Mid-Summer Sequels (2020)

Heads up, summer is about halfway through!

Looking for more books to read? Here are some suggested book lists for Grades 6-8.

Scholastic Summer Challenge

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Summer Sequels!
Did you enjoy the book you chose for the summer reading project?
Lots of our summer reading choices have a sequel. If you enjoyed the book you read, give the sequel a try!

 If you read

Eleven

Try

Nine, Ten

 Amazon

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If you read

Once
(Book 1)

Try the rest of the series!

                             Then                              Now

                          (Book 2)                        (Book 3)                

                                                     

Amazon

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If you read

The Crossover

Try

Booked
(Not a Sequel, but written in the same way)

Amazon

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If you read
The Unwanteds 
(Book 1)

Try the rest of the series!

    Island of Silence            Island of Fire          Island of Legends

          (Book 2)                       (Book 3)                     (Book 4)

                                                      

Island of Shipwrecks        Island of Graves     Island of Dragons

         (Book 5)                        (Book 6)                    (Book 7)

                                                      

    Amazon

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If you read

The Alchemyst 
The Secrets of the Immortal Life of Nicholas Flammel 
(Book 1)

Try the rest of the series!

 The Magician                  The Sorceress             The Necromancer

   (Book 2)                          (Book 3)                          (Book 4)

                                                          

                     The Warlock                    The Enchantress             

                       (Book 5)                               (Book 6)

                                                                  

Amazon

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If you read

Keeper of the Lost Cities
(Book 1)

Try the rest of the series!

Amazon

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If you read
Al Capone Does My Shirts
(Book 1)

Try the rest of the series!

Al Capone Shines My Shoes           Al Capone Does My Homework

            (Book 2)                                                (Book 3)

                                                                      

Amazon

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If you read

Counting By 7s

Try reading these books with similar themes (not sequels)

                       Out of My Mind                Fish in a Tree 

                                          

                             Amazon                                Amazon

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If you read

My Name is Malala

Try reading this book with a similar theme (not a sequel)

Three Cups of Tea                                               We Are Displaced

(The Young Reader's Edition)

   

Amazon

Amazon

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Information for Parent of Students Going into 1st through 5th grade(2020)

This summer, help your child fall in love with reading!

Reading is EVERYWHERE! This summer students going into 1st to 5th Grade have the opportunity to participate in Merchantville School's SUMMER READING CHALLENGE! 

Each student going into 1st to 5th was given a Summer Reading Tracker along with a list of "reading challenges" they can use for ideas to growth their love of reading. 
(Click here for a copy)
When we return to school in September (or when you've completed the challenge) take a picture and share it with us on our 
GoogleDrive: ElemSummerReading@merchantville.k12.nj.us
Please submit by Friday, September 11th to win a prize!
(Unfortunately no paper copies will be accepted this year)



Not sure what you want your child to read? 
Check out these suggestions 
and get started!

Scholastic Suggested Book Lists
PreK-K | Grades 1-2 | Grades 3-5 | Grades 6-8
 2017 All Ages List

Popular Book Lists
 Barnes & Nobel Ages 3-5 | Barnes & Noble Ages 6-8
Barnes & Noble Ages 9-12 | Amazon All Ages 

Merchantville Teacher Compiled Lists
Grades K-2 | Grades 3-4 | Grades 5-6

Why is summer reading so important?

Have you heard of the "Summer Slide"? Research has shown that over the summer, students who stop reading can lose up to two months of reading achievement. Due to the summer slide, some students start the new school year behind where they finished the last year. Reading during the summer can help prevent this and even help your child improve reading levels!

What can I do?

Help find books your child wants to read. Let your child choose books that he or she is interested in. Forcing someone through a book they do not like can cause a child to dislike reading. Help them find books they are interested in that are the right level for them.

Read with your child. Emilie Buchwald is credited with the famous quote, “Children are made readers on the laps of their parents.”  Hearing books read aloud helps children build vocabulary and listening skills. Reading books together also lets you have discussions about the books with your child.  As you're reading, ask what he or she thinks might happen next, what a certain character is might do, what your child would do, etc. Talking about books helps build a bond in your family and helps your child with their reading.

Encourage your child to read! Encourage them to read and fill in the Merchantville Summer Reading Tracker so that they start the year off on the right foot with a prize.

Book Choices for Rising 6th Graders (2020)

Welcome to Junior High! You are in for an exciting 3 years. To get yourself ready for 6th grade, choose one of the following books to read and complete one summer assignment. Click here to check out the directions for the assignments and answers to any questions you may have.
Happy Reading!

Al Capone Does My Shirts

By: Gennifer Choldenko

Today I moved to a twelve-acre rock covered with cement, topped with bird turd and surrounded by water. I'm not the only kid who lives here. There's my sister, Natalie, except she doesn't count. And there are twenty-three other kids who live on the island because their dads work as guards or cook's or doctors or electricians for the prison, like my dad does. Plus, there are a ton of murderers, rapists, hit men, con men, stickup men, embezzlers, connivers, burglars, kidnappers and maybe even an innocent man or two, though I doubt it. The convicts we have are the kind other prisons don't want. I never knew prisons could be picky, but I guess they can. You get to Alcatraz by being the worst of the worst. Unless you're me. I came here because my mother said I had to.

Lexile: 600L
Genre: Historical/Realistic Fiction

 

When You Reach Me
By: Rebecca Stead

By sixth grade, Miranda and her best friend, Sal, know how to navigate their New York City neighborhood. But things start to unravel. Sal gets punched by a kid on the street for what seems like no reason, and he shuts Miranda out of his life. The apartment key that Miranda's mom keeps hidden for emergencies is stolen. And then a mysterious note arrives, scrawled on a tiny slip of paper. The notes keep coming, and Miranda slowly realizes that whoever is leaving them knows things no one should know. Each message brings her closer to believing that only she can prevent a tragic death. Until the final note makes her think she's too late.

Lexile: 750L
Genre: Mystery

Keeper of the Lost Cities
By: Shannon Messenger

Twelve-year-old Sophie Foster has a secret. She’s a Telepath—someone who hears the thoughts of everyone around her. It’s a talent she’s never known how to explain.

Everything changes the day she meets Fitz, a mysterious boy who appears out of nowhere and also reads minds. She discovers there’s a place she does belong, and that staying with her family will place her in grave danger. In the blink of an eye, Sophie is forced to leave behind everything and start a new life in a place that is vastly different from anything she has ever known.

Sophie has new rules to learn and new skills to master, and not everyone is thrilled that she has come “home.” 
There are secrets buried deep in Sophie’s memory—secrets about who she really is and why she was hidden among humans—that other people desperately want. Would even kill for.

In this page-turning debut, Shannon Messenger creates a riveting story where one girl must figure out why she is the key to her brand-new world, before the wrong person finds the answer first.

Lexile: 670L
Genre: Fantasy

Once
By: Morris Gleitzman

Felix, a Jewish boy in Poland in 1942, is hiding from the Nazis in a Catholic orphanage. The only problem is that he doesn't know anything about the war, and thinks he's only in the orphanage while his parents travel and try to salvage their bookselling business. And when he thinks his parents are in danger, Felix sets off to warn them--straight into the heart of Nazi-occupied Poland. To Felix, everything is a story: Why did he get a whole carrot in his soup? It must be sign that his parents are coming to get him. Why are the Nazis burning books? They must be foreign librarians sent to clean out the orphanage's outdated library. But as Felix's journey gets increasingly dangerous, he begins to see horrors that not even stories can explain.Despite his grim surroundings, Felix never loses hope. 
Lexile: 640L
Genre: Realistic Fiction

Book Choices for Rising 7th Graders (2020)

Welcome to 7th Grade!! 
Below are your summer reading book choices. Choose one of the following books to read and complete the summer assignment. Click here to check out the directions for the assignments and answers to any questions you may have.
 Happy Reading!

Greystone Secrets: #1 The Strangers
By: Margaret Peterson Haddix

Told in alternating points of view from Chess, Emma, and Finn Greystone, Greystone Secrets #1: The Strangers is the beginning of a new page-turning adventure that examines assumptions about identity, family, and home, from the master of middle grade suspense.

What makes you you?

The Greystone kids thought they knew. Chess has always been the protector over his younger siblings, Emma loves math, and Finn does what Finn does best—acting silly and being adored. They’ve been a happy family, just the three of them and their mom.

But everything changes when reports of three kidnapped children—who share the same first and middle names, ages, and exact birth dates as the Greystone kids—reach the Greystone family. This bizarre coincidence makes them wonder: Who exactly are these strangers? Before Chess, Emma, and Finn can question their mom about it, she takes off on a mysterious work trip. But puzzling clues left behind lead to complex codes, hidden rooms, and a dangerous secret that will turn their world upside down.

Lexile: 730L
Genre: Mystery & Adventure

 

The Crossover

By: Kwame Alexander

"With a bolt of lightning on my kicks . . .The court is SIZZLING. My sweat is DRIZZLING. Stop all that quivering. Cuz tonight I’m delivering," announces dread-locked, 12-year old Josh Bell. He and his twin brother Jordan are awesome on the court. But Josh has more than basketball in his blood, he's got mad beats, too, that tell his family's story in verse, in this fast and furious middle grade novel of family and brotherhood from Kwame Alexander. Josh and Jordan must come to grips with growing up on and off the court to realize breaking the rules comes at a terrible price, as their story's heart-stopping climax proves a game-changer for the entire family.
Lexile: 750L

Genre: Realistic Fiction

The Unwanteds

By: Lisa McMann

When Alex finds out he is Unwanted, he expects to die. That is the way of the people of Quill. Each year, all the thirteen-year-olds are labeled as Wanted, Necessary, or Unwanted. Wanteds get more schooling and train to join the Quillitary. Necessaries keep the farms running. Unwanteds are set for elimination. It’s hard for Alex to leave behind his twin, Aaron, a Wanted, but he makes peace with his fate—until he discovers that instead of a “death farm,” what awaits him is a magical place called Artimé. There, Alex and his fellow Unwanteds are encouraged to cultivate their creative abilities and use them magically. Everything Alex has ever known changes before his eyes, and it’s a wondrous transformation. But it’s a rare, unique occurrence for twins to be divided between Wanted and Unwanted, and as Alex and Aaron’s bond stretches across their separation, a threat arises for the survival of Artimé that will pit brother against brother in an ultimate magical battle.

Lexile: 750L

Genre: Realistic Fiction

Eleven
By: Tom Rogers

Alex Douglas always wanted to be a hero. But nothing heroic ever happened to Alex. Nothing, that is, until his eleventh birthday. When Alex rescues a stray dog as a birthday gift to himself, he doesn’t think his life can get much better. Radar, his new dog, pretty much feels the same way. But this day has bigger things in store for both of them. This is a story about bullies and heroes. About tragedy and hope. About enemies with two legs and friends with four, and pesky little sisters and cranky old men, and an unexpected lesson in kindness delivered with a slice of pizza. This is Eleven: the journey of a boy turning eleven on 9/11.

Lexile: 730L

Genre: Historical Fiction

Book Choices for Rising 8th Graders (2020)

Welcome to 8th Grade!! 
Below are your summer reading book choices. Choose one of the following books to read and complete the summer assignment. Click here to check out the directions for the assignments and answers to any questions you may have.
 Happy Reading!

Harbor Me
By: Jacqueline Woodson

Jacqueline Woodson's first middle-grade novel since National Book Award winner Brown Girl Dreaming celebrates the healing that can occur when a group of students share their stories.

It all starts when six kids have to meet for a weekly chat—by themselves, with no adults to listen in. There, in the room they soon dub the ARTT Room (short for "A Room to Talk"), they discover it's safe to talk about what's bothering them—everything from Esteban's father's deportation and Haley's father's incarceration to Amari's fears of racial profiling and Ashton's adjustment to his changing family fortunes. When the six are together, they can express the feelings and fears they have to hide from the rest of the world. And together, they can grow braver and more ready for the rest of their lives.

Lexile: 630L
Genre: Realistic Fiction

Counting By 7s

By: Molly Goldberg Sloan

Willow Chance is a twelve-year-old genius, obsessed with nature and diagnosing medical conditions, who finds it comforting to count by 7s. It has never been easy for her to connect with anyone other than her adoptive parents, but that hasn’t kept her from leading a quietly happy life . . . until now.

Suddenly Willow’s world is tragically changed when her parents both die in a car crash, leaving her alone in a baffling world. The triumph of this book is that it is not a tragedy. This extraordinarily odd, but extraordinarily endearing, girl manages to push through her grief. Her journey to find a fascinatingly diverse and fully believable surrogate family is a joy and a revelation to read.

Lexile: 770L

Genre: Realistic Fiction

The Alchemyst (The Secrets of the Immortal Life of Nicholas Flammel)
By: Michael Scott

Nicholas Flamel appeared in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter—but did you know he really lived? And he might still be alive today! Discover the truth in Michael Scott’s New York Times bestselling series the Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel with The Alchemyst, book one. 
 
The truth: Nicholas Flamel was born in Paris on September 28, 1330. 
 
The legend: Nicholas Flamel discovered the secret of eternal life.
 
   The records show that he died in 1418.
   But his tomb is empty.
   Nicholas Flamel lives. But only because he has been making the elixir of life for centuries.
    The secret of eternal life is hidden within the book he protects—the Book of Abraham the Mage. It's the most powerful book that has ever existed. In the wrong hands, it will destroy the world. That's exactly what Dr. John Dee plans to do when he steals it.    Humankind won't know what's happening until it's too late. And if the prophecy is right, Sophie and Josh Newman are the only ones with the power to save the world as we know it.
    Sometimes legends are true. And Sophie and Josh Newman are about to find themselves in the middle of the greatest legend of all time.
Lexile: 890L

Genre: Fantasy

Code Talker: A Novel About the Navajo Marines of
World War Two
By: Joseph Bruchac

On the Pacific front during World War II, strange messages were picked up by American and Japanese forces on land and at sea. The messages were totally unintelligible to everyone except a small select group within the Marine Corps: the Navajo code talkers-a group of Navajos communicating in a code based on the Navajo language. This code, the first unbreakable one in U.S. history, was a key reason that the Allies were able to win in the Pacific. "Navajo Code Talkers" tells the story of the special group, who proved themselves to be among the bravest, most valuable, and most loyal of American soldiers during World War II.

Lexile: 1170L
Genre: Historical Fiction

I Am Malala: How One Girl Stood Up for Education and Changed the World

By: Malala Yousafzai

I Am Malala. This is my story.

Malala Yousafzai was only ten years old when the Taliban took control of her region. They said music was a crime. They said women weren't allowed to go to the market. They said girls couldn't go to school. Raised in a once-peaceful area of Pakistan transformed by terrorism, Malala was taught to stand up for what she believes. So she fought for her right to be educated. And on October 9, 2012, she nearly lost her life for the cause: She was shot point-blank while riding the bus on her way home from school. No one expected her to survive.

Lexile: 830L

Genre: Nonfiction