| Term | Definition |
|---|
| Katherine Patterson | wrote A Bridge to Terabithia |
| Christopher Paul Curtis | wrote Bud Not Buddy, The Watsons Go to Birmingham |
| Lois Lowry | wrote The Giver, Number the Stars |
| Louis Sacher | wrote Holes |
| Ester Forbes | wrote Johnny Tremain |
| Mildred Taylor | wrote Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry |
| Patricia Maclachlan | wrote Sarah Plain and Tall |
| Phyllis Reynolds Taylor | wrote Shiloh |
| William Armstrong | wrote Sounder |
| Elizabeth George Speare | wrote Witch of Blackbird Pond |
| Madeline L'Engle | wrote A Wrinkle in Time, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, A Wind in the Door, The Small Rain, 24 Days before Christmas |
| Ruth Avi | wrote The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle |
| Gary Paulen | wrote Hatchet |
| Mark Twain | wrote The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer |
| Paul Zindel | wrote The Pigman |
| Carl Hiaason | wrote Hoot |
| Avi | wrote Crispin, Nothing But The Truth |
| Caroline Cooney | wrote The Voice on the Radio |
| Robert Cormier | wrote The Chocolate War |
| Sandra Cisneros | wrote The House on Mango Street |
| Walter Dean Myers | wrote The Glory Field |
| Elie Wiesel | wrote Night |
| Edith Wharton | wrote Ethan Frome |
| Alice Walker | wrote The Color Purple; American author, self-declared feminist and womanist; won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction |
| S.E. Hinton | wrote The Outsiders |
| Mildred Taylor | wrote Roll of Thunder |
| George Orwell | wrote 1984, Animal Farm; dark satire on Stalinist totalitarianism |
| 1984 | book written by George Orwell, announced an insane world of dehumanization through terror in which the individual was systematically obliterated by an all-power elite; key phrases: Big Brother, doublethink, Newspeak, the Ministry of Peace...Truth...Love |
| Marjorie Kinnan Rawling | wrote The Yearling |
| Scott O'Dell | wrote Island of Blue Dolphins |
| Jean Craighead George | wrote Julie of the Wolves |
| Jack London | wrote The Call of the Wild, Sea-Wolf, White Fang |
| JRR Tolkein | wrote The Hobbit |
| Richard Adams | wrote Watership Down |
| CS Lewis | wrote The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe |
| Emily Bronte | wrote Wuthering Heights |
| Charlotte Bronte | wrote Jane Eyre |
| Virgil | wrote The Aeneid |
| The Aeneid | A Trojan (Aeneas) destined to found Rome, undergoes many trials on land and sea during his journey to Italy, finally defeating the Latin Turnus and avenging the murder of Pallas. |
| Lewis Carroll | wrote Alice In Wonderland |
| Alice In Wonderland | a girl (Alice) falls asleep and dreams of a series of adventures; children's novel; fantasy |
| Animal Farm | a group of animals mount a successful rebellion against the farmer who rules them, but their dreams of equality for all are ruined when one pig seizes power; novella, dystopian animal fable |
| Anna Karenina | after having an affair with a handsome military man, a woman kills herself; russion, 1970s, psychological novel |
| Leo Tolstoy | wrote Anna Karenina, War and Peace; Russian writer, realistic fiction |
| The Pigman | told in chapters alternating from Lorraine's and John's point of view, opens with an "Oath," signed by both John and Lorraine, two high school sophomores, in which they swear to tell only the facts, in this "memorial epic" about their experiences with Angelo Pignati |
| William Shakespeare | wrote Sonnet 18, Hamlet, and Macbeth; greatest playwright who ever lived, prolific poet, known for sonnets |
| Sonnet 18 | "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? / Thou art more lovely and more temperate;" Shakespearean couplet with ABAB CDCE EFEF GG rhyme scheme |
| Johann David Wyss | wrote The Swiss Family Robinson |
| Kate Chopin | wrote The Awakening, The Storm; feminist author of the 20th century; born in St. Louis, Missouri |
| Sylvia Plath | wrote The Bell Jar; born during the great depression |
| The Bell Jar | a young woman (Esther Greenwood) whose talent and intelligence have brought her close to achieving her dreams must overcome suicidal tendencies |
| Toni Morrison | wrote Beloved, The Bluest Eye, and Song of Soloman; female, African-American writer, won Pulitzer Prize in 1988 |
| Beloved | an ex-slave is haunted by the memory of the daughter she killed; historical fiction, ghost story; characters include: Baby Suggs, Denver, Sethe |
| Beowulf | a great warrior, goes to Denmark on a successful mission to kill Grendel; he returns home to Geatland, where he becomes king and slays a dragon before dying; poem; alliterative verse, elegy, small scale heroic epic; author unknown; setting around 500 AD |
| Herman Melville | wrote Billy Budd, Sailor; Moby Dick; classified as a Dark Romantic; American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet |
| The Call of the Wild | a pampered dog (Buck) adjusts to the harsh realities of life in the North as he struggles with his recovered wild instincts and finds a master (John Thorton) who treats him right; novel, adventure story, setting late 1890s |
| Geoffrey Chaucer | wrote The Canterbury Tales |
| Fyodor Dostoevsky | wrote Crime and Punishment; Russian writer, essayist, philosopher |
| Crime and Punishment | in an attempt to prove a theory, a student (Raskolnikov) murders two women, after which he suffers greatly from guilt and worry; psychological drama, setting in the 1860s |
| Charles Dickens | wrote David Copperfield, Great Expectations; English novelist during Victorian era |
| David Copperfield | after surviving a poverty-stricken childhood, the death of his mother, a cruel stepfather, and an unfortunate first marriage, a boys finds success as a writer; themes: plight of the weak, importance of equality in marriage, dangers of wealth and class |
| The Giver | it is set in a future society which is at first presented as a utopian society and gradually appears more and more dystopian; therefore, it could be considered anti-utopian; the novel follows a boy named Jonas through the twelfth year of his life; book allegedly glorified Communism |
| Anne Frank | wrote The Diary of a Young Girl (autobiographical literature set between 1942-1944) 1st published in 1952, chronicles her life in Nazi Germany |
| Christopher Marlowe | wrote Doctor Faustus |
| Helen Keller | wrote The Story of My Life and The Frost King; American author, political activist, lecturer; first deafblind person to earn BA |
| Harper Lee | wrote To Kill a Mockingbird; American author |
| To Kill a Mockingbird | Southern gothic novel; bildungsroman; narrator: Atticus Finch; serious issues dealing with rape and inequality |
| John Keats | wrote "On First Looking Into Chapman's Homer," "To Autumn," and "Bright Star, Would I Were Stedfast As Thou Art;" English poet in Romantic movement during early 19th century; motifs include departures and reveries, the five sense and art, and the disappearance of the poet and the speaker; symbols include music and musicians, nature, and the ancient world |
| Louisa May Alcott | wrote Little Women; American novelist |
| Little Women | four March sisters (Amy, Jo, Beth, Meg) in 19th century New England struggle with poverty, juggle their duties, and their desire to find love |
| Zora Neale Hurston | wrote Their Eyes Were Watching God; 20th century African-American writer; folklorist during the Harlem Renaissance |
| Their Eyes Were Watching God | after two marriages to oppressive men, a woman (Janie Crawford) finds temporary happiness with a husband twelve years her junior; themes: the illusion of power, non-necessity of relationships, folkloric quality of religion |
| SE Hinton | wrote The Outsiders |
| The Outsiders | a group of poor kids (greasers) hold their own against a group of rich kids (socials aka socs), losing two of their own in the process; protagonist: Ponyboy Curtis; bildungsroman; setting 1960s |
| Moby Dick | a monomaniacal captain tries and fails to kill a monstrous white whale; adventure story, quest tale, allegory; protagonist: Ishmael, Ahab; antogonist: Ahab, great white sperm whale |
| JD Salinger | wrote The Catcher in the Rye |
| The Catcher in the Rye | bildungsroman; after being expelled from a prep school, a 16-year-old boy (Holden Caulfield) goes to NYC, where he reflects on the phoniness of adults and heads towards a nervous breakdown |
| Mary Shelley | wrote Frankenstein; Romantic British novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, travel writer |
| Frankenstein | Gothic novel; a scientist creates a monster, and then abandons it in horror, a decision that leads to disaster and the deaths of nearly everyone he loves |
| Maya Angelou | wrote I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings; African-American autobiographer and poet |
| Ray Bradbury | wrote Fahrenheit 451, Dandelion Wine |
| Stephen Crane | wrote Red Badge of Courage; American novelist, short story writer, poet, journalist, raised in NY and NJ; style and technique: naturalism, realism, impressionism; themes: ideals v. realities, spiritual crisis, fears |
| Daniel Defoe | wrote Robinson Crusoe; known as the father of the English novel |
| Emily Dickinson | wrote "Wild Nights--Wild Nights!;" "I Heard A Fly Buzz When I Died," and "Because I Could Not Stop For Death--;" 19th century poet; major themes: flowers/gardens, the master poems, morbidity, gospel poems, the undiscovered continent; irregular capitalization, use of dashes & enjambment, took liberty with meter |
| Frederick Douglass | wrote Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, editor of 'The North Star,' abolitionist, was self-educated slave |
| Ralph Waldo Emerson | wrote "Self-Reliance;" Transcendentalist poet, essayist, speaker |
| F. Scott Fitzgerald | wrote The Great Gatsby |
| Robert Frost | wrote "The Road Not Taken;" American poet; highly regarded for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloquial speech; won Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry four times |
| Edgar Allan Poe | wrote The Fall of the House of Usher, The Murders in the Rue Morgue, and The Raven; wrote poems: "To Science," "The City and the Sea," and "Silence;" American writer, poet, editor and literary critic; part of American Romantic Movement |
| Percy Bysshe Shelley | wrote "Prometheus Unbound," "Ode to the West Wind," and "To A Skylark" |
| Amy Tan | wrote The Joy Luck Club (widely hailed for its depiction of the Chinese-American experience of the late 20th century) |
| HG Wells | wrote The Invisible Man, The War of the Worlds, The Time Machine |
| Walt Whitman | wrote Leaves of Grass; celebrated the freedom and dignity of the individual and sang the praises of democracy |
| Farenheit 451 | in a futuristic America, a firefighter (Guy Montag) decides to buck society, stop burning books, and start seeking knowledge; themes: censorship, knowledge vs. ignorance, religion as a knowledge giver |
| The Great Gatsby | a self-made man (Gatsby) woos and loses a married aristocratic woman (Daisy) he loves |
| The Joy Luck Club | a group of Chinese mothers and their American-born daughters struggle to communicate and understand each other; four families dipicted Woo, Jong, Hsu, and St. Clair |
| I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings | a black girl growing up in the South struggles against racism, sexism, and lack of power |
| "Self-Reliance" | NOT anti-society or anti-community; presupposes that the mind is initially the subject to an unhappy conformity; calls on individuals to value their own thoughts, opinions, experiences above those presented to them by other individuals, society, and religion; "There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction," "society everywhere is in conspiracy against the mankind," and "What I must do is all that concerns me, not what people think." |
| Nathaniel Hawthorne | wrote "The Birth-Mark," The Scarlet Letter; works are considered part of the Romantic movement (specifically dark romancism) |
| Henry David Thoreau | wrote "Civil Disobedience;" American author, poet, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, historian, philosopher, and leading transcendentalist |
| "Civil Disobedience" | an argument for individual resistance to civil government in moral opposition to an unjust state |
| The Red Badge of Courage | a naive young man (Henry Fleming) matures as a result of fighting in the Civil War |
| William Butler Yeats | wrote "A Fisherman," "The Second Coming," and "Easter 1916;" Irish poet and dramatist; foremost figures of 20th century literature; British WWI poet |
| Aphra Behn | wrote "History of a Nun;" prolific dramatist of the Restoration (18th century), one of the first English female writers |
| Elizabeth Barrett Browning | wrote "Aurora Leigh," poet of the Victorian era |
| Aurora Leigh | epic/novel poem written in blank verse and encompasses nine books (the woman's number, the number of the prophetic books of Sibyl) |
| TS Eliot | wrote "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," "The Waste Land" and "The Hollow Men;" British WWI poet, playwright, and literary critic |
| Virginia Woolf | wrote Mrs. Dalloway, Night and Day, The Voyage Out, and Jacob's Room; English novelist and essayist; one of the foremost modernist literary figures of 20th century |
| Jane Eyre | an impoverished young woman (Jane) struggles to maintain her autonomy in the face of oppression, prejudice, and love; Gothic novel, bildungsroman, social portest novel |
| Oscar Wilde | wrote The Picture of Dorian Gray; Irish playwright, poet, and author of numerous short stories and one novel |
| The Picture of Dorian Gray | the portrait of a sinful young man ages while the young man depicted in the portrait remains youthful; English Gothic novel |
| Anne Bradstreet | wrote "In Reference to her Children;" English-American writer, first notable American poet; first woman to be published in Colonial America |
| "In Reference to her Children" | maintains the bird metaphor throughout the poem's ninety-six lines, describing the various "flights" of five of her children and her concerns about those remaining in the nest |
| Langston Hughes | wrote The Weary Blues, The Ways of White Folks, and Not Without Laughter; American poet, novelist, playwright, short story writer, and columnist; early innovator for literary art known as jazz poetry; best known for work during Harlem Renaissance |
| Not Without Laughter | the protagonist of the story is a boy named Sandy whose family must deal with a variety of struggles imposed upon them due to their race and class in society in addition to relating to one another |
| Countee Cullen | wrote "Any Human to Another," "Color," and "The Ballad of the Brown Girl;" American Romantic poet; leading African-American poets of his time; associated with generation of poets of the Harlem Renaissance |
| Lord Byron | wrote "She Walks in Beauty" and "When We Two Parted;" British poet and leading figure in Romanticism |
| William Wordsworth | wrote "We Are Seven," "The Prelude," and "The World is Too Much With Us;" English Romantic poet; joint publication of 'Lyrical Ballads' with Samuel Taylor Coleridge; motifs: wanders vs wandering, memory, vision/sight, light, leech gatherer; believed that childhood was a "magical" and magnificent time of innocence; devotion to nature; use of everyday speech and country characters |
| Macbeth | inspired by witch's prophecy, a man murders his way to the throne of Scotland, but his conscience plagues him and his fellow lords rise up against him; themes: unchecked ambition as a corrupting force, relationship between cruelty and masculinity, kingship v. tyranny |
| Willa Cather | wrote My Antonia; prolific during the 1920s, reputation as one of the most important post-Civil War American authors |
| Ernest Hemingway | wrote A Farewell to Arms, The Old Man and the Sea, and The Sun Also Rises; American writer and journalist; veteran of WWI, belongs to literary movement called 'The Lost Generation' |
| James Joyce | wrote Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man: 20th century Irish author |
| Robinson Crusoe | a man is shipwrecked on an island, where he lives for more than 20 years, fending off cannibals and creating a pleasant life for himself |
| William Golding | wrote Lord of the Flies, To the Ends of the Earth; British novelist, poet |
| Lord of the Flies | a group of English boys (Jack, Piggy, Ralph, Roger, Sam, Eric, and Simon), marooned on an island, rapidly turn lawless and bloodthirsty |
| Watership Down | heroic fantasy novel about a small group of British rabbits; Fiver, a young runt rabbit who is a seer, receives a frightening vision of his warren's imminent destruction |
| Washington Irving | wrote "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip Van Winkle;" American author, essayist, biographer, historian |
| Holes | set in modern times and focuses on the current circumstances of Stanley Yelnats, an unfortunate, unlucky young man who is sent to Camp Green Lake for a crime he didn't commit |
| Karen Hesse | wrote Out of the Dust |
| Kate Dicamillo | wrote Because of Winn-Dixie |
| Sharon Creech | wrote Walk Two Moons |
| Jerry Spinelli | wrote Maniac Magee |
| Ben Mikaelson | wrote Touching Spirit Bear |
| EB White | wrote Charlotte's Web |
| Wendy Towle | wrote The Real McCoy: The Life of an American Inventor |
| Nancy Farmer | wrote The Eye, the Ear, and the Arm |
| Mary Downing Hahn | wrote Time for Andrew: A Ghost Story |
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