One Book, One Marian
Led by the English Department, Marian Catholic introduced a One Book, One Marian reading initiative in the summer of 2018. With the intention of cultivating connection, communication, and discussion throughout the school community and across content areas. Books are chosen based on what our school community needs the most. Selections have offered a myriad of opportunities for discussion and conversation with students in the classrooms, in faculty meetings, and casual collegial encounters that enhance the educational experience.
We invite you to read along with our students!
Selected Titles
2022
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The Midnight Library |
| by Matt Haig | |
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THE MIDNIGHT LIBRARY by English author and journalist Matt Haig is a dazzling novel about all the choices that go into a life well lived. Somewhere out beyond the edge of the universe, there is a library that contains an infinite number of books. One tells the story of your life as it is, the others each present another reality, the chance to see how things would be if you had made other choices. While we all wonder how our lives might have been, what if you had the chance to go to the library and see for yourself? Would any of these other lives truly be better? An instant New York Times bestseller |
2021
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All American Boys |
| by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely | |
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Critically acclaimed authors Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely have joined forces to write an explosive new novel, ALL AMERICAN BOYS, inspired by recent controversial events and the national firestorm over police brutality. Rashad Butler and Quinn Collins are two young men, one black and one white, whose lives are forever changed by an act of extreme police brutality. Rashad wakes up in a hospital. Quinn saw how he got there. And so did the video camera that taped the cop beating Rashad senseless into the pavement. Thus begins ALL AMERICAN BOYS, written in tandem by two of our great literary talents, Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely. The story is told in Rashad and Quinn’s alternating perspectives, as they grapple with the complications that spin out of this violent moment and reverberate in their families, school, and town. Over the course of one week, Rashad tries to find the strength to accept his role as the symbolic figure of the community’s response to police brutality, and Quinn tries to decide where he belongs in a town bitterly divided by racial tension. Ultimately, the two narratives weave back together, in the moment in which the two boys, now changed, can actually see each other—the first step for healing and understanding in a country still deeply sick with racial injustice. Reynolds pens the voice of Rashad, and Kiely has taken the voice of Quinn. "As a black man and a white man, both writers and educators, we came together to cowrite a book about how systemic racism and police brutality affect the lives of young people in America, in order to create an important, unique, and honest work that would give young people and the people who educate them a tool for talking about these difficult but absolutely vital conversations," said Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely. |
2020
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Tuesdays with Morrie: an Old Man, a Young Man, and Life's Greatest Lesson |
| by Mitch Albom | |
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Maybe it was a grandparent, or a teacher, or a colleague. Someone older, patient and wise, who understood you when you were young and searching, helped you see the world as a more profound place, gave you sound advice to help you make your way through it. For Mitch Albom, that person was Morrie Schwartz, his college professor from nearly twenty years ago. Maybe, like Mitch, you lost track of this mentor as you made your way, and the insights faded, and the world seemed colder. Wouldn’t you like to see that person again, ask the bigger questions that still haunt you, receive wisdom for your busy life today the way you once did when you were younger? Mitch Albom had that second chance. He rediscovered Morrie in the last months of the older man’s life. Knowing he was dying, Morrie visited with Mitch in his study every Tuesday, just as they used to back in college. Their rekindled relationship turned into one final “class”: lessons in how to live. Tuesdays with Morrie is a magical chronicle of their time together, through which Mitch shares Morrie’s lasting gift with the world. Now the best-selling memoir of all time,Tuesdays with Morrie began as a modest labor of love to help pay some of Schwartz’s medical bills. Today, the book has sold 17 million copies in more than 50 editions around the world. |
2019
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A Long Walk to Water: Based on a True Story |
| by Linda Sue Park | |
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A Long Walk to Water is based on the true story of Salva Dut, one of 3,800 Sudanese "Lost Boys" who came to the United States beginning in the mid-1990s. Separated from his family by war and forced to travel on foot through hundreds of miles of hostile territory, Salva survives starvation, animal attacks, and disease, and ultimately leads a group of about 1,500 boys to safety in Kenya. Relocated to upstate New York, Salva learns English and continues on to college. Eventually, he returns to his home region in southern Sudan to establish a foundation that installs deep-water wells in remote villages in dire need of clean water. This poignant story of Salva's life is told side-by-side with the story of Nya, a young girl who lives in one of those villages. |
2018
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Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion |
| by Father Greg Boyle | |
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Thirty years ago, Gregory Boyle founded Homeboy Industries, a gang-intervention, rehabilitation, and reentry program in Los Angeles, the gang capital of the world. In Tattoos on the Heart, his debut book, he distills his experience working with gang members into a breathtaking series of parables inspired by faith. From giant, tattooed Cesar, shopping at JC Penney fresh out of prison, you learn how to feel worthy of God's love. From ten-year-old Pipi you learn the importance of being known and acknowledged. From Lulu you come to understand the kind of patience necessary to rescue someone from the dark--as Father Boyle phrases it, we can only shine a flashlight on a light switch in a darkened room. This is a motivating look at how to stay faithful in spite of failure, how to meet the world with a loving heart, and how to conquer shame with boundless, restorative love. |