Summer Reading 2009

Summer 2009 Curriculum Based Required Summer Reading List

Each year the Middle School selects books for required summer reading. This year we have two categories of summer reading: the curriculum based books and the book group selection. Each grade level has two required curriculum books.

6th Grade
Stowaway by Karen Hesse
Feathers by Jacqueline Woodson

7th Grade
Blood on the River by Elisa Carbone
Misfits by James Howe

8th Grade
House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer
Trouble Don't Last by Shelley Pearsall

2009 Middle School Summer Reading - Book Group Selections

This year we are adding a book group selection to our summer reading. Each student will select a book from our list to read over the summer and will participate in a cross-grade level book group in the fall. Families are required to obtain their own copy of their child's selected book. We ask that each student select a book from the book group list and send back the form that follows. Knowing what books each child selects will help us in forming our book groups for the fall.

Along with the assigned grade level curricular books, each student is to choose one of the following environmentally themed books to read over the summer. When we return in the fall, we will discuss these books in multi-grade level book groups.

Each family will be responsible for purchasing the book group selection. The curriculum based summer reading books will be available through the MS front office or may be purchased independently. Students may also choose to borrow from their local library. Please return this sheet to your teacher by Monday, June 8.

Happy reading!

George, Jean Craighead - Charlie's Raven
When a Teton Sioux friend tells thirteen-year-old Charlie that ravens wield powerful medicine, he adopts a lively baby raven named Blue Sky in the hopes of speeding his grandfather’s recovery.

Hiaasen, Carl - Hoot
An ecological mystery; endangered miniature owls are being threatened by Mother Paula's All-American Pancake House and someone keeps sabotaging the construction site. Unlikely allies; the new kid, the tough kid and the truant are determined to beat the screwed-up adult system.

Goodall, Jane - My Life with the Chimpanzees
A natural scientist and an observer of animal behavior from a very young age, Jane Goodall revolutionized the way scientists study animal behavior. Armed with only secretarial qualifications and an invitation to visit a friend, Jane traveled to South Africa where she met Louis Leakey and began her 28 year jungle adventure observing its wildlife and the intelligent and personable chimpanzees.

Pfeffer, Susan Beth - Life as We Knew It
When an asteroid hits the moon, knocking it closer towards Earth, the result is cataclysmic natural disasters. Sixteen-year-old Miranda's journal entries provide a riveting account of how lack of information and resources, and, subsequently, loss of hope for the future shrink her world. Against mounting dismal conditions, her family's ability to draw together and find meaning in their altered lives is all the more triumphant.

Leopold, Aldo - A Sand County Almanac
Leopold's carefully rendered observations of nature convey the beauty of a marsh before sunrise as well as the wealth of history to be found in an ancient oak. See the rural Wisconsin landscape change from January through December through the eyes of a respected American naturalist. Watch a woodcock dance skyward in golden afternoon light or spy a rough-legged hawk dropping like a feathered bomb on its prey. An early environmentalist, Leopold opens our eyes to the value of the natural world.

Barron, T. A. - The Ancient One
Kate and her aunt are trying to save a stand of redwoods from loggers. Kate gets caught in a time slip, which takes her to the time of the ancient tribes that held the grove sacred. The present time and past fantasy are intertwined but not always successfully. Readers will get involved in Kate's quest, but there are times when the ecology message intrudes.

Larsen, Reif - The Selected Works of T. S. Spivet
A brilliant cartographer, T.S. classifies and categorizes everything in his path. But his most challenging task is to map out a route from his home in Montana to the Smithsonian Institute, where he's scheduled to accept an award for his scientific illustrations. So begins the cross-country, train-hopping, life-changing adventure of 12-year-old T.S. Spivet. Intent on crossing the country alone, he sneaks out of the house, catches a ride on a freight train, and brawls with some unsavory characters.