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Summer Reading US 2024: History

Topics in World History (9th)

Sugar Changed the World by Marc Aronson and Marina Tamar Budhos
Call Number: 664.109 Aro
ISBN: 0618574921
Publication Date: 2010
Available on Learning Ally
When this award-winning husband-and-wife team discovered that they each had sugar in their family history, they were inspired to trace the globe-spanning story of the substance. Sugar was the substance that drove the bloody slave trade and caused the loss of countless lives but it also planted the seeds of revolution that led to freedom in the American colonies, Haiti, and France. With songs, oral histories, maps, and over 80 archival illustrations, here is the story of how one product allows us to see the grand currents of world history in new ways.

Modern World History (10th)

Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
Call Number: 92 Noah
ISBN: 9780399588174
Publication Date: 2016-11-15
Available on Overdrive and Learning Ally
Trevor Noah's unlikely path from apartheid South Africa to the desk of The Daily Show began with a criminal act: his birth. Born a Crime is the story of a mischievous young boy who grows into a restless young man as he struggles to find himself in a world where he was never supposed to exist. It is also the story of that young man's relationship with his fearless, rebellious, and fervently religious mother--his teammate, a woman determined to save her son from the cycle of poverty, violence, and abuse that would ultimately threaten her own life. The stories collected here are by turns hilarious, dramatic, and deeply affecting.

US History (11th)

Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by Jason Reynolds; Ibram X. Kendi
Call Number: 305.8 Rey
ISBN: 9780316453691
Publication Date: 2020
Available on Overdrive and Learning Ally
The construct of race has always been used to gain and keep power, to create dynamics that separate and silence. This reimagining of Dr. Ibram X. Kendi's Award-winning Stamped from the Beginning into this fast paced narrative by Jason Reynolds reveals the history of racist ideas in America, and inspires hope for an antiracist future. It takes you on a race journey from then to now, shows you why we feel how we feel, why the poison of racism lingers, and how to identify and stamp out racist thoughts in our daily lives.

Honors US History (11th)

Never Caught: The Washingtons' Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge by Erica Armstrong Dunbar
ISBN: 9781501126413
Publication Date: 2018
Available on Overdrive and Learning Ally
When George Washington was elected president, he reluctantly left behind his beloved Mount Vernon to serve in Philadelphia, the temporary seat of the nation's capital. In setting up his household he brought along nine slaves, including Ona Judge. As the President grew accustomed to Northern ways, there was one change he couldn't abide: Pennsylvania law required enslaved people be set free after six months of residency in the state. Rather than comply, Washington decided to circumvent the law. Every six months he sent the slaves back down south just as the clock was about to expire. Though Ona Judge lived a life of relative comfort, she was denied freedom. So, when the opportunity presented itself one clear and pleasant spring day in Philadelphia, Judge left everything she knew to escape to New England. Yet freedom would not come without its costs. At just twenty-two-years-old, Ona became the subject of an intense manhunt led by George Washington, who used his political and personal contacts to recapture his property.