Tom Stechschulte
1) The road
Author
Lexile measure
670L
Language
English
Description
A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. They sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don't know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged...
Author
Lexile measure
880L
Language
English
Description
This depicts the men of Alpha Company. They battle the enemy (or maybe more the idea of the enemy), and occasionally each other. In their relationships we see their isolation and loneliness, their rage and fear. They miss their families, their girlfriends and buddies; they miss the lives they left back home. Yet they find sympathy and kindness for strangers (the old man who leads them unscathed through the mine field, the girl who grieves while she...
Author
Pub. Date
2004
Language
English
Formats
Description
In James Lee Burke's last novel featuring Billy Bob Holland, Bitterroot, the former Texas Ranger left his home state to help a friend threatened by the most dangerous sociopath Billy Bob had ever faced. After vanquishing a truly iniquitous collection of violent individuals, Billy moved his family to west Montana and hung out a shingle for his law practice. But in In the Moon of Red Ponies, he discovers that jail cells have revolving doors and that...
6) The returned
Author
Series
Pub. Date
2013.
Language
English
Formats
Description
When their son Jacob, who died tragically at his 8th birthday party in 1966, arrives on their doorstep, still 8 years old, Harold and Lucille Hargrave must navigate a strange new reality as chaos erupts around the world as people's loved ones are returned from beyond.
7) Rain gods
Author
Series
Pub. Date
2009
Language
English
Description
When Hackberry Holland became sheriff of a tiny Texas town near the Mexican border, he'd hoped to leave certain things behind: his checkered reputation, his haunted dreams, and his obsessive memories of the good life with his late wife, Rie. But the discovery of the bodies of nine illegal aliens, machine-gunned to death and buried in a shallow grave behind a church, soon makes it clear that he won't escape so easily. As Hack and Deputy Sheriff Pam...
Author
Series
Pub. Date
2009
Language
English
Formats
Description
"The forensic thriller meets a formidable slice of history….A riveting mystery with an intricately emotional conclusion."
-Washington Post Bones of Betrayal is the fourth heart-racing "Body Farm" thriller from the world's top forensic anthropologist. Kathy Reichs calls author Jefferson Bass, "the real deal," and his hero Bill Brockton has already taken his rightful place alongside Patricia Cornwell's Kay Scarpetta and the investigators on TV's...
Author
Series
Newbery Medal award volume 1958
Lexile measure
910L
Language
English
Description
A captivating and richly detailed novel about one young soldier who saw the Civil War from both sides and lived to tell the tale. Earnest, plainspoken sixteen-year-old Jeff Bussey has finally gotten his father's consent to join the Union volunteers. It's 1861 in Linn County, Kansas, and Jeff is eager to fight for the North before the war is over, which he's sure will be soon. But weeks turn to months, the marches through fields and woods prove endless,...
Author
Lexile measure
810L
Language
English
Appears on list
Description
"This Newbery Medal-winning novel by bestselling-author Katherine Paterson has been a modern classic about friendship and loss for forty years. Jess Aarons has been practicing all summer so he can be the fastest runner in the fifth grade. And he almost is, until the new girl in school, Leslie Burke, outpaces him. The two become fast friends and spend most days in the woods behind Leslie's house, where they invent an enchanted land called Terabithia....
13) Rumble fish
Author
Lexile measure
680L
Language
English
Description
Rusty James wants to be just like his big brother Motorcycle Boy - tough enough to be respected by everyone in the neighborhood. But Motorcycle Boy is also smart, so smart that Rusty James relies on him to bail him out of trouble. The brothers are inseparable, and Motorcycle Boy will always be there to watch his back, so there's nothing to worry about, right? Or so Rusty James believes until his world falls apart and Motorcycle Boy isn't there to...
Author
Pub. Date
1974
Physical Desc
342 pages ; 24 cm
Language
English
Description
In Saigon during the waning days of the Vietnam War, a small-time journalist named John Converse thinks he'll find action - and profit - by getting involved in a big-time drug deal. But back in the States, things go horribly wrong for him. Dog Soldiers perfectly captures the underground mood of America in the 1970s, when amateur drug dealers and hippies encountered profiteering cops and professional killers-and the price of survival was dangerously...
15) The dying animal
Author
Pub. Date
2001
Physical Desc
156 pages ; 20 cm
Language
English
Description
David Kepesh is white-haired and over sixty, an eminent TV culture critic and star lecturer at a New York college, when he meets Consuela Castillo, a decorous, well-mannered student of twenty-four, the daughter of wealthy Cuban exiles, who promptly puts his life into erotic disorder.
Since the sexual revolution of the 1960s, when he left his wife and child, Kepesh has experimented with living what he calls an "emancipated manhood," beyond the reach...
17) The yearling
Author
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 raised as a pet. Relive the wonder of a childhood favorite that has been capturing the hearts of readers for more than half a century. An instant bestseller when it was released in 1938, this Pulitzer Prize winner has been read and loved by school-age children across the nation for more than fifty years. In this classic story of the Baxter family and...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
"As a child, Joseph Beck heard the stories--when other lawyers came up with excuses, his father courageously defended a black man charged with raping a white woman. Now a lawyer himself, Beck reconstructs his father's role in State of Alabama vs. Charles White, Alias, a trial that was much publicized when Harper Lee was twelve years old"--Dust jacket flap.
Author
Series
Pub. Date
1998
Lexile measure
AD 830L
Physical Desc
1 volume 32 unnumbered pages : color illustrations ; 26 x 27 cm.
Language
English
Description
In this Caldecott Medal—winning picture book, the true story of Wilson Bentley and his singular fascination with snowflakes is rendered in rich prose and gorgeous artwork, perfect for the holidays, snow days, and everyday.
Wilson Bentley was always fascinated by snow. In childhood and adulthood, he saw each tiny crystal of a snowflake as a little miracle and wanted to understand them.
His parents supported his curiosity and saved until they could...