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