Rebel Readings
What causes a person to become a rebel? Injustice? Persecution? Fear? Below are a collection of stories about rebels that are all very different, but share the unique qualities of characters who are rebels. What would you do if you were in some of these stories? Read them and share how you would have handled these challenges!
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton. This short novel tells the story of Ponyboy Curtis who is 14 and his struggles with right and wrong in a society in which he believes that he is an outsider. Ponyboy and his two brothers — Darrel (Darry), who is 20, and Sodapop, who is 16 — have recently lost their parents in a car crash. Pony and Soda are allowed to stay under Darry’s guardianship as long as they all behave themselves. The boys are greasers, which means they are tough and live on the wrong side of town. The East Side, the poor side of town. The greasers’ rivals are the Socs, short for Socials, who are the “West-side rich kids.” S.E Hinton began writing this book when she was only 15 years old and still in high school.
http://theoutsidersbook.blogspot.ca/2005/09/whole-book.html
The Hunger Games Series by Suzanne Collins. Katniss Everdeen lives in sector 12 of a place once known as North America in the nation of Panem,. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one girl and one boy between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV. Sixteen-year-old Katniss, who lives with and takes care of her mother and younger sister, regards it as a death sentence when she is forced to represent her district in the Games. But Katniss has also resolved to outwit the creators of the games. To do that she will have to be the last person standing at the end of the deadly ordeal, and that will take every ounce of strength and cunning she has. Katniss is a rebel who fights against the authority of the government for what she knows in her heart is right.
http://readanybooks.net/fantasticfiction/The_Hunger_Games/
The Diary of a Young Girl – Anne Frank. Not all acts of rebellion are loud or adventurous. Sometimes just the act of surviving is the behaviour of a rebel. Anne Frank and her family were hidden away in an attic in Holland during World War II. Anne and her family were Jewish, and during WWII and Adolph Hitler’s murderous campaign to control the world though ethnic cleansing, their faith was enough for them to be hunted and rounded up like animals and shipped off to the concentration camps and gas chambers. This book is Anne’s diary that she kept while she was secreted away in a small attic with her family, just trying to survive by staying hidden, long enough.
http://kienforcefidele.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/the-diary-of-anne-frank.pdf
The Golden Compass by Philip Pulman. Lyra Belacqua a rebellious orphan living in a mighty fantastical parallel universe in which a theocracy called the Magisterium threatens to dominate the world. The world is being taken over by mysterious dust and people have a physical embodiment of their soul in the shape of an animal that accompanies them throughout their lives. When Lyra’s friend is kidnapped, she travels to the far North in an attempt to rescue him and rejoin her uncle but finds an evil lair where children are being viciously separated from their animals. Lyra and her friends the Gyptians, Yorrick the Armoured Bear and Lee Scorsby fight against the wicked Magisterium to free the children
http://www.readfreeonline.net/OnlineBooks/The_Golden_Compass_Story.html
Eragon (The Inheritance Cycle) by Christopher Paolini. The story of a young farm boy named Eragon who finds a mysterious stone in the mountains. A dragon he later names Saphira hatches from the stone, which was really an egg. When the evil King Galbtorix finds out about Eragon and his dragon, he sends his servants, the Ra’zac, after them in an effort to capture them. Eragon and Saphira are forced to flee from their hometown, and decide to search for the Varden, a group of rebels who want to see the downfall of Galbatorix.
http://www.readanybook.com/ebook/eragon-16907