McLean 7th and 8th Grade 
☼ 2005 Summer Reading List ☼
 
Asterisks denotes reading level which includes content and readability 
* = Easier (6th-7th gr); ** = Moderate (8th gr); *** = Early High School Level (9th gr)
  
Bode (Baggott)          The Anybodies *
Please note this novel may be shelved under two possible names (N.E. Bode – read it out loud with the title – get it?).  Fern knew she must be in the wrong family, and when she discovers she in fact was switched at birth, her family decides she should spend a summer with her biological family.  The Anybodies are professional shapeshifters, which leads Fern on a summer of adventures.  
 
Byars                          Cracker Jackson *
After attempting to save his ex-babysitter from wife abuse, Cracker Jackson learns an adult insight into the sadness of failed heroics. 
 
Chambers                 Quinceañera Mans Sweet 15 **
Marisol returns from spending a year in Panama with her grandmother to find that her best friend, Magda, has made other friends and is planning an elaborate quinceanera.  After a number of conflicts, Magda and Marisol begin to rebuild their friendship. 
 
Childress                   A Hero Ain't Nothing but a Sandwich **
14-year-old Benji is experimenting with heroine as he searches for a hero in his life. This novel is told from the perspectives of everyone involved in Benji's fall and his recovery. 
 
Clements                   Things Not Seen *
A hip teen wakes up to find out he is invisible.
 
Friend                                    Perfect ***
Isabelle is forced to go to group therapy for girls with eating disorders.  There, she realizes even the most popular girls have problems, and she will have to learn how to make different decisions.  
 
Holt                            When Zachary Beaver Came to Town **
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, Zachary, the fattest boy in the world.
 
 
 
Horowitz                   Eagle Strike **
Another Alex Rider mystery adventure where 14 yr old Alex gets to try all sorts of James Bond-like equipment as he spies for the British intelligence agency.  
 
Konigsburg              The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place **
As tensions and cliques increase at her summer camp, Margaret Rose is rescued by her Hungarian-American Jewish Great Uncles.  Forty-five years earlier, her Uncles created a beautiful sculpture in their backyard but now the town wants it gone.  With the help of friends, Margaret Rose sets out to save the artwork.  In the process, she uncovers secrets in the town.
 
LeGuin                       Gifts **
Gry has the gift of communicating with animals, but refuses to use her gift to hurt the animals in any way.  Her decision confuses and angers people of her town.  Orrec has the power to destroy living creatures, but because of his background his gift is uncontrollable.  People begin to fear Orrec.  Gry and Orrec must learn to manage and control their gifts as a symbolic struggle with good and evil. 
 
Lowry                                    The Messenger *
Essentially, this novel is the coming together of the characters in Gathering Blue and The Giver.  If you enjoyed either novel, this conclusion is not to be missed.
 
Lupica                                    Travel Team **
A first novel by sports writer, Mike Lupica, this book tells the story of Danny, a very short basketball player.  Danny’s dad is a professional player, and to spend more time with his son, they recruit a travel team, including a girl player.  
 
McKay                                   Indigo’s Star *
Indigo is from a kindhearted British family, and does not know how to handle being bullied.  When a new kid, Tom, comes to school and does not put up with the bullying, he teaches Indigo how to stand up for himself.  However, Tom has to learn how to accept his new baby sister.
  
Mikaelsen                  Touching Spirit Bear *
Cole Matthews is a violent offender convicted of beating a classmate.  As punishment, Cole elects to participate in Circle Justice, a program based on traditional Native American practice.  This is an adventure story with strong moral underpinnings. 
 
Montgomery                         Anne of Green Gables **
Anne, an eleven-year-old orphan, is sent by mistake to live with a 
lonely, middle-aged brother and sister on a Prince Edward Island farm and proceeds to make a lasting impression on everyone around her. A must read for any drama queens or romantics.  Any book in this series is appropriate. 
 
Naidoo                                   The Other Side of Truth **
            Smuggled out of Nigeria after their mother’s murder, Sade and her brother are abandoned in London.  They are fearful of their new surroundings and what might have happened to their journalist father.
 
Namioka                    Ties that Bind, Ties that Break **
            Ailin, rebels against her family’s Chinese tradition of binding girls’ feet.  She looses her family’s support, so she tries to make a new life in the United States.
 
Peck                            A Year Down Yonder **
During the Great Depression, a fifteen-year-old Chicago girl has to spend the summer with her very off-beat grandmother in the country.  Through nearly daily adventures, she learns that there is more to the country people than she expected.
 
Philbrick                    The Last Book in the Universe **
            A fast paced tale of a new world.  A young man, Spazz, has to make a forbidden journey to see his sister.  He picks up companions on his way as he faces rival gang lords and the deterioration of the world.
 
Rawls                         Where the Red Fern Grows *
A classic tale of a young man training his dogs and exploring the countryside.  
 
Snyder                                    The Unseen *
With her friend, Xandra learns to travel to a reality that no one else can see.  She is terrified of the horrible creatures who hurt her, unaware they are of her own making.  When she seriously hurts herself in her world, she learns the truth about her family.  
 
Soto                            Taking Sides *
Fourteen-year-old Lincoln Mendoza, an aspiring baseball player, must come to terms with some important choices when he moves from an Hispanic inner city area to a white suburban neighborhood 
 
Spinelli                      Stargirl **
In a celebration of nonconformity, Spinelli weaves a tense, emotional tale about the fleeting, cruel nature of popularity.  It is hard to put this one down. 
 
Twain                         The Prince and the Pauper **
A poor London boy and a rich young prince, who look amazingly alike, get the chance to experience each other's life firsthand. 
 
Whelan                      Chu Ju’s House *
In rural China, if a family’s first child is a girl, they can try to have another child in hopes for a boy.  When Chu Ju’s mother delivers a baby girl, the family decides wants to put the baby up for adoption.  To save her sister, Chu Ju runs away so the family only has one girl.  Chu Ju has a series of adventures learning to use her skills and help families in need.  
Any Gloria Whelan book is acceptable.
 
Wyatt                         Raising the Griffin ***
Sixteen year old Alex learns he is going to be prince in a fictional Eastern European country.  He does not understand, nor does he want, the danger and politics—including having stories of his love life sold to tabloid newspapers—of becoming prince.  Though similar in plot, this is not the male version of Princess Diaries.  
 
Historical Fiction 
 
Alcott                        Little Women **
Chronicles the joys and sorrows of four sisters, as they grow into young ladies in 19th Century New England. 
 
 
Avi                              Crispen: The Cross of Lead *
This action packed book follows the flight of a 13-year-old boy across historical England.  As Crispen is preparing to leave the only world he has known he finds out a secret about his parents.  
 
Choldenko                Al Capone Does My Shirts **
Moose is unhappy when his family relocates to Alcatraz, so his dad can work as a guard and electrician.  His sister, Natalie, is autistic before anyone knew what that meant.  Moose has to become her primary babysitter while trying to make friends and do things he wants to do.  The descriptions of Natalie and her autism are incredibly realistic.  
 
Dahlberg                      Escape to West Berlin * 
Thirteen year old Heidi lives in East Berlin and her father crosses to work in West Berlin.  When an opportunity to escape arises, she has to overcome her fear of water.  Throughout the novel, she struggles with becoming mature, and still wanting to lean on her parents for support.  
 
Hesse                         Witness *
            A series of poems express the view of various people in a small Vermont town during the early 1920s when the Ku Klux Klan was trying to infiltrate the town.  This book was exceptionally researched, and is riveting when read along with the tape, read by a cast of characters. 
 
Kanefield                  Rivka's Way *
Fifteen-year-old Rivka is not looking forward to her arranged marriage, and desperately wants to see what is beyond the 1778 Jewish quarter in Prague, Czechoslovakia.  She disguises herself as a boy and begins an adventure. 
 
Park                            A Single Shard **
            Tree-ear, a thirteen-year-old orphan in medieval Korea, lives under a bridge in a potter’s village and longs to learn how to create delicate ceramics.  
    
Mystery
 
Brooks                                    Ghosts in the Gallery **
In this Victorian tale of deception, treachery, and betrayal, a newly orphaned girl comes to live in the great, gloomy mansion of her grandfather, amidst shadows cast by dim oil lanterns and the pounding of angry waves against the cliff below. 
 
Christie                      And Then There Were None **
A killer stalks a group of ten strangers on an isolated island off the Devon Coast, in a suspenseful story of murder and revenge, set to a sinister nursery rhyme. 
 
Conan Doyle             Any Sherlock Holmes mystery is appropriate ***
 
Duncan                      Locked in Time **
When Nore Robbins visits her new stepmother, brother, and sister in Louisiana, she is unnerved by the feeling of evil and eerie threats that pervade their plantation. 
 
Hiaasen                      Hoot **
This novel follows Roy Eberhardt, the new kid, on a series of events that leads to the greatest adventure of his life.  
 
Hillerman                  The Thief of Time **
A mystery that takes place on the Navajo reservation when an anthropologist is discovered missing.  
 
Hoeye                                    Any of the Hermux Tantamoq adventures **
            Hermux is a particular, watchmaking mouse who is fond of green plaid suits.  He is inadvertently transformed into an adventurer.  These books are filled with cute, subtle humor and are wonderful when read with the tape.
 
Jones                           Ghost Light on Graveyard Shoal *
            A fast paced mystery, this book has it all.  There are ghosts, suspense on the high seas, loveable animals and a great female detective.  The mystery surrounds the U.S. Lifesaving Station at Glenn Island on the Virginia Coast in 1895. 
 
Levin                          Shadow-Catcher **
In 1892, an image of a puzzling struggle on a raging river in the Maine woods shows up on one of the photographs taken by Jonathan's mysterious grandfather.  Why does this stranger show so much interest in the negative? 
 
Paterson                     The Master Puppeteer *
Jiro, a Japanese boy, is worried his family will not have enough money to survive.  He becomes a Puppeteer to earn more money.  He discovers the mysterious connection between the theater and a Robin Hood like character while political tensions mount.  
 
Thiesman                   Calling the Swan **
Something terrible happened three years ago to Skylar's family. Their daughter Alexandra disappeared on a trip to the park to feed the swans. So who is that girl Skylar visits in Alexandra's bedroom and sees on the edges of her reviving life? 
 
Thurlo                        The Spirit Line **
While a young Navajo girl weaves her blanket for her coming out ceremony, it is stolen.  She is determined to find it, and her search takes her through many mysteries throughout Navajo country.
  
Van Draanen             Sammy Keyes and the Psycho Kitty Queen *
Another book in the detective series, Sammy is determined to find out why dead cats are being found in dumpsters around town.  Her archenemy, Heather, shows up as usual to start trouble, all while Sammy beings a little romance with Heather’s brother and her unreliable mother shows up to give some bad news.  
 
Wright                       The Moonlight Man *
Who was the shadowy man sitting with his dog on the back steps of their house in the woods, wonder Jenny, 15 and her little sister Allie.  Was it just the moonlight playing tricks? And is that sobbing in the basement they hear? 
 
  
Fantasy/Science Fiction
 
Asimov                      Foundation trilogy ***
Set far in the future, when Earth is just a one tiny, forgotten planet in the Galaxy, this series of three books is a sci-fi classic. 
 
Card                            Ender's Game (or sequels) ***
Stun guns and space ships are featured in the education of a boy who is being trained at a space school to be the leader who will save the world from the threat of the aliens they call the Buggers 
 
Carroll                       Alice's Adventures in Wonderland **
By falling down a rabbit hole and stepping through a mirror, Alice experiences unusual adventures with a variety of nonsensical characters. 
 
Stewart                       Merlin trilogy**
An enthralling rendition of the King Arthur legend, this series includes three books: The Crystal Cave, Hollow Hills, and The Last Enchantment. 
 
Tolkein                      Lord of the Rings trilogy ***