Summer  2010

Ravenscroft Middle School Library

Suggested SummerReading List

When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead

Twelve-year-old Miranda encounters shifting friendships, a sudden punch, a strange homeless man and mysterious notes that hint at knowledge of the future. These and other seemingly random events converge in a brilliantly constructed plot.

Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice by Phillip Hoose

Hoose reveals the true story of an unsung hero of the Montgomery bus boycott. Hoose’s work stands out for its creative approach to narrative biography. Colvin’s own recollections are merged seamlessly with the narrative voice, providing a uniquely personal view of Colvin and the Civil Rights Movement. 

The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly

On the eve of the 20th century, 11-year-old Calpurnia awakens to new possibilities, and through her evolving relationship with her naturalist grandfather, learns to think like a scientist. Kelly’s rich, evocative language captures Callie’s distinctive voice and lively observations of the natural world.

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin

A rich tapestry of stories, both original and traditional, transports readers to a fantastic world where Dragon joins Minli on a fortune-changing quest.

The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg by Rodman Philbrick

This rollicking yarn, presented through the voice of 12-year-old Homer, uses humor and pluck to mitigate the horrors of the Civil War.

The Story of the Dust Bowl
From School Library Journal
A well written and beautifully illustrated story of The Dust Bowl and the human suffering it caused is put into the larger context of the Great Depression. New Deal efforts to change farming practices and the implementation of conservation measures are also explained. The book closes with a warning about the worldwide dangers of overuse of land and expanding desertification.

Truce: The Day the Soldiers Stopped Fighting
From School Library Journal
Five months into World War I, troops all along the Western front put down their weapons and emerged from their cold, damp trenches for impromptu Christmas Day cease-fires and celebrations.

The Duel: The Parallel Lives of Alexander Hamilton & Aaron Burr
From School Library Journal
Early in the morning on June 11, 1804, Aaron Burr shot and killed Alexander Hamilton. Both men were prominent citizens of the infant United States of America–Burr, indeed, was the vice president–but while Hamilton was lionized, Burr was vilified for the rest of his life. Interestingly, this marked the parting of ways in two lives that were remarkably similar. Both men had been orphaned young; both were excellent, driven students; both men had served on the staff of General George Washington during the Revolutionary War; both were lawyers in New York City; and both were deeply involved in politics. In the course of 25 years, their life paths crossed time and again, culminating in a tragic duel, as senseless as it was damaging for both parties. -

Chasing Lincoln's Killer
From Booklist
Devoted to the South, John Wilkes Booth had planned to kidnap Lincoln and hold him hostage, but when that plan did not materialize, he hatched his assassination plot. Co-conspirators in Washington, Maryland, and Virginia helped him escape and evade capture for 12 days before being surrounded in a barn and killed. Readers will be engrossed by the almost hour-by-hour search and by the many people who encountered the killer as he tried to escape. It is a tale of intrigue and an engrossing mystery.

Written in Bone: Buried Lives of Jamestown and Colonial Maryland
From School Library Journal
Walker takes readers on an archaeological investigation of human and material remains from 17th- and 18th-century Jamestown and colonial Maryland, while addressing relevant topics in forensic anthropology, history, and archaeology. Written in Bone casts a magnifying glass on the hardships and realities of colonial life so often romanticized in American lore.

All the Broken Pieces
From School Library Journal
Grade 6-8—In 1977, 12-year-old Matt Pin lives a fractured life. He is the son of a Vietnamese woman and an American soldier and was airlifted to safety from the war zone. Adopted by a caring American couple, he has vivid and horrific memories of the war and worries about the fates of his mother and badly injured little brother. Matt's adoptive family adores him, and he is the star pitcher for his middle school baseball team, but there are those who see his face and blame him for the deaths of the young men they lost in the war.

The Compound
From School Library Journal
Grade 7 up—In a burst of panic about a nuclear attack, nine-year-old Eli, his sisters, and his parents move into an underground bunker built by Eli's billionaire father. It's an enormous complex, with rooms similar to those in the family's Seattle mansion. Only his grandmother and twin brother don't make it in. The first six years of the planned 15 have been fairly routine, but now some food has spoiled, and certain things just don't seem right, or even possible. Eli is starting to have doubts about his father's motives, explanations, and sanity. As the years pass, Eli is full of teen angst and anger that develops into a realization of what he must do in order to help his family survive. The novel becomes full of tension and suspense and turns into a true edge-of-the-seat thriller.

The Adoration of Jenna Fox
From School Library Journal
Grade 8 Up—Seventeen-year-old Jenna Fox awakens after more than a year in a coma to find herself in a life—and a body—that she doesn't quite recognize. Her parents tell her that she's been in an accident, but much of her past identity and current situation remain a mystery to her: Why has her family abruptly moved from Boston to California, leaving all of her personal belongings behind? Why does her grandmother react to her with such antipathy? Why have her parents instructed her to make sure not to tell anyone about the circumstances of their move? And why can Jenna recite whole passages of Thoreau's Walden, but remember next to nothing of her own past? As she watches family videos of her childhood, strange memories begin to surface, and she slowly realizes that a terrible secret is being kept from her.

The Great Wide Sea
From Booklist
Grades 6-10—Ben Byron, 15, is angry. Just two months after the death of his mother in a car accident, his dad, crushed by the loss of his wife, sells their house and small boat and uses the money to buy the Chrysalis, a 30-foot sailboat. He uproots Ben and two younger sons for a yearlong tour of the Bahamas. Life goes as smoothly as it can for a while, despite the tension, chores, and close quarters. But one morning everything changes—their father disappears. When the boat heads into a terrible storm, Ben must act.

Scat
From School Library Journal
Grade 5–8—Once again, Hiaasen has written an edge-of-the-seat eco-thriller. When their unpopular biology teacher goes missing in a suspicious fire during a field trip to the Black Vine Swamp, Nick and Marta don't buy the headmaster's excuse for her absence and decide to do some investigating of their own. Eco-avengers; an endangered, hunted panther; illegal pipelines in the Everglades; and an underachieving student with the nickname "Smoke" all play a part in this gripping novel.

The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate
From Booklist
Grades 5-8—Growing up with six brothers in rural Texas in 1899, 12-year-old Callie realizes that her aversion to needlework and cooking disappoints her mother. Still, she prefers to spend her time exploring the river, observing animals, and keeping notes on what she sees. Callie’s growing interest in nature creates a bond with her previously distant grandfather, an amateur naturalist of some distinction. After they discover an unknown species of vetch, he attempts to have it officially recognized. This process creates a dramatic focus for the novel, though really the main story here is Callie’s gradual self-discovery as revealed in her vivid first-person narrative. By the end, she is equally aware of her growing desire to become a scientist and of societal expectations that make her dream seem nearly impossible.

Alabama Moon
From Booklist
Grades 6-8—Fans of Gary Paulsen's Brian novels will enjoy this excellent novel of survival and adventure. The story begins with the death of young Moon's father, an antigovernment radical who has been living off the land in rural Alabama with Moon for years. Moon has never known any truth but his dad's, and so he tries to continue his father's lifestyle. After his father's death, Moon has many adventures in which authentic details about rural Alabama and survivalism abound.

Schooled
From Booklist
Starred Review - Homeschooled on an isolated "alternate farm commune" that has dwindled since the 1960s to 2 members, 13-year-old Cap has always lived with his grandmother, Rain. When she is hospitalized, Cap is taken in by a social worker and sent—like a lamb to slaughter—to middle school. Smart and capable, innocent and inexperienced (he learned to drive on the farm, but he has never watched television), long-haired Cap soon becomes the butt of pranks. He reacts in unexpected ways and, in the end, elevates those around him to higher ground.

The Death-Defying Pepper Roux
From Booklist
Grades 5-8. A young boy, in unspecified mid-twentieth century France, is told by his spiteful aunt that he’ll be dead by 14. So, hoping to outrun fate, Pepper Roux flees his unhappy home and embarks on a series of plucky misadventures in which he becomes, among other things, the captain of a ship, a deli-meat slicing would-be Cupid, a fact-shrugging journalist, and a reluctant legionnaire. Nearly every episode ends with Pepper scampering away not only from the death he thinks is nipping at his heels, but also all manner of incensed people, culminating in a hectic free-for-all that ties everything together in one charming, messy bow.

The Wednesday Wars
From Booklist
Starred Review - On Wednesday afternoons, while his Catholic and Jewish schoolmates attend religious instruction, Holling Hoodhood, the only Presbyterian in his seventh grade, is alone in the classroom with his teacher, Mrs. Baker, who Holling is convinced hates his guts. He feels more certain after Mrs. Baker assigns Shakespeare's plays for Holling to discuss during their shared afternoons. Each month in Holling's tumultuous seventh-grade year is a chapter in this quietly powerful coming-of-age novel set in suburban Long Island during the late '60s.

Flygirl
From School Library Journal
Grades 6-10—Readers first meet 18-year-old Ida Mae Jones, a Louisiana girl who longs to be a pilot, in December 1941, on the eve of America's entrance into World War II. She is pretty and smart, but she has two huge strikes against her. She is black in an America where racism holds sway, and a competent pilot in an America in which she is denied her license because she is a woman. Smith explores these two significant topics and does a wonderful job of melding the two themes in one novel. Ida Mae is a likable character who is torn by the need to pass for white and fake a license in order to fulfill her dream. Readers learn a great deal about what it must have been like to be African American in the South during this period, as well as about the Women Air force Service Pilots, WASP, a civilian group that performed jobs that freed male pilots for other things. The women's close friendships and the danger, excitement, and tragedy of their experience create a thrilling, but little-known story that begs to be told.

Westerfield, Scott

Leviathan
From Booklist
Grade 7 Up— In this alternative World War I history, the clankers, who put their faith in machines, clash with the Darwinists, who develop highly efficient new species to help them wage war. A sweeping adventure with nonstop action and engaging teen protagonists.

The Underneath

Kathi Appeit

Iron Thunder: The Battle Between The Monitor and the Merrimac

Avi

The Unknowns: A Mystery

Benedict Carey

Singer of All Songs

Kate Constable

Forged by Fire

Sharon Draper

The City of Ember

Jeanne DuPrau

Under a War-Torn Sky

Laura Elliot

The Thief Lord

Cornelia Funke

The Brooklyn Nine

Alan Gratz

Out of the Dust

Karen Hesse

The Outsiders

S.E. Hinton

Red Scarf Girl

Ji-Li Jiang

Heaven

Angela Johnson

Schooled

Gordon Korman

To Kill a Mockingbird

Harper Lee

Touching Spirit Bear

Ben Mikaelsen

My Dog Skip

Willie Morris

Here Lies the Librarian

Richard Peck

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Betty Smith

Milkweed

Jerry Spinelli

Truesight

David Stahler, Jr.

The Mysteriouos Benedict Society

Trenton Lee Stewart

The Land

Mildred D. Taylor

The Wierdo

Theodore Taylor

Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Journey to Change the World...One Child at a Time

Sarah L. Thomson

Surviving the Applewhites

Stephanie Tolan

Watership Down by Richard Adams
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Bette Smith
The Willoughbys by Lois Lowry

Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer

Scat by Carl Hiaasen 
The Underneath by Kathi Applet
The Maximum Ride series by James Patterson

The Compound by S.A. Bodeen
Alabama Moon by Watt Key
The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary Pearson

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
You Don’t Know Me by David Klass

Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury
Holes by Louis Sachar
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Anne of Green Gables series by Lucy Maud Montgomery

Ms. Bolz
French