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Community Corner

Brainy Beach Reading Ideas

An around-the-region look at what new college freshmen and transfers will be reading this summer.

Need something interesting to read for that upcoming beach trip, or just want a book to keep you company on the front porch this summer?

Local area colleges and universities have selected books for new students to read over these hot months before arriving as freshmen or transfer students. The books often wind up being discussed in first-year seminars or introduction composition courses.

If you’re going to one of these schools, or just would like to read what the college students are reading, head to a library or bookstore and pick up these titles, all of which are being sold most places for less than $10 in paperback:

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In the 1990s, Clarkston, GA, became a refugee settlement center for those fleeing war zones in Liberia, Sudan, Iraq and Afghanistan. Luma Mufleh, an American-educated Jordanian woman, also came to call the town home and founded a youth soccer team to “unify Clarkston’s refugee children and keep them off the streets.” The kids called themselves the Fugees.

“Set against the backdrop of an American town that without its consent had become a vast social experiment, Outcasts United follows a pivotal season in the life of the Fugees and their charismatic coach,” a description on the Barnes and Noble website said. “Warren St. John documents the lives of a diverse group of young people as they miraculously coalesce into a band of brothers, while also drawing a fascinating portrait of a fading American town struggling to accommodate its new arrivals.”

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot

Summer Reading for Howard Community College

Henrietta Lacks, a Baltimore woman who died of cancer at the age of 30 in 1951, and the sample of cancerous tissue from her body that was taken without her knowledge or consent that led to major scientific breakthroughs, including a cure for polio, raise enough ethical questions to keep one busy through a long weekend at Ocean City.

“Henrietta's family continued to live in poverty and frequently poor health,” an Amazon.com review said. “And their discovery decades later of her unknowing contribution--and her cells' strange survival--left them full of pride, anger, and suspicion.”

The Freedom Writers Diaryby The Freedom Writers with Erin Gruwell

Summer Reading for McDaniel College

Students at Wilson High School in Long Beach, CA, seeking understanding of historical racial intolerance under the direction of their English teacher, Erin Gruwell, read books like Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl and Zlata’s Diary: A Child’s Life in Sarajevo, and then wrote their own diary entries, relating the experiences of the books’ authors to their own lives.

"With powerful entries from the students’ own diaries and a narrative text by Erin Gruwell, The Freedom Writers Diary is an uplifting, unforgettable example of how hard work, courage, and the spirit of determination changed the lives of a teacher and her students,” a Barnes and Noble description said.

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