McCall Middle School Recommended
Summer Reading List June 2009
Below are the REQUIRED reading titles
for each
grade level. Following
is The Recommended Summer Reading List.
Selections include recommendations
from teachers, librarians, and students.
There are recent award winners as well as classics. Most titles are available in
paperback, and many can
be found
at the
Winchester Public Library, at Book Ends, or at your favorite online
source.
REQUIRED READING
Grade 6: The
Young Man and the Sea by
Rodman Philbrick. In addition,
students are expected to read at least two other books over
the summer.
Grade 7: Select one title from the Percy Jackson & The Olympians Series: The Lightning
Thief, Sea of Monsters, Titan’s Curse, Battle of Labyrinth,
and The Last Olympian by Rick Riordan. In addition, students
are expected to read at least two other books over the summer.
Grade 8: The Golden
Compass by Philip Pullman or Coraline by Neil Gaiman. In addition, students
are expected to read at least two
other books over the summer.
A Message From the Winchester Public Library
Dear Middle School
students,
Many of you probably have participated in the Winchester Public Library Summer Reading Program in the
past. This
summer for the first time you have the opportunity to do
so as a middle school student. Independent and computer
based, your program allows
you to record titles you read, comment on them and read other students’ comments from
anywhere in the world! You are anonymous. To enter you will go to the following web
address: www.readsinma.org/winpublib. When you sign up initially, please come into the library for your free thank you gift. We’re excited about this opportunity and look forward to sharing with you. Happy reading
and sharing, Molly Wiellette, Winchester
Public Library
______________________________________________________________________________________
* Indicates titles
recommended for older
readers
(7th and 8th grade)
Recommended Summer Reading List
SCIENCE FICTION
Anderson, M.T. Whales on Stilts. Racing
against the clock, shy middle-school
student Lily and her best
friends, Katie and Jasper,
must foil the plot of
her father’s
conniving boss to conquer
the world using an army of whales.
Armstrong, Jennifer.
Fire Us Trilogy (includes The
Kiln, The Kindling, and Keeper of
the Flame). In 2007, a small band
of children
have joined together in
a Florida
town, trying to survive in
a world
where it seems that all the
adults
have been killed off by
a catastrophic virus.
Card, Orson Scott.
Ender’s Game series.
Ender Wiggins is
a genius
who
is training to save the
planet from impending Alien
attacks.
*Clements,
Andrew. Things
Not Seen. When
fifteen-year-old Bobby wakes
up and
finds himself invisible, he and his
parents
and his
new blind friend Alicia try
to find
out what
caused his
condition and how to reverse
it.
DuPrau, Jeanne. The City of Ember and People
of Sparks.
In the year 241,
twelve-year-old Lina trades
jobs on Assignment
Day to be
a Messenger to
run
to new
places in her
decaying but beloved city, perhaps
even to glimpse Unknown Regions.
The Prophet
of Yonwood
is the prequel.
*Farmer, Nancy. House
of the
Scorpion (Newbery Honor Book
2003). In a
future where humans despise clones, Matt enjoys special status
as the
young clone of El
Patrón, the
142-year-old leader of
a corrupt
drug empire nestled between Mexico and
the United
States.
Haddix, Margaret Peterson. Among the
Hidden
series. In a
future where the
Population Police enforce the law limiting a
family
to only
two children, Luke
has lived all
of his
twelve years in isolation
and fear on his family's
farm,
until another "third" convinces
him that
the government is
wrong.
L’Engle, Madeline. A
Wrinkle in Time. Meg
Murry and her friends become
involved with unearthly strangers and a search for
Meg's father,
who has
disappeared
while engaged in secret work
for the
government.
Lowry, Lois. The Messenger. In this
novel that
unites characters from The
Giver
and Gathering Blue, Matty, a
young member of a
utopian community that values honesty,
conceals an emerging healing
power that he cannot explain
or understand. Also
try The Giver and
Gathering Blue
*Pearson, Mary E. The Adoration
of Jenna Fox. In the not-too-distant
future,
when biotechnological advances
have
made synthetic bodies and brains
possible but
illegal, a seventeen-year-old girl, recovering
from a serious accident and suffering from
memory lapses, learns a
startling secret about her existence.
Reeve, Philip.
Mortal Engines. In the
distant future, when cities move
about and consume smaller
towns, a fifteen-year-old apprentice
is pushed out
of London
by the man he most
admires
and must
seek answers in the perilous
Out-Country, aided by one girl
and the
memory of another.
Sleator, William. The
Last
Universe. When
her desperately ill
older brother insists that
she take
him into
their mysterious backyard garden,
designed by
their quantum physicist great uncle, fourteen-year-old Susan
discovers that things
are not
always what they seem.
Stahler, David Jr. Truesight.
In a
distant frontier world, thirteen-year-old Jacob is
uncertain of his future in
a community that considers blindness a virtue and "Seers"
as aberrations.
* Indicates titles
recommended for older
readers
(7th and 8th grade)
Stewart, Trenton Lee. The
Mysterious Benedict Society. After passing a
series of
mind-bending tests, four
children are
selected for a
secret mission that requires them to go
undercover
at the Learning
Institute for the Very
Enlightened, where the only rule
is
that there are
no rules.
Thompson, Kate. The
New Policeman. Irish
teenager JJ Liddy discovers
that time is leaking
from his world into Tir na nOg, the land of the fairies, and when he attempts
to stop the leak he finds out a lot
about his family history, the music
that he loves, and a crime his
great-grandfather may or
may not have committed.
Young, E. L. Storm: The Infinity Code. In London, the
teenaged geniuses of
STORM, a secret organization dedicated to eliminating
the world’s misery through
science and technology, uncover
plans for a deadly weapon and
race to find and dismantle it, then confront the
corrupt scientist behind the scheme. Sequel -STORM :
the Ghost Machine.
FANTASY
Barry, David. Peter and
the Starcatchers. Soon after
Peter, an orphan, sets
sail from England
on the
ship Never Land, he befriends
and
assists Molly, a young
Starcatcher, whose mission is to
guard a trunk of magical stardust from a greedy pirate
and the
native inhabitants of
a remote
island. (Sequels:
Peter and the Shadow
Thieves, Peter and the
Secret of Rundoon)
*Bell, Hilari. The Last Knight. In alternate chapters,
eighteen-year-old Sir
Michael Sevenson, an anachronistic knight errant, and seventeen-year-old
Fisk, his
street-wise squire, tell of their
noble quest to bring Lady Ceciel
to justice while trying
to solve
her husband’s murder.
*Bunce, Elizabeth C. A
Curse Dark as Gold. Upon the
death
of her
father, seventeen-year-old Charlotte struggles to keep
the family’s woolen mill
running in the face
of an
overwhelming mortgage and what
the local villagers believe is a
curse, but when a
man capable of
spinning straw
into gold appears on
the scene
she must decide if his
help
is worth
the price.
Collins, Suzanne. Gregor the
Overlander. When
eleven-year-old Gregor and
his two-year-old sister
are pulled into a strange underground
world, they trigger an
epic battle involving men, bats, rats,
cockroaches, and spiders while
on a
quest foretold by an ancient prophecy (Sequels:
The
Underland Chronicles).
Corbett, Sue. 12
Again. Twelve-year-old Patrick's
mother is missing,
and it is
up to
him to
find her and get her back
or face
a life
without her.
Divakaruni, Chitra Banerjee. The
Conch Bearer. In India, a healer
invites twelve-year-old Anand to
join him on a quest to
return a magical conch
to its
safe
and rightful
home
high in the Himalayan mountains.
Farmer, Nancy. Sea of Trolls. After
Jack becomes apprenticed
to a
Druid bard, he and his
little sister Lucy are captured by
Viking Berserkers and taken to
the home
of King
Ivar the Boneless and his
half-troll queen, leading Jack to undertake
a vital quest
to Jotunheim, home
of the
trolls. Sequel is The Land of
the Silver
Apples.
Flanagan, John.
The Ruins of Gorlan. When fifteen-year-old Will is rejected
by battleschool, he becomes the reluctant
apprentice to
the mysterious Ranger Halt, and
winds up protecting the
kingdom from danger. Also,
the other
titles
in the Ranger’s Apprentice Series
Ferris, Jean. Once
Upon a Marigold. A young man
with a mysterious past and
a penchant
for inventing
things leaves the troll
who raised him,
meets an unhappy
princess
he has
loved from afar, and
discovers a plot against her and her
father.
* Indicates titles
recommended for older
readers
(7th and 8th grade)
Funke, Cornelia. Inkheart.
Twelve-year-old Meggie learns that her father,
who repairs
and
binds books for a living, can
"read" fictional characters to
life when one of those
characters abducts them and tries
to force
him into service. (Sequels: Inkspell, Inkdeath)
Funke, Cornelia. The Thief Lord. Two
brothers, having run away from
the aunt
who plans to
adopt the younger one, are sought
by a detective hired by
their aunt, but
they have found shelter with--and protection from--Venice's "Thief Lord."
Gardner, Sally. I, Coriander.
In seventeenth-century
London, Coriander, a
girl who has inherited
magic from her mother, must find
a way
to use
this magic in order to save
both herself and an inhabitant
of the
fairy world where her
mother was born.
Jacques, Brian. Loamhedge: A
Tale from Redwall. While a
group of adventurers from Redwall seeks
the ancient abbey of Loamhedge in
hopes of curing a young haremaid's paralysis,
Redwall is besieged by vermin.
Keehn, Sally M. Gnat
Stokes and the Foggy Bottom Swamp
Queen.
In Mary’s Cove, Tennessee, in 1869, twelve-year-old Gnat Stokes
decides
to prove
she’s not just a
trouble maker by rescuing a
boy who was spirited away
seven years earlier by the evil
Swamp Queen of Foggy
Bottom.
Levine, Gail Carson. Fairest. In a
land where beauty and singing are
valued above
all else, Aza
eventually comes to reconcile
her unconventional appearance
and
her magical voice, and learns
to accept
herself for who she truly
is.
Lowry, Lois. Gossamer. While
learning to bestow
dreams, a young dream giver tries
to save
an eight-year-old
boy from the effects of
both his abusive past and
the nightmares inflicted
on him
by the
frightening Sinisteeds.
MacHale, D.J. Pendragon series:
Merchant of Death,
The Lost City of Faar, The
Never War, and
Reality
Bug.
*McNamee, Eoin. The Navigator. Owen
has always
been different, and not
only because his father committed suicide, but he is
not prepared
for the
knowledge that he
has a
mission to help the Wakeful--the custodians
of time--to stop
the Harsh
from
reversing the
flow of time.
Meyer, Kai. The Water
Mirror. In a
place similar to Venice,
Italy, two teenaged orphans,
apprenticed
to a
maker of magic mirrors, begin
to realize
that
their
fates are tied to
the
magical protector of
the
city known as the Flowing Queen and
to the ruler of Hell,
respectively. (Sequels:
The Stone Light
and
The Glass
Word)
*Oppel, Kenneth. Airborne. Matt,
a young
cabin
boy aboard
an airship,
and Kate,
a wealthy young girl traveling
with her chaperone, team up
to search
for the
existence of mysterious winged creatures reportedly
living hundreds of feet
above
the Earth’s
surface.
Paolini, Christopher. Eragon. In Aagaesia,
a fifteen-year-old boy of
unknown lineage called Eragon finds
a mysterious stone that weaves his
life into an intricate tapestry of
destiny, magic, and power, peopled
with
dragons, elves, and
monsters. (Sequel: Eldest)
Pattou, Edith. East. A young woman journeys
to a
distant castle on
the back
of a
great white bear who is
the victim of a cruel enchantment.
Pearce, Philippa. The
Little Gentleman.
A young
girl’s dull life is
transformed when she meets
and befriends an extraordinary talking
mole that likes to be
read
to and tells of his
own past
exploits throughout the
centuries.
Pierce, Tamora.
Circle of Magic
Series. A fantasy series
including Briar’s Book,
Daja’s Book, Sandry’s
Book and Tris’ Book.
* Indicates titles
recommended for older
readers
(7th and 8th grade)
Pratchett, Terry.
The Bromeliad
Trilogy (Truckers, Diggers,
and Wings). After
generations of existing in the human-sized world,
a group
of four-inch-high
gnomes
discover their true nature and
origin with the help of a
black square called the
Thing. Also, Nation.
Reeve, Philip. Here
Lies Arthur. When her village
is attacked
and burned, Gwyna seeks
protection from the bard Myrddin, who
uses Gwyna in his plan
to transform young
Arthur into the heroic King
Arthur.
Reiss, Kathryn. Paint by
Magic. After his
mom suddenly
starts acting old-fashioned, eleven-year-old Conner is transported
back to 1926, where he
must discover and
break the mysterious hold an
obsessed artist has on his mom
that is trapping her between times.
Also try
Time Windows,
Pale Phoenix, PaperQuake,
Dreadful
Sorry, and Glass House People.
Riordan, Rick. The Lightning
Thief. After learning
that he is the son of
a mortal
woman and Poseidon, god of the
sea, twelve-year-old Percy is
sent to a summer
camp
for demigods like
himself,
and joins
his new
friends on a quest
to prevent
a war
between the gods. (all
books in the Percy Jackson
and the
Olympians
Set)
Scott, Michael. The Alchemyst. While working
at pleasant but mundane summer
jobs in San Francisco, fifteen-year- old twins, Sophie and Josh, suddenly find themselves caught up
in the deadly, centuries-old
struggle between rival alchemists, Nicholas Flamel and
John Dee, over the
possession of an
ancient and powerful book holding the
secret formulas for alchemy and
everlasting life. Series: Secrets of the immortal
Nicholas Flamel
Stroud, Jonathan. The
Amulet of Samarkand (Bartimaeus
Trilogy, #1). Nathaniel,
a magician's
apprentice, summons up the
djinni Bartimaeus and
instructs him
to steal
the Amulet
of Samarkand from
the powerful
magician Simon
Lovelace
(The Golem’s Eye and Ptolemy’s Gate).
HISTORICAL FICTION
Alvarez, Julia. Before We
Were Free. In the
early 1960s in the Dominican
Republic, twelve-year-old Anita learns
that her family is
involved in the underground
movement to end the bloody
rule of the dictator,
General Trujillo.
Amistead, John. TheReturn
of Gabriel. In the
summer of 1964, a
thirteen-year-old white boy whose best friend
is black
is caught
in the
middle when civil rights
workers and Ku Klux
Klan members clash in
a small town near
Tupelo, Mississippi.
Anderson, Laurie Halse. Fever:
1793. In 1793
Philadelphia, sixteen-year-old Matilda Cook, separated
from her sick mother, learns
about perseverance and self-reliance
when she is forced to
cope with the horrors of a
yellow fever epidemic.
*Auch, Mary Jane. Ashes
of
Roses. Sixteen-year-old
Margaret Rose Nolan,
newly arrived from
Ireland, finds work at New York
City's Triangle Shirtwaist Factory
shortly before the 1911 fire
in which
146 employees
died.
Bradley, Kimberly Brubaker. For Freedom: The
Story of a French Spy. Despite the
horrors of World War II, a
French teenager pursues
her dream
of
becoming an
opera singer,
which takes her to places
where she gains information
about what the Nazis are
doing--information that the
French Resistance needs.
*Breslin, Theresa. Remembrance. The destinies
of two
Scottish
families,
one of
shopkeepers and one of
wealth and power, become
entwined
through their involvement
in World
War I,
social causes, and love.
*Bruchac, Joseph. Code Talker:
a novel
about
the Navajo Marines
of World
War Two. After being taught
in a boarding school run by
whites that Navajo is a useless language,
Ned Begay
and other
Navajo men are recruited by the
Marines to become Code Talkers, sending
messages during World War
II in
their native tongue.
* Indicates titles
recommended for older
readers
(7th and 8th grade)
Collier, Kristi. Jericho Walls. In 1957,
when her preacher father accepts a post
in Jericho,
Alabama, Jo
wants
to fit in, but her growing
friendship with a black
boy forces her
to confront
the racism
of the South
and to reconsider her own
values.
Cooney, Caroline B. Goddess of
Yesterday. Taken
from
her
home on an Aegean
island as a six-year-old
girl, Anaxandra calls on
the protection of
her goddess while
she poses
as two
different princesses
before ending up as a servant
in the
company of Helen and
Paris as they make their
way to
Troy.
Cowley, Marjorie. Dar and
the Spear
Thrower. A young Cro-Magnon
boy living 15,000 years
ago in
southeastern France is initiated
into manhood by his clan and sets
off on
a journey
to trade
his valuable
fire
rocks for an ivory
spear thrower.
Crossley-Holland, Kevin, Crossing
to Paradise. When fifteen-year-old Gatty, an illiterate field-girl who sings beautifully, is selected
for a pilgrimage, she travels
from her home on
an English estate to London,
Venice, and eventually Jerusalem,
and experiences great changes
in
her circumstances and in herself.
Crowe, Chris. Mississippi
Trial, 1955. In Mississippi
in 1955, a
sixteen-year-old finds himself
at odds
with
his grandfather over issues
surrounding the kidnapping
and murder
of a
fourteen-year-old African American from Chicago.
Dickinson, Peter. The
Kin Series: Po’s Story,
Suth’s Story, Mana’s
Story, Noli’s
Story. Stories of the
Stone
Age tribe, the Kin.
Duble, Kathleen Benner. The Sacrifice.
Two sisters,
aged ten and twelve, are
accused of witchcraft in Andover, Massachusetts, in 1692
and await
trial in a miserable prison
while their mother desperately
searches for some way to obtain
their freedom.
Durbin, William. Broken Blade. When
an
injury prevents his father from going into
northern Canada with fur traders, thirteen-year-old
Pierre decides to take
his father's place
as a
voyageur.
Hesse, Karen. Stowaway. This fictionalized journal
relates the experiences of
a young stowaway
from 1768
to 1781 aboard the Endeavour, which sailed around
the world under
Captain James Cook.
Holm, Jennifer. Boston
Jane: Adventurer,
Boston Jane: Wilderness Days, and
Boston Jane: The Claim.
The story
of a
blossoming New England girl who
must
surrender etiquette
in order
to survive
in the
West.
Hughes, Dean. Soldier Boys. Two
boys, one German and
one
American, are eager to
join their respective armies
during WWII, but the
realities of war come to a
head when they cross paths
at the
Battle of Bulge.
Ketchum, Liza. Where the Great
Hawk Flies. Years
after a violent New England
raid by the Redcoats and
their Revolutionary
War Indian
allies, two families, one
that suffered
during that raid and one
with an Indian mother and Patriot
father, become neighbors and must
deal with
past trauma and prejudices before
they can help each other in
the present.
Based on
the author’s
family
history
Lawrence, Iain. Lord of
the Nutcracker
Men. During World
War I
an English
boy comes
to believe
that the battles he enacts with
his toy
soldiers control
the war
his
father is fighting on the
front.
Leeds, Constance. The
Silver Cup. In 1096, Anna,
a German Catholic
girl, and
Leah, a German Jewish girl, strike
up a
remarkable friendship
and make surprising discoveries about each
other.
Lester, Jules. Pharaoh’s
Daughter: A Novel of
Ancient Egypt. A fictionalized account
of the
Biblical tale
in which a Hebrew
infant, rescued by the daughter of
the Pharaoh,
passes through a turbulent adolescence
to eventually become
a prophet
of his
people while his sister
finds
her true
self as a priestess to
the Egyptian
gods
* Indicates titles
recommended for older
readers
(7th and 8th grade)
McGraw, Eloise. Mara, Daughter
of the
Nile.
This book
tells the adventures
of an
ingenious Egyptian slave girl who undertakes a
dangerous assignment as a
spy in the
royal palace of Thebes,
in the
days when Queen Hatshepsut ruled.
Napoli, Donna Jo Daughter of
Venice. Frustrated with the restrictions her gender imposes on
her life,
fourteen-year-old Donata, disguised as
a boy, sneaks
out
of her noble family’s house
to roam
the streets
of late sixteenth-century Venice and
then must confront the
repercussions of her actions. Also,
The Smile.
Paterson, Katherine. Bread and Roses,
Too. Jake
and Rosa,
two children, form an
unlikely friendship as they try
to survive
and understand
the 1912
Bread and Roses strike
of mill
workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts.
Paterson, Katherine. Lyddie. An impoverished Vermont farm girl, Lyddie
Worthen, is determined to
gain her independence by becoming a factory worker
in Lowell,
Massachusetts in the 1840s.
Peck, Richard. The Teacher’s
Funeral: A Comedy
in
Three Parts. In rural Indiana
in 1904,
fifteen-year-old Russell's dreams of
quitting school and joining a
wheat threshing crew are
disrupted when his older sister
takes over the teaching
at his
one-room schoolhouse after mean,
old Myrt Arbuckle
"hauls off and dies."
*Rinaldi, Ann. The Color
of Fire.
Someone is setting fires in
New York City ...
In 1741, America
is at
war with Catholic Spain. Phoebe
watches
as her
town
erupts into
mass hysteria when the whites in
New York
City accuse the black slaves of
planning an uprising. With
people implicating each
other at every turn, Phoebe has to
decide
if she’s
willing to save her friend
Cuffee from
execution, or if her own
conscience and quest for
freedom will be singed
by her
indiscretions.
Slade, Arthur. Dust. Eleven-year-old Robert is the only
one who
can help when
a mysterious
stranger arrives, performing
tricks and promising to
bring rain, at the
same time children begin
to disappear from
a dust bowl farm town
in Saskatchewan
in the
1930s.
Sutcliff, Rosemary. The Eagle of
the Ninth. A
young centurion ventures among
the hostile
tribes
beyond
the Roman Wall to recover the
eagle standard of the Ninth, a
legion which mysteriously disappeared
under his father's command.
*Taylor, Mildred. The Land. After
the Civil
War Paul,
the
son of a white father
and a
black mother, finds himself caught
between the two worlds of
colored
folks and white folks
as he
pursues his dream of owning
land of his own.
Turnbull, Ann. Maroo
of the Winter
Caves.
Maroo, a
girl of the late Ice
Age,
must take charge after her
father is killed,
and lead
her little brother,
mother,
and aged
grandmother to the safety
of the winter
camp
before the first blizzards strike.
REALISTIC FICTION
Abrahams, Peter.
Down the Rabbit Hole:
an
Echo Falls mystery.
Like her idol Sherlock
Holmes,
eighth grader Ingrid Levin-Hill uses her
intellect to solve a
murder case in her hometown of
Echo Falls.
*Alexie, Sherman. The
Absolutely True
Diary of a Part-Time
Indian. Budding cartoonist
Junior leaves his troubled school on the Spokane Indian Reservation
to attend an
all-white farm town school where
the only other Indian is the
school mascot.
Bang, Molly. Tigers Falling.
After eleven-year-old
Lupe is partially paralyzed in
an accident in
her Mexican
village, other handicapped
people
help
her realize
that her life can still
have
purpose.
Birdsall, Jeanne. The Penderwicks:
A Summer Tale
of Four
Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting
Boy. While vacationing with
their
widowed
father
in the
Berkshire
Mountains, four lovable sisters,
ages four
* Indicates titles
recommended for older
readers
(7th and 8th grade)
through twelve, share adventures
with a local boy, much to
the dismay
of his
snobbish mother.
Sequel: The
Penderwicks on Gardam Street.
Bloor, Edward. Tangerine.
Twelve-year-old Paul, who lives
in the
shadow of his football hero
brother Erik, fights for the right
to play
soccer despite his near blindness
and
slowly begins to remember the incident
that
damaged his eyesight.
Brooke, Peggy. Jake’s
Orphan. When
taken from an orphanage
to work
on a
farm
in North
Dakota in 1926, twelve-year-old
Tree searches for a home
not
only for himself
but also
for his
irrepressible younger
brother, Acorn.
Cabot, Meg. All
American
Girl. A sophomore girl stops
a presidential assassination
attempt, is appointed
Teen Ambassador to
the United
Nations, and catches
the eye
of the
very cute First Son.
*Dessen, Sarah. Keeping
the Moon.
Fifteen-year-old Colie, a
former fat girl,
spends the summer working as a waitress
in a
beachside restaurant, staying
with her overweight and
eccentric Aunt Mira, and
trying to explore her
sense of self.
*Draper, Sharon. Battle of
Jericho
(Coretta Scott King
Honor Award). A
high school junior and his
cousin suffer the ramifications of hazing
when they join
what seems to be a "reputable" school club.
Feinstein, John. Last Shot: a Final Four
Mystery. After winning a
basketball reporting contest,
eighth graders Stevie and Susan
Carol are sent to cover
the Final
Four tournament, where
they discover that a talented
player is being blackmailed
into
throwing the final game.
Fleischman, Paul. Seek Rob
becomes obsessed with
searching the airwaves for
his long-gone
father, a radio announcer.
Hiaasen, Carl. Flush. With
their father jailed for
sinking a river
boat, Noah Underwood and
his younger
sister, Abbey, must
gather evidence that
the
owner of this floating casino is
emptying
his
bilge tanks into the protected waters around
their Florida Keys home.
Hiaasen, Carl. Hoot (Newbery Honor
Book). Roy,
who is
new to
his small Florida
community,
becomes involved in another
boy's attempt to save
a colony
of
burrowing owls
from a proposed construction
site.
Huser, Glen. Stitches.
Travis lives in a trailer park
outside a small prairie
town with his aunt, uncle,
and a
pack of rowdy little
cousins. His mother, a country-and-western
singer, is on the road a
lot; his father is long gone.
He knows
he's different from his
junior high classmates in other ways;
he loves
to sew,
play with puppets, and become a
professional puppeteer. These interests
make Travis a target the
school bullies.
Koss, Amy Goldman. The Cheat. When
Sarah gets her hands on
the
answers to the
eighth-grade geography midterm and decides
to share them
with some other students,
the consequences
are far-ranging.
Lowry, Lois. Silent
Boy. Katy, the
ten-year-old daughter of the
town doctor, befriends
a mentally
handicapped boy.
Lupica, Mike. Travel Team. After
he is
cut from
his travel
basketball team--the very same team
that his father once led to
national prominence--twelve-year-old
Danny
Walker forms
his
own team of cast-offs that
might have a shot at victory.
Sequel is Summer Ball.
*Mikaelson, Ben. Touching
Spirit Bear. 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.
* Indicates titles
recommended for older
readers
(7th and 8th grade)
*Murdock, Catherine Gilbert. Dairy
Queen. After spending
her summer running the
family farm and training
the quarterback
for her
school’s rival football team, sixteen-year-old
D.J. decides to go out
for the
sport herself, not anticipating the reactions
of those
around her.
Ritter, John. The Boy
Who Saved
Baseball. The fate
of a
small
California town rests on the
outcome of one baseball game, and Tom
Gallagher hopes to lead
his team to
victory with the secrets of
the now
disgraced player, Dante Del Gato.
*Sones, Sonya. What My Mother
Doesn’t Know. Over Christmas vacation, while
all of
her friends
are away,
Sophie develops a relationship with
Murphy, one of the class nerds. When her
friends arrive back
in town,
she if forced to decide if
she will reveal her relationship with Murphy
to them. Also try
Stop Pretending.
Spinelli, Jerry. Stargirl. In this story
about the perils of popularity,
the courage of
nonconformity, and the thrill of
first love, an eccentric student
named Stargirl
changes Mica High
School forever.
Stauffacher, Sue. Harry Sue. Although tough-talking Harry Sue
would like to start a life of
crime in order
to be "sent up" and
find her incarcerated
mother, she must first protect the
children at her neglectful grandmother’s home
day care
center and befriend a paralyzed boy.
Deborah Wiles. Each Little Bird That Sings. Comfort Snowberger
is well
acquainted with death
since her family runs the funeral
parlor in their small southern
town, but
even so the ten-year-old is unprepared for the series
of heart-wrenching
events that begins on the
first day
of Easter
vacation with the sudden
death of her beloved great-uncle
Edisto.
QUICK READS
Brooke, Lauren. Coming
Home
(book #1 Heartland series). Heartland
is a
horse farm with the
special mission of
healing abused or neglected horses
and
finding them new
homes. Fifteen-year-old Amy
works alongside her talented
mother, a gifted horse trainer who
uses
techniques to heal these
damaged
horses.
Bunting, Eve. Summer of
Riley. Shortly after
he gets
Riley, the dog he’s been
longing for, eleven-year-old
William must fight for
the dog’s
life after he is taken
away.
Cabot, Meg. Princess Diaries series.
Fourteen-year-old Mia, who
is trying
to lead
a normal
life as a teenage girl in New York City,
is shocked
to learn
that her father is
the Prince
of Genovia,
a small European
principality, and that she
is a
princess and the heir to
the throne.
Clements, Andrew. A
Week in the Woods. The fifth
grade's annual camping
trip in the woods tests
Mark's survival skills
and his
ability
to relate
to a
teacher who
seems
out to
get him. Also try The
Report Card, Janitor’s Boy, Frindle,
Landry News, No Talking.
Curtis, Christopher. The Watson’s
Go to
Birmingham. The
ordinary interactions and everyday
routines of the Watsons, an African American family living
in Flint, Michigan,
are drastically
changed after they go to visit
Grandma in Alabama
in the summer
of
1963. Also try Bud,
Not Buddy.
DiCaMillo, Kate. Because
of Winn
Dixie.
Ten-year-old India Opal Buloni
describes her first summer
in the town of Naomi, Florida,
and all the
good things that happen to
her
because of her
big
ugly dog, Winn- Dixie.
Fletcher, Ralph. Flying Solo. After
a substitute
fails to show up, a group of sixth
grade classmates decide to
run the class on
their own.
Going, K.L. The Liberation
of Gabriel King. In Georgia during
the summer
of 1976,
Gabriel, a white boy who is
being bullied, and Frita,
an African
American
girl
who is
facing prejudice, decide to
overcome their many fears together
as they
enter fifth grade.
* Indicates titles
recommended for older
readers
(7th and 8th grade)
Gorman, Carol. Dork
on
the Run (sequel
to Dork in Disguise). Having reluctantly
agreed to run for sixth-
grade president, Jerry, who
has been trying
to
change his image as a
dork, finds
his opponent playing
dirty tricks on him. Also try
Dork in Disguise and A
Midsummer’s Night Dork.
Gutman, Dan. Babe and
Me.
With their ability to
travel through time using vintage
baseball cards, Joe
and his father have the opportunity to
find out whether Babe
Ruth really did call
his shot
when he hit that homerun
in the
third game of the 1932
World Series against the
Chicago Cubs. Also
try Jackie and Me, Honus and Me, and
Shoeless Joe and Me., The Homework
Machine, and Getting
Air.
Holt, Kimberly Willis.
My Louisiana
Sky. Tiger
Ann struggles with her feelings about
her
stern but loving grandmother, her mentally
slow parents, and her good
friend and neighbor, Jesse.
Hunt, Irene. The
Lottery Rose. A young victim
of child
abuse gradually overcomes his
fears and suspicions when placed
in a
home
with other boys.
Hurwitz, Johanna. One Small Dog. Curtis
gets a dog when his
parents divorce, but his
beloved
new dog
causes problems
that he did not expect.
Korman, Gordon. Shipwreck (book #1
of the
Island series). Six
adolescents are stuck in
the middle
of the
Pacific Ocean on a boat. When a
terrifying storm hits, they
must fight to survive.
Mazer, Ann. Every
Cloud Has a Silver Lining. Told
through prose, journal entries, and
drawings, the story follows Abby
as she
tries to make her mark
in school. Try other titles in
The Amazing Days of Abby Hayes
series.
Mazer, Harry. A
Boy at
War:
A Novel of Pearl
Harbor. While
fishing with his friends
off
Honolulu on December 7, 1941, teenaged Adam
is caught
in the
midst of
the Japanese
attack and through the chaos
of the
subsequent days tries to
find his father, a naval officer who
was
serving on the U.S.S. Arizona
when the bombs fell.
Naylor, Phyllis
Reynolds. Including Alice. Fifteen-year-old
Alice finds it hard
to adjust
to
the changes in her life when
her father
gets married and
her brother moves to
his own
apartment. Also
try other
titles in the Alice series.
Naylor, Phyllis Reynolds.
Bernie Magruder & The
Bats in the Belfry. Many residents of Middleburg, Indiana, are already going crazy
from
the ever-ringing
church bells
and now,
after a bat is spotted
in the
hotel
run by Bernie’s family, they worry
that the dangerous
Indiana Aztec bat has finally
arrived.
O’Connor, Barbara. How to
Steal a Dog. Living in the
family
car in
their small
North Carolina town after their father leaves them
virtually penniless, Georgina, desperate
to improve
their situation and unwilling to
accept her overworked mother’s calls for
patience, persuades
her younger
brother
to
help her in an elaborate
scheme to get money by stealing
a dog
and
then claiming the reward that
the owners
are bound
to offer.
O’Dell, Kathleen, Agnes Parker
-
Keeping Cool in the
Middle School. Agnes Parker
tries to maintain her old
persona and keep a
low profile in
middle school, but her
best friend Prejean’s problems, persistent
harassment from the
eighth-grade boys, and a friendship with an
interesting boy in her art class
make it difficult.
Paulsen, Gary. Lawn
Boy.
Things get out
of
hand for a twelve-year-old boy
when a neighbor convinces him
to expand his summer lawn mowing
business.
Peck,
Robert Newton. A Year Down
Yonder. During the
recession of 1937, fifteen-year-old
Mary Alice is sent to live
with her feisty, larger-than-life grandmother
in rural
Illinois and comes
to a
better understanding of this
fearsome woman. Also
try the
sequel Long Way From
Chicago.
* Indicates titles
recommended for older
readers
(7th and 8th grade)
Deborah Wiles,
Love, Ruby Lavender. When her
quirky grandmother goes to
Hawaii for the summer, nine- year-old Ruby learns to survive
on her
own in Mississippi by writing
letters, befriending chickens as well
as the
new girl in town,
and finally
coping
with her grandfather’s death.
MULTICULTURAL
Abraham, Susan Gonzales. Cecilia’s Year.
Nearly fourteen
and poor,
Ceclia Gonzales wants desperately to go to high school and
become a teacher until her mother’s
old-fashioned ideas about a woman’s
place threaten her dreams.
Alvarez, Julia. How Tia Lola