Grand
Ave. and Merrick Ave. Middle Schools
2009 Middle School Summer Reading List:
*
indicates books that are more challenging reading
**-Grand Avenue only
***-Merrick Avenue only
What should I
read next?
Bell,
William. Zack. c1999. Fiction
The son of a Jewish father and black mother, high school senior Zack has never been allowed to meet his mother's family, but after doing a research project on a former slave, he travels from his home in Canada to Natchez, Mississippi to find his grandfather and to connect with his past.
N.Y.P.L. Books for the Teen Age
Reviews from Amazon.com
Blume,
Judy. Are you There God?
It's Me, Margaret. First Published 1970 Fiction
Faced with the difficulties of growing up and choosing a religion, a twelve-year-old girl talks over her problems with her own private God.
Reviews from Amazon.com
Colfer,
Eoin. Artemis Fowl.(Artemis Fowl - Book 1)c2001Fantasy/Science fiction
Artemis Fowl is a twelve-year-old genius and heir to the Fowl Empire. When his family experiences hard times Artemis sets about masterminding a plot to win fame and restore his family's fortune. Artemis's world is full of zany characters, wild adventures and mystical creatures.
N.Y.P.L. Books for the Teen Age
Reviews from Amazon.com
ALA's Best Books for Young Adults
Outstanding Books for the College Bound
Crutcher,
Chris. Ironman. c1995 Fiction
A domineering, sadistic father works hard to make a "man" of seventeen-year-old Bo but instead turns him into a young man who resists any and all authority. While training for a triathlon, Bo is forced to attend an anger management group at school after he is thrown off the football team for run-ins with his English teacher and football coach. The classes lead him to examine his relationship with his father.
N.Y.P.L. Books for the Teen Age
Reviews from Amazon.com
Crutcher,
Chris. Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes. c1993 Fiction
A social outcast in junior high school due to his excessive weight, narrator Eric Calhoune finds a kindred spirit in Sarah Byrnes, whose face and hands were hideously disfigured in childhood. Their friendship is threatened when Eric begins to lose weight. Sarah escapes from her tortured world by becoming mute. The two misfits become close as they help each other through the pain of past memories.
ALA Best Book for Young Adults
Reviews from Amazon.com
Duncan,
Lois. Don't Look Behind You.
c1989 Fiction, Mystery
Seventeen-year-old April finds her comfortable life changed forever when death threats to her father, a witness in a federal case, force her family to go into hiding under assumed names and flee the pursuit of a hired killer.
ALA Best Book for Young Adults
Reviews from Amazon.com
Fleischman,
Paul. The Borning Room. c1991
Historical Fiction
The small borning room of the Loft home is the scene of all the important events of family life, from birth through serious illness to death. Lying at the end of her life in the room where she was born in 1851, Georgina remembers what it was like to grow up on the Ohio frontier. She relates her life story to the artist who is completing her portrait so that even after death she will be remembered by later generations of her family.
1992 Golden Kite Award Honor Book for Fiction.
Reviews from Amazon.com
**Gantas,
Jack. Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key.
c1998 (Grand Ave. only)Fiction
Joey Pigza has trouble paying attention and controlling his mood swings especially after his medication wears off. He suffers from severe attention deficit disorder. His condition is not helped by the fact that he has been left to live with his abusive grandmother. Joey is suspended from school and is sent to a special education center.
ALA Best Book for Young Adults
George,
Jean Craighead. My Side of the
Mountain. originally published 1959.Fiction
A young boy relates his adventures during the year he spends living alone in the Catskill Mountains, including his struggle for survival, his dependence on nature, his animal friends, and his ultimate realization that he needs human companionship.
Newbery Medal/Honor 01/01/60
Reviews from Amazon.com
Hewett,
Lorri . Dancer. c1999Fiction
Stephanie has devoted her life to being the best dancer she can be. she hopes that her hard work will land her the lead as Princes Aurora in her ballet school's production of Sleeping Beauty. A young blue-eyed Russian girl enrolls in the school and turns out to be a better dancer than Stephanie. She wins the lead roll. This causes Stephanie to reconsider, whether as an African American, she has chosen the wrong career.
ALA Best Book for Young Adults
Books for the Teen Age (NYPL)
Reviews from Amazon.com
Hinton,
S.E. Rumble Fish. c1975Fiction
Rusty-James, a junior high school boy, idolizes his older brother, the coolest, toughest guy in the neighborhood. His main desire is to follow in the footsteps of his older brother and become a gang leader, but eventually an event occurs which he cannot handle.
An ALA Best Book for Young Adults,
School Library Journal Best Book of the Year
Kirkus Choice
Reviews from Amazon.com
Hinton,
S.E. That Was Then, This Is Now.
First Published 1971 Fiction
Sixteen-year-old Mark and Bryon have been like brothers since childhood, but now, as their involvement with girls, gangs, and drugs increases, their relationship seems to gradually disintegrate. When Bryon discovers that Mark is a drug pusher, he is faced with a difficult decision.
ALA Best Book for Young Adults
Reviews from Amazon.com
**Holt,
Kimberly Willis. When
Zachary Beaver Came to Town. c1999 (Grand Ave. only)Fiction
During the summer of 1971 in a small Texas town, thirteen-year-old Toby and his best friend Cal meet the star of a sideshow act, 600-pound Zachary, the fattest boy in the world. When Zachary's guardian and business partner disappears, leaving the teen alone, Toby and Cal befriend him. The boys learn about themselves and the true meaning of friendship.
1999 National Book Award For Young People's Literature
Reviews from Amazon.com
*Howe,
James. The Watcher. c1997Fiction
A lonely and troubled adolescent, Margaret, escapes into a fantasy world to relieve the pain of her abusive existence. Her fantasies are recorded in her journal. Chris and Evan, her summer beach friends, become an important part of her life.
ALA Best Book for Young Adults
N.Y.P.L. Books for the Teen Age
Reviews from Amazon.com
Jackson,
Livia. I Have Lived A Thousand Years:
Growing Up in the Holocaust. c1997 Autobiography, Nonfiction
Elli Friedmann, in her memoir, tells about her experiences at Auschwitz concentration camp where she was taken at the age of thirteen in 1944 when the Nazis invaded her native Hungary.
ALA Best Book for Young Adults
N.Y.P.L. Books for the Teen Age
Reviews from Amazon.com
Jones,
Ron. Acorn People. First published
1976
Nonfiction
A funny, tragic, and intensely hopeful true story of a group of handicapped
children and how they turn their summer camp into a learning and growing
experience.
Reviews
from Amazon.com
*
Levenkron, Steven. The
Best Little Girl in the World. First published 1978 Fiction
After being a model daughter all her life, fifteen-year-old Francesca suddenly begins to starve herself and is diagnosed as suffering from a psychological disorder known as anorexia nervosa. Francesca begins the battle of her life.
Reviews from Amazon.com
Lipsyte,
Robert. One Fat Summer. c1977 Fiction
Bobby Marks, an overweight fourteen-year-old boy, experiences a turning-point summer when he takes a summer job tending the grounds of the town miser. His new image bolsters his self esteem.
ALA Best of the Best Books (YA)
New York Times Outstanding Children's Book. Young Adult.
Reviews from Amazon.com
O'Brien,
Robert C. Z For Zachariah. c1974
Science Fiction
Told in diary form, this is a gripping story about the survivors of a nuclear holocaust. Seemingly the only person left alive after a nuclear war, a sixteen-year-old girl is relieved to see a man arrive in her valley until she realizes that he is a tyrant and she must somehow escape.
ALA Best Book for Young Adults
Reviews from Amazon.com
O'Dell,
Scott. Island of the Blue Dolphins.
c1960 Fiction, Adventure
Unintentionally left behind by members of her California Native American tribe, who fled a tragedy ridden island, young Karana spends eighteen years alone on an island off the coast of California. She survives on her courage and her self-reliance.
Newbery Medal 1961,
Children's Literature Association, One of the 10 best American children's books of the past 200 years.
Reviews from Amazon.com
Paulsen,
Gary. Canyons. c1990 Fiction, Adventure
Finding a skull on a camping trip in the canyons outside El Paso, Texas, Brennan becomes involved with the fate of a young Apache Indian, Coyote Runs, who lived in the late 1800s. A psychic link is forged between the Apache boy and Brennan. Brennan undertakes a grueling journey to help put Coyote Runs' spirit to rest.
Reviews from Amazon.com
Paulsen,
Gary. My Life in Dog Years.
c1998 Biography
The author describes how dogs have impacted his life from childhood through the present day, recounting the stories of his first dog, Snowball, in the Philippines; Dirk, who protected him from the bullies; and Cookie, who saved his life.
ALA Best Book for Young Adults
N.Y.P.L. Books for the Teen Age
Reviews from Amazon.com
*Peck,
Richard. A Long Way from Chicago:
A Novel in Stories. c1998Fiction
These seven stories tell of the seven summers that Joey and his sister Mary Alice spend with their no nonsense grandmother in rural Illinois during the Depression. As she interacts with the colorful characters of her small rural town, Grandma continually astonishes her grandchildren with her outrageous schemes and humorous antics.
ALA Best Book for Young Adults
Newbery Medal/Honor Book
Reviews from Amazon.com
Raskin,
Ellen Westing game. c1978 Fiction, Mystery
The mysterious death of eccentric millionaire, Sam Westing, brings together an unlikely assortment of heirs in the old "Westing house," who must uncover the circumstances of his death before they can claim their inheritance.
Newberry Honor Book
Reviews from Amazon.com
Spinelli,
Jerry. Crash. c1996 Fiction
Seventh-grader John "Crash" Coogan has always been comfortable with his tough, aggressive behavior, until his relationship with an unusual Quaker boy and his grandfather's stroke make him consider the meaning of friendship and the importance of family.
ALA Best Book for Young Adults
N.Y.P.L. Books for the Teen Age
Reviews from Amazon.com
*
Stevenson, Robert Louis. Kidnapped.
First published 1886 Historical Fiction, Adventure
Young David Balfour is an orphan, whose miserly uncle cheats him out of his inheritance and schemes to have him kidnapped, shanghaied, and sold into slavery.
Reviews from Amazon.com
*
Stevenson, Robert Louis. Treasure
Island. First published 1883.Fiction, Adventure
After finding a treasure map on a deceased guest, Jim Hawkins sets sail to find a pirate's treasure. Among the crew members are pirates also looking to discover the treasure.
Reviews from Amazon.com
Strasser,
Todd.Shark Bite. c1998 Fiction, Adventure
Ian and Talia are happy to accompany Stuart and his father on a sailing trip from Texas to Mexico. During a sudden storm, the mast snaps, the boat begins to sink, and Stuart's father is injured. Ian hurries to get everyone into the rubber raft before the sharks arrive. The biggest shark Ian has ever imagined is soon swimming near the raft; Ian fears that it could be the first of many.
Reviews from Amazon.com
*Verne,
Jules. 20,000 Leagues Under the
Sea. First Published in 1970 Science Fiction
Classic
A French scientist and his companions travel the seven seas in the mid 19th century as prisoners in Captain Nemo's mysterious electric submarine, the Nautilus.
Reviews from Amazon.com
***Wells,
H.G. War Of the Worlds. First
published in 1898 (Merrick Ave. only)Science Fiction
Classic
An intellectually superior race from Mars invades the Earth and with their superior weapons makes plans to enslave human beings.
Reviews from Amazon.com
Bellmore Memorial Library Merrick Public Library North Bellmore Public Library North Merrick Public Library
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