Bellmore-Merrick CHSD
2011 Middle School Summer Reading List:
* indicates books that are more challenging reading
**-Grand Avenue only
***-Merrick Avenue only

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.
New York Public Library Books for the Teen Age

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.

Colfer, Eoin.  Artemis Fowl.(Artemis Fowl - Book 1)c2001
Fantasy/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

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

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

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

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.

**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

Hewett, Lorri . Dancer. c1999
Fiction
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)

Hinton, S.E. Rumble Fish. c1975. Fiction.
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

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

Holt, Kimberly Willis. When Zachary Beaver Came to Town.  c1999 Fiction (Grand Ave. only)
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 ForYoung People's Literature 

*Howe, James. The Watcher. c1997
Fiction
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

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

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.

*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.

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. 

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

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.

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.

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

*Peck, Richard. A Long Way from Chicago: A Novel in Stories. c1998
Fiction
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

Raskin, Ellen Westing game. c1978. Fiction, Mystery (Grand Ave. only)
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

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

*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. 

*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. 

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.

*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.

***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.