naval tale of one of World War II's most dangerous missions.