Sutton Middle School

2008-2009 Summer Reading List

 

 

*          = Moderate

**        = Challenging

***     = Difficult

 

 

 

 

Remember all students are required to read TWO selections.

 

8th Grade Summer Reading List

                  

 

Scorpions by Walter Dean Myers                  *                      (Realistic Fiction)  

Lately everybody's messing with Jamal. His teachers, the kids at school, even his dad. And now that Jamal's brother Randy's in the slammer, Crazy Mack has a crazy idea. He wants Jamal to take control of the Scorpions.  All the gang jive--Jamal has no use for it. Unless, like some say, it's the only way to cop the bread for Randy's appeal...  This is the story of twelve-year-old Jamal, whose life changes drastically when he acquires a gun. Though he survives the experience, it's not without sacrificing his innocence and possibly his relationship with his best friend.

 

The Year of the Hangman **                                (Historical/Fantasy)

By Gary Blackwood

It's 1777-the rebellious American colonies have been soundly defeated by the powerful British redcoats, and the imprisoned General Washington is to hang from the end of a gibbet. That's the situation that faces Creighton Brown, a seventeen-year-old Briton who is abducted and arrives in America with nothing but an attitude. Creighton comes to settle in the heart of the rebel stronghold-Benjamin Franklin's house, where the banned Liberty Tree is secretly published. Creighton is expected to spy for the British, but as he comes to know more patriots, he must consider "turning his coat" and joining the rebels. This provocative "alternate history" nearly jumps from the page with nonstop action, including a frigate battle, prison escape, arson, code-cracking, and a bona fide duel.

The Dream Keeper and Other Poems      *                      (Poetry)

by Langston Hughes

Hughes' classic poetry collection was originally published for young people in 1932. Black-and-white scratchboard illustrations express the emotion and beat of the poetry, the laughter that hides pain, the celebration and the struggle of the African American experience, and the music of the weary blues. The poems are as powerful today as they were 60 years ago, colloquial and direct yet mysterious and complex.

 

White Fang by Jack London ***                             (Fiction – Adventure)        

Even as a pup, he is different from his brothers: A large gray cub among a litter of red-haired puppies, with a quicker bite and heavier paw. When he leaves the protection of his snug cave, he and his mother are captured by the fire-making gods -- man-animals who live in teepees, and who determine that the pup is half-dog, half-wolf, and name him White Fang. White Fang finds himself relentlessly tormented by the tribe's domestic dogs, and quickly learns to surpass them in cunning and viciousness. His brutality is encouraged even further when he is sold to a sadistic man who takes advantage of the dog's massive size and tremendous strength to pit him in to-the-death dogfights. White Fang is driven near mad, until a young man comes along who offers him kindness and friendship. But friendship is something White Fang doesn't understand...yet.

Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card         ***              (Science Fiction)

In order to develop a secure defense against a hostile alien race's next attack, government agencies breed child geniuses and train them as soldiers. A brilliant young boy, Andrew "Ender" Wiggin lives with his kind but distant parents, his sadistic brother Peter, and the person he loves more than anyone else, his sister Valentine. Young Ender Wiggin is drafted to the orbiting Battle School for rigorous military training.  Ender's skills make him a leader in school and respected in the Battle Room, where children play at mock battles in zero gravity. Ender suffers greatly from isolation, rivalry from his peers, pressure from the adult teachers, and an unsettling fear of the alien invaders.

Is Ender the general Earth needs? But Ender is not the only result of the genetic experiments. The war with the Buggers has been raging for a hundred years, and the quest for the perfect general has been underway for almost as long. Ender's two older siblings are every bit as unusual as he is, but in very different ways. Between the three of them lie the abilities to remake a world. If, that is, the world survives.

 

The Fifth of March by Anne Rinaldi  **                    (Historical Fiction)             

Historical events aren't as neat and tidy as they appear in history books, nor are they dissimilar from modern happenings, as Rinaldi ably demonstrates in this tale told by a young servant in colonial Boston. Rachel is 14, bound as a nursemaid to the children of John and Abigail Adams, at whose house she sees many of the town's "movers and shakers.” When British troops are sent to Boston to keep order, Rachel--despite her increasingly anti-Royalist sentiments--takes pity on Matthew Kilroy, the young sentry posted at the Adams’s door. Their relationship gradually blossoms, but Rachel, who has embarked on an ambitious program to educate herself and who rightly fears "getting into circumstances," refuses to demonstrate her affection in more than verbal terms. Lonely, frustrated, underpaid and reviled by the citizenry he was sent to protect, Matthew explodes during a riot on March 5, 1770, after which he and his fellows are tried for murder and manslaughter in the deaths of five colonialists. How Rachel acts according to her newly awakened social conscience and sense of self-worth makes for engrossing and educational reading.

 

My Thirteenth Winter by Samantha Abeel   **              (Memoir/Math)

Samantha Abeel tells her own story of living with and overcoming dyscalculia. She describes in painstaking detail how her life was affected by her learning disability before and after she was diagnosed, and the way her peers, her family, and her teachers treated her. In seventh grade, Samantha suffered anxiety attacks as she struggled to keep up in her classes, to remember two locker combinations, and to deal with new teachers. Samantha was eventually placed in Special Education classes in eighth grade, but she continued to feel anxious about her future.

 

Stop Pretending by Sonya Sones   **                         (Memoir/Poetry)              

The subtitle of Stop Pretending says it all: "What Happened When My Big Sister Went Crazy." In a sequence of short, intense poems based on the author's own experiences, a 13-year-old girl suffers through her shifting feelings about her sibling's mental illness. She recalls the terror of the Christmas Eve when Sister was suddenly transformed into a stranger; the horror of visiting Sister in the hospital and finding her rocking on all fours; the fear that her friends will find out; her own worry that she, too, may lose her mind; and her wistful memories of Sister as she was before. More complex emotions are also explored, such as her irrational suspicion that Sister may be deliberately acting crazy, as poignantly expressed in the title poem: "Stop pretending./ Right this minute./ Don't you tell me/ you don't know me./ Stop this crazy act/ and show me/ that you haven't changed./ Stop pretending/ you're deranged." Gradually, as Sister begins to recover, the girl is able to find hope and again take pleasure in her own life.

 

Define Normal by Julie Anne Peters  **                                 (fiction)

Antonia Dillon, a driven honor student at Oberon Middle School, is not surprised when she is asked to become a peer counselor. It's just another honor to add to her resume. But her first counseling session is pure culture shock--Antonia has been paired with the notorious Jasmine "Jazz" Luther, a punk with an incredible attitude who uses black lipstick and is into body piercing and tattoos. As the two girls reluctantly continue their sessions, a strange, tentative friendship develops, with each girl gradually revealing more and more about her troubled life. Antonia admits that her divorced mother is deeply depressed and unable to work or care for her family; Jazz talks about her controlling, materialistic yuppie parents and their expectations. As secret after secret is exchanged, it becomes obvious that the "priss" and the punk are made to be best friends. The only question that remains is will the world accept their friendship?

 

 

Rag and Bone Shop by Robert Cormier     ***              (Fiction – Mystery)

Twelve-year old Jason is accused of the brutal murder of a young girl. Is he innocent or guilty? The shocked town calls on an interrogator with a stellar reputation: he always gets a confession. The confrontation between Jason and his interrogator forms the chilling climax of this terrifying look at what can happen when the pursuit of justice becomes a personal crusade for victory at any cost.

 

 

Sledding Hill by Chris Crutcher      ***                       (Fiction)

Eddie Proffit looses his Dad and best friend to violent accidents in the opening pages of this novel. Eddie’s story is narrated by the dead friend, Billy, who, if not in Heaven, is in a very good place—free of pain and full of neat tricks to employ during his ghostly mission to help Eddie overcome sadness so deep he has stopped speaking. The exploration of death and of being silenced by grief takes a hairpin turn when book banning—a very different type of silencing—becomes the focus of the novel's second half. Eddie's elective silence has his mother's minister, Sanford Tarter, convinced he needs to be baptized. Tarter also teaches English at the high school.  Eddie, however is not in Tarter’s ELA class; he is instead enrolled in a class called Really Modern Literature, run by a librarian who prefers "books by authors who are still alive." She requires everyone read Warren Peece by the "relatively obscure" author Chris Crutcher. Naturally, this "good book with bad words" condemns Tarter, who incites a crusade to rid the library of all Crutcher's "irrelevant and only marginally well written" books.  As the book winds to its climax, Eddie resolves his problems both with censored books and the death of his friend and father in a triumphant and satisfying conclusion.