Forgiveness+(Year+13)

**Let me sing you gentle songs by Linda Olsson** Veronika, a writer in her early thirties, rents a house in the Swedish countryside to finish her novel. She is also cocooning herself from her past. She befriends Astrid, a reclusive older woman who has lived in the village all her life. Their unusual and tender friendship flowers, as they slowly and carefully reveal their life histories and sometimes heart-rending pasts.
 * Theme – Forgiveness – Year 13 **

**Story of a girl : a novel by Sara Zarr.** In the three years since her father caught her in the back seat of a car with an older boy, sixteen-year-old Deanna's life at home and school has been a nightmare, but while dreaming of escaping with her brother and his family, she discovers the power of forgiveness.

**Touching Spirit Bear by Ben Mikaelsen**. After his anger erupts into violence, Cole, in order to avoid going to prison, agrees to participate in a sentencing alternative based on the native American Circle Justice, and he is sent to a remote Alaskan Island where an encounter with a huge Spirit Bear changes his life.

Ursula Le Guin always writes thoughtful and thought-provoking explorations of human relationships and ethics - and good stories too! **'Four Ways to Forgiveness'** is a set of linked novellas exploring a scifi society with definite similarity to aspects of the ex-slave owning USA in particular. The characters overcome divisions based on caste, gender and race. This book will probably appeal more to girls, given the way it's driven by personal relationships, but reasonably good male readers should also get a lot out of it. You might make a case for the Earthsea books as well, which are very accessible but might need a bit of justification to fit the theme. (Might also need to check they are of acceptable difficulty - I think they are, being books that can be read at different levels.) However, while forgiveness is not explicitly stated, it underlies the restoration of good personal and social relationships. (eg Ged's acknowledgement of his mistakes and failings in 'A Wizard of Earthsea' and the overcoming of prejudice in 'The Tombs of Atuan'.)

**The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas** - as a case where forgiveness is NOT given. The result is an empty pursuit of revenge that doesn't do anyone much good, though I shouldn't think that was Dumas's intention.

**Emma by Jane Austen**. It's hardly a central theme, but the setting right of all sorts of relationships is fundamental to the happy ending - eg between Emma and Miss Bates. Emma's realisation that she requires forgiveness is a pivotal point.

Shakespeare's **'Much Ado About Nothing'** hero does NOT forgive Claudio. Raises the interesting point: are there things that cannot and should not be forgiven? Or not lightly, anyway?

**The Tulip Touch by Anne Fine**- might be used to examine that idea, and also where responsibility for wrong-doing lies: who needs forgiveness, the actual perpetrator of an active wrong, or the people who through different degrees of passivity allow it to happen?

In the summer of 1935, 13-year-old Briony Tallis misinterprets the relationship between her sister Cecilia and Robbie Turner, childhood friends home from Cambridge. So when her young cousin is assaulted, Briony gives in to her hyperactive imagination and blames the atrocity on Robbie. It is a terrible decision that alters lives and fills Briony with an everlasting sense of guilt.
 * Atonement by Ian McEwan **

Sixteen-year-old Miles’ first year at Culver Creek Preparatory School in Alabama includes good friends and great pranks, but is defined by the search for answers about life and death after a fatal car crash.
 * Looking for Alaska by John Green **

When she is abandoned by her alcoholic mother, high school senior Ruby winds up living with Cora, the sister she has not seen for ten years, and learns about Cora's new life, what makes a family, how to allow people to help her when she needs it, and that she too has something to offer others.
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Lock and key: a novel by Sarah Dessen **

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">After her "stand-in mother", a bold black woman named Rosaleen, insults the three biggest racists in town, Lily Owens joins Rosaleen on a journey to Tiburon, South Carolina, where they are taken in by three black, bee-keeping sisters.
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Secret life of bees by Sue Monk Kidd **