Entering Grade 8 Suggested Reading List

Transcription

8th
Blessed Sacrament School Grade Summer Reading 2015
10,000 Days of Thunder: a history of the Vietnam War (Caputo)
Genre: nonfiction Presents a collection of illustrated photographs and maps depicting the war in Vietnam from
its beginning under French control to the fall of Saigon in 1975, and contains accounts from
soldiers and civilians, profiles of those involved, and a look at the role of women on the battlefield.
!
The Accidental Genius of Weasel High (Detoire)
Genre: humorous, graphic novel
Larkin Pace desperately wants a new camcorder. How else is he going to become the next
great filmmaker? But his dad won't give him any money, his sister is determined to make
his life miserable, and his nemesis Dalton Cooke is trying to steal his girlfriend. Now this
height-challenged aspiring director must chronicle his wacky life for a freshman English assignment.
!
Air Raid—Pearl Harbor!: the story of December 7, 1941 (Taylor) Genre: nonfiction
The dramatic story of December 7, 1941, when the Japanese struck Pearl Harbor in a daring attack that took the entire world by surprise.
!
After Ever After (Sonnenblick)
Genre: realistic fiction
Jeff and Tad make a deal to help one another overcome aftereffects of their cancer treatments in preparation for eighth-grade graduation. But Jeff still craves advice from his older
brother Stephen, who is studying drums in Africa. Sequel to Drums, Girls, and Dangerous
Pie.
!
Airborn (Oppel)
Genre: fantasy !
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.
8th
Airman (Colfer)
Genre: historical fiction In the 1890s on an island off the Irish coast, Conor Broekhart is falsely imprisoned and
passes the solitary months by scratching designs of flying machines into the walls, including one for a glider with which he dreams of escape.
!
Bamboo People (Perkins)
Genre: survival 15-year-old Chiko wants to be a teacher, but is forced into military action by the Burmese
government. Tu Reh and his family are Burmese refugees who escaped to Thailand after
soldiers burned their home. The two boys must learn to trust each other if they want to survive. Half of the story is told from Chiko’s point of view, the other half from Tu Reh’s point of
view.
!
Beastly (Flinn)
Genre: fairy tale, fantasy A modern retelling of "Beauty and the Beast" from the point of view of the Beast, a vain
Manhattan private school student who is turned into a monster and must find true love before he can return to his human form. This book was made into a movie in 2011 starring
Alex Pettyfer, Vanessa Hudgens and Mary-Kate Olsen.
!
Box Out (Coy)
Genre: sports fiction
High school sophomore Liam jeopardizes his new position on the varsity basketball team
when he decides to take a stand against his coach who is leading prayers before games
and enforcing teamwide participation.
!
The Boy Who Dared (Bartoletti)
Genre: historical fiction In October, 1942, seventeen-year-old Helmuth Hübener, imprisoned for distributing antiNazi leaflets, recalls his past life and how he came to dedicate himself to bring the truth
about Hitler and the war to the German people.
!
Candy Bomber : the story of the Berlin Airlift's “Chocolate Pilot” (Tunnell) Genre: nonfiction !
Describes the efforts of US Air Force Lieutenant Gail Halvorsen to aid the children in Russian-blockaded West Berlin by dropping packages filled with candy from the air. Features
personal photographs, along with letters and drawings from the children of Berlin.
8th
Change-Up: Mystery at the World Series (and other Final 4 Mysteries by Feinstein)
Genre: sports, mystery While covering the World Series, teen reporters Stevie Thomas and Susan Carol uncover
some inconsistencies in the life story of a popular, new pitcher and begin to investigate.
!
Chew On This : everything you don't want to know about fast food (Schlosser)
Genre: nonfiction
A look at fast food, what's in it, how it's made, and what it does to our bodies.
!
Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice (Hoose)
Genre: biography Presents an account of fifteen-year-old Claudette Colvin, an African-American girl who refused to give up her seat to a white woman on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama,
nine months before Rosa Parks, and covers her role in a crucial civil rights case.
!
Code Orange (Cooney) Genre: realistic fiction, thriller
While conducting research for a school paper on smallpox, Mitty finds an envelope containing 100-year-old smallpox scabs and fears that he has infected himself and all of New York
City. Fast paced and exciting story.
!
Code Talker (Bruchac)
Genre: historical fiction !
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.
8th
Curveball: the year I lost my grip (Sonnenblick)
Genre: realistic fiction, sports After an injury ends former star pitcher Peter Friedman's athletic dreams, he concentrates
on photography which leads him to a girlfriend, new fame as a high school sports photographer, and a deeper relationship with the beloved grandfather who, when he realizes he is
becoming senile, gives Pete all of his professional camera gear.
!
Dairy Queen (Murdock) Genre: realistic fiction
When you don't talk, there's a lot of stuff that ends up not getting said. Harsh words indeed,
from Brian Nelson of all people. But, D. J. can't help admitting, maybe he's right. Stuff like
why her best friend, Amber, isn't so friendly anymore. Or why her little brother, Curtis, never
opens his mouth. Why her mom has two jobs and a big secret. Why her college-footballstar brothers won't even call home. Why her dad would go ballistic if she tried out for the
high school football team herself. And why Brian is so, so out of her league. When you don't
talk, there's a lot of stuff that ends up not getting said. Welcome to the summer that fifteenyear-old D. J. Schwenk learns to talk, and ends up having an awful lot of stuff to say.
The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin (Berk)
Genre: mystery When Will Halpin transfers from his all-deaf school into a mainstream Pennsylvania high
school, he faces discrimination and bullying, but still manages to solve a mystery surrounding the death of a popular football player in his class.
!
The Dark Game: True Spy Stories (Janeczko)
Genre: nonfiction From clothesline codes to surveillance satellites and cyber espionage, Paul B. Janeczko
uncovers two centuries' worth of true spy stories in U.S. history.
!
Death Cloud (Lane)
Genre: historical fiction, mystery !
In 1868, with his army officer father suddenly posted to India, and his mother mysteriously
"unwell," fourteen-year-old Sherlock Holmes is sent to stay with his eccentric uncle and
aunt in their vast house in Hampshire, where he uncovers his first murder and a diabolical
villain.
8th
Dicey’s Song (Voigt)
When Momma abandoned Dicey and her three siblings in a mall parking lot and was later
traced to an asylum, she left her four children no choice but to get on by themselves. They
set off alone on foot over hundreds of miles until they finally found someone to take them
in. Gram's rundown farm isn't perfect, but they can stay together as a family—which is all
Dicey really wanted. But after watching over the others for so long, it's hard for Dicey to
know what to do now. Her own identity has been so wrapped up in being the caretaker,
navigator, penny counter, and decision maker that she's not sure how to let go of some responsibilities while still keeping a sense of herself.
Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks (Lockhart)
Genre: realistic fiction Sophomore Frankie Landau-Banks attempts to take over a secret, all-male society at her
exclusive prep school by creating a fake online identity. She masterminds elaborate pranks,
with no one in the group (even her boyfriend) realizing who is behind them. Frankie is a
smart and spunky feminist who thinks it’s unfair that this society should exclude females.
!
Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie (Sonnenblick)
Genre: realistic fiction, humorous When his younger brother is diagnosed with leukemia, thirteen-year-old Steven tries to deal
with his complicated emotions, his school life, and his desire to support his family. Steven is
a great character whose storytelling is heartfelt yet hysterical. After Ever After is the sequel.
!
Eleven Seconds (Roy)
Genre: biography In this heartfelt testament to the power of love and the strength of the human spirit, Travis
Roy, who suffered a devastating injury eleven seconds into his first college hockey game,
reveals how he has managed to cope after the accident and, with the help of family and
friends, overcome tremendous barriers to begin a new life.
!
Far Far Away (McNeal)
Genre: fantasy !
When Jeremy Johnson Johnson's strange ability to speak to the ghost of Jacob Grimm
draws the interest of his classmate, Ginger Boltinghouse, the two find themselves at the
center of a series of disappearances in their hometown
8th
Flags of Our Fathers: heroes of Iwo Jima (Bradley)
Genre: nonfiction
James Bradley examines the lives of the six young men who raised the American flag over
Iwo Jima in February 1945 and were immortalized by a famous photograph--one of whom
was Bradley's father.
!
Flip (Bedford)
Genre: fantasy Sixteen-year-old Alex awakens to find that six months have gone by and he seems to be
living in another boy's body, and as Alex tries to figure out what happened, he wonders if he
will ever be able to return to the life he once knew.
!
Getting Away with Murder: the true story of the Emmett Till case (Crowe)
Genre: nonfiction Presents a true account of the murder of fourteen-year-old, Emmett Till, in Mississippi, in
1955.
!
The Girl Who Threw Butterflies (Cochrane)
Genre: sports, realistic fiction Eighth-grader Molly's ability to throw a knuckleball earns her a spot on the baseball team,
which not only helps her feel connected to her recently deceased father, who loved baseball, it helps in other aspects of her life as well.
!
Go Big or Go Home (Hobbs)
Genre: science fiction, sports Fourteen-year-old Brady and his cousin Quinn love extreme sports, but nothing could prepare them for the aftermath of Brady's close encounter with a meteorite after it crashes into
his Black Hills, South Dakota, bedroom.
!
!
Good Brother, Bad Brother: The Story of Edwin Booth & John Wilkes Booth (Giblin)
Genre: nonfiction, biography Tells the life stories of nineteenth-century actor Edwin Booth and his actor brother John
Wilkes Booth, describing the differences between the two men, chronicling John's assassination of Abraham Lincoln, and examining the impact of John's crime on the Booth family
for decades afterward.
8th
The Great Molasses Flood: Boston 1919 (Kops)
Genre: nonfiction Primary sources and archival photographs help tell the true account of the 1919 molasses
tank explosion in Boston, Massachusetts.
!
Guts: the true stories behind Hatchet and the Brian books (Paulsen)
Genre: nonfiction, autobiography !
In Guts, Gary tells the real stories behind the Brian books, the stories of the adventures that
inspired him to write Brian Robeson's story: working as an emergency volunteer; the death
that inspired the pilot's death in Hatchet; plane crashes he has seen and near-misses of his
own. He describes how he made his own bows and arrows, and takes readers on his first
hunting trips, showing the wonder and solace of nature along with his hilarious mishaps and
mistakes.
Gym Candy (Deuker)
Genre: sports, realistic fiction Mick Johnson works hard for a placement on the varsity team during his freshman year,
and decides to use steroids in order to hold onto his edge, despite the consequences to his
health and social life.
!
Hana’s Suitcase: a true story (Levine)
Genre: nonfiction, biography This is the biography of a Czech girl who died in the Holocaust, but more than that it is also
the story of how the curator of a Japanese Holocaust center learned about Hana’s life after
Hana’s suitcase was sent to her. The story is told in alternating chapters.
!
Heist Society (Carter)
Genre: adventure Fifteen-year-old Kat schemes her way into the best boarding school, hoping to leave the
thieving antics of her family behind her, but Hal, a former co-conspirator, appears on campus to tell Kat that a powerful mobster believes her father stole art from a priceless collection, and in order to save him, Kat will have to recover the paintings.
!
!
Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler's Shadow (Bartoletti)
Genre: nonfiction A photo-illustrated look at the youth organizations Adolf Hitler founded and used to meet his
sociopolitical and military ends; includes profiles of individual Hitler Youth members as well
as young people who opposed the Nazis.
8th
The Hobbit, or, There and Back Again (Tolkien)
Genre: fantasy
The adventures of the well-to-do hobbit, Bilbo Baggins, who lived happily in his comfortable
home until a wandering wizard granted his wish.
Human.4 (Lancaster)
Genre: science fiction Twenty-first century fourteen-year-old Kyle was hypnotized when humanity was upgraded
to 1.0 and he, incompatible with the new technology, exposes its terrifying impact in a taperecording found by the superhumans of the future.
!
!
I Am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want to Be Your Class President (Lieb)
Genre: humorous Twelve-year-old evil genius, Oliver, uses his great brain to become the third richest person
in the world, and finds that overthrowing foreign dictators is easier than getting the kids in
his middle school to vote him class president. Oliver’s father is forever talking about his own
stint as class president, so (because he can’t stand his dad) Oliver decides to show his father he can do it too.
I am Malala (Young Readers Edition) (Yousafzai)
Genre: autobiography/memoir In this young readers edition of her best-selling memoir, Malala Yousafzai retells her experiences at home and at school and discusses the impact of the Taliban presence in Pakistan. Raised in a once-peaceful area of Pakistan transformed by terrorism, Malala was
taught to stand up for what she believes. So she fought for her right to be educated. And on
October 9, 2012, she nearly lost her life for the cause: She was shot point-blank while riding
the bus on her way home from school. No one expected her to survive.
Malala is an international symbol of peaceful protest and the youngest ever Nobel Peace
Prize winner. We hear firsthand the remarkable story of a girl who knew from a young age
that she wanted to change the world -- and did.
I’d Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You (Carter)
Genre: action/adventure, mystery
As a sophomore at a secret spy school and the daughter of a former CIA operative, Cammie is sheltered from "normal teenage life" until she meets a local boy while on a class surveillance mission. She thinks being a spy is easy—it’s learning how to be a regular girl that
is the tricky part.
8th
Lincoln’s Grave Robbers (Sheinkin)
Genre: nonfiction
An account of how counterfeiter Benjamin Boyd's gang stole the body of Abraham Lincoln
and demanded Boyd's release from jail and two hundred thousand dollars as ransom and
the efforts of the Secret Service to recover the remains.
Matched (and others in series by Condie)
Genre: fantasy, dystopia
Cassia has always had complete trust in the Society to make decisions for her, but when
she is being paired with her ideal mate, a second face flashes on the screen, and Cassia
begins to doubt the Society's infallibility as she tries to decide which man she truly loves.
!
Maze Runner (and others in series by Dashner)
Genre: science fiction, dystopia
!
Sixteen-year-old Thomas wakes up with no memory in the middle of a maze—all he knows
is his name. He's surrounded by strangers--boys whose memories are also gone. The
maze is always changing, and it’s the only way out--and no one's ever made it through
alive. Then a girl arrives. The first girl ever. And the message she delivers is terrifying: “Remember. Survive. Run.” The first book in a trilogy, it was also made into a movie.
Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac (Zevin)
After a nasty fall, Naomi realizes that she has no memory of the last four years of her life.
She learns her parents are divorced and is surprised she’s chosen hot shot tennis player
Ace as her boyfriend. Interesting concept for a story…if you could wipe the slate clean
would you make all the same choices?
!
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (Riggs)
Genre: fantasy
Sixteen-year-old Jacob, having traveled to a remote island after a family tragedy, discovers
an abandoned orphanage, and, after some investigating, he learns the children who lived
there may have been dangerous and quarantined and may also still be alive. Hollow City is
the second book in the series.
8th
Okay for Now (Schmidt)
Genre: realistic fiction Fourteen-year-old Doug Swieteck (From The Wednesday Wars) faces many challenges,
including an abusive father, a brother traumatized by Vietnam, suspicious teachers and police officers, and isolation, but when he meets a girl known as Lil Spicer, he develops a
close relationship with her and finds a safe place at the local library.
!
On the Devil's Court (Deuker)
Genre: sports, realistic fiction Struggling with his feelings of inadequacy and his failure to make the basketball team in his
new school, seventeen-year-old Joe Faust finds himself willing to trade his soul for one perfect season of basketball.
!
Perfect Once Removed: when baseball was all the world to me (Hoose) Genre: sports, biography
Phillip Hoose recalls growing up in Indiana and learning the game of baseball and discovering that his first cousin once removed is Don Larsen, a pitcher for the New York Yankees.
!
Phineas Gage: a gruesome but true story about brain science (Fleischman)
Genre: nonfiction The true story of Phineas Gage, whose brain had been pierced by an iron rod in 1848, and
who survived and became a case study in how the brain functions.
!
Players (Sweeney)
Genre: sports, realistic fiction, mystery
Corey is the captain of his high school basketball team, which is expected to win the city
finals that season. But when new kid Noah joins the team, everything starts to unravel.
Players get hurt or quit and the teammates start fighting, and Corey thinks Noah is trying to
tear the team apart so he can be the star. Or is he just being paranoid?
!
The Recruit (and others in CHERUB series by Muchamore)
Genre: adventure !
James becomes a part of the highly secretive organization, CHERUB, a group of teens
whose mission is to spy on terrorists and international drug dealers, hack into computers,
and download crucial information for the government.
8th
Revolution (Wiles)
Genre: historical fiction It's 1964 in Greenwood, Mississippi, and Sunny's town is being invaded by people from up
north who are coming to help people register to vote. Her personal life isn't much better, as
a new stepmother, brother, and sister are crowding into her life, giving her little room to
breathe
Rivalry, The: Mystery at the Army-Navy Game (and others in Final 4 Mysteries by Feinstein)
Genre: sports, mystery !
Teen sportswriters Stevie Thomas and Susan Carol Anderson are assigned to cover the
football game between long time rivalries Army and Navy, and, after noticing the actions of
secret service agents, they begin to suspect that the president, who is going to attend the
event, is in danger.
The Ruins of Gorlan (Ranger’s Apprentice series by Flanagan)
Genre: fantasy
When fifteen-year-old Will is rejected by battle school, he becomes the reluctant apprentice
to the mysterious Ranger Halt, and winds up protecting the kingdom from danger.
!
The Running Dream by (Van Draanen)
When a school bus accident leaves sixteen-year-old Jessica an amputee, she returns to
school with a prosthetic limb and her track team finds a wonderful way to help rekindle her
dream of running again.
!
Scared Stiff: everything you need to know about 50 famous phobias (Latta)
Genre: nonfiction
Human phobias are strange, diverse, and actually have the power to teach us a lot about
who we are and where we came from. And in this book, author Sarah Latta blends biology,
psychology, history, and pop culture to provide a comprehensive account of 50 essential
fears, from arachnophobia to zoophobia.
8th
Scorpio Races (Stiefvater)
Genre: fantasy
Nineteen-year-old returning champion Sean Kendrick competes against Puck Connolly, the
first girl ever to ride in the annual Scorpio Races, both trying to keep hold of their dangerous water horses long enough to make it to the finish line.
!
Shadowed Summer (Mitchell)
Genre: mystery, ghost story In the small town of Ondine, Louisiana, fourteen-year-old Iris uncovers family secrets when
she conjures up the ghost of a boy missing for decades and decides to solve the mystery of
his disappearance.
!
Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World : the Extraordinary True Story of Shackleton
and the Endurance (Armstrong)
Genre: nonfiction Describes the events of the 1914 Shackleton Antarctic expedition when, after being trapped
in a frozen sea for nine months, their ship, Endurance, was finally crushed, forcing Shackleton and his men to make a very long and perilous journey to reach inhabited land.
!
Small Steps: the year I got polio (Kehret)
Genre: autobiography
The author describes her battle with polio at age thirteen and her efforts to overcome its
debilitating effects.
!
Steve Jobs: the man who thought different (Blumenthal)
Genre: biography
Chronicles the life and accomplishments of Apple mogul Steve Jobs, discussing his ideas,
and describing how he has influenced life in the twenty-first century.
!
Temple Grandin: how the girl who loved cows, embraced autism and changed the
world (Montgomery)
Genre: biography !
Examines the life and accomplishments of Temple Grandin, whose childhood diagnosis of
autism and love of cows led her to revolutionize the livestock industry.
8th
Trapped: how the world rescued 33 miners from 2,000 feet below the Chilean desert
(Aronson)
Genre: nonfiction Provides a detailed account of rescue efforts to save thirty-three miners, who got trapped in
a copper-gold mine in San Jose, Chile, examining the psychological, physical, and environmental factors influencing the course of the rescue, and describing the efforts of experts
from around the world--drillers, astronauts, submarine specialists, and others--came together in response to the crisis.
!
Truce: the day the soldiers stopped fighting (Murphy)
Genre: nonfiction Includes bibliographical references (p. 106-110), filmography (p. 110), and index. Tells the
story of the December 25, 1914 truce between German and British soldiers as they laid
down their weapons and met in No Man's Land to celebrate Christmas.
!
Uglies (and others in series by Westerfield)
Genre: science fiction Just before their sixteenth birthdays, when they will be transformed into beauties whose
only job is to have a great time, Tally's best friend runs away and Tally must find her and
turn her in, or never become pretty at all.
!
Warriors Don’t Cry (Beals)
Genre: nonfiction Beals chronicles her harrowing junior year at Central High where she underwent the segregationists' brutal organized campaign of terrorism, which included telephone threats, vigilante stalkers, economic blackmailers, rogue police, and much more.
!
We Beat the Street: how a friendship pact helped us succeed (Davis)
Genre: biography Shares anecdotes from the childhoods, teen years, and young adult lives of three men from
Newark, New Jersey, who made a pledge to each other in high school to stay safe from
drugs, gangs, and crime, and work to become doctors--a goal they have successfully
achieved.
!
!
We Were There, Too!: young people in U.S. history
Genre: nonfiction Draws from first-person accounts, journals, interviews and other primary sources to tell the
true stories of over seventy young people from a variety of cultures who played a role in the
making of the United States, including explorers, patriots, rebels, slaves, miners, and activists.
8th
When My Name Was Keoko (Park)
Genre: historical fiction With national pride and occasional fear, a brother and sister face the increasingly oppressive occupation of Korea by Japan during World War II, which threatens to suppress Korean culture entirely.
!
Woods Runner (Paulsen)
Genre: historical fiction
Samuel, 13, spends his days in the forest, hunting for food for his family. He has grown up
on the frontier of a British Colony, America. Far from any town, or news of the war against
the King that American patriots have begun near Boston. But the war comes to them.
British soldiers and Iroquois attack. Samuel’s parents are taken away as prisoners.
Samuel follows, hiding, moving silently, determined to find a way to rescue them. Will he
succeed?
Written in Bone : Buried Lives of Jamestown and Colonial Maryland (Walker)
Genre: nonfiction (anthropology) !
The author follows forensic archeologists as they study colonial-era burials in the Chesapeake Bay area. They combine trained observation, background knowledge, and scientific
expertise with detective skills to make surprising conclusions. They can determine what
these early settlers ate, where they came from and when, their age and sex, how they lived
and died--all from subtle clues in the bones, the teeth, the surrounding dirt.
!
Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! : the Beatles, Beatlemania, and the music that changed the world
(Spitz)
Genre: nonfiction Spitz uses material from his adult biography to dramatically tell the story of the Fab Four,
from the day in 1957 when John met Paul to superstardom to the official breakup of the
band. Intimate black-and-white photos, quotes, and trivia contribute to a lively portrait of
what the Beatles, at their inception, really were--teenagers. A discography is included.

Entering Grade 8 Suggested Reading List

Transcription

Similar documents

pdf, 1.6mb

Newsletter

EFM 2014 Line-Up

Organized by - Panorama Of The European Festival

Argentina Brazil Chile Colombia Ecuador Mexico Peru Trinidad

view slides - Oakland University

English Language - South Nottinghamshire Academy

pdf: The Maze Runner Radio Talk

Marche du Film 2015 Line-Up