Summer Reading/Writing Requirements for Incoming 7th Grade

All students entering the seventh grade must read  Blood on the River: James Town 1607 by Elisa Lynn Carbone. This book will be used in Literature class during the first weeks of school. There is no summer writing requirement for this book.

The students must also read two books from the attached list for their summer reading/writing requirement.

Once they have read their selections, they are required to write a synopsis of one of the books. This synopsis should include the title, the author, the setting, and a list of the main characters, a summary of the story explaining the important events and conflicts, and a sentence stating if you would recommend this book to a friend.

For the second book they must re-write the ending to the story. Using the characters and setting of the story the students will make-up their own ending to the story. Make sure you include the title and author of the book. Students use your imagination and have fun with it! 

Each report must be no longer than one paged typed 12 pt, double spaced. Don’t forget your St. Jude heading. The reports are due the first week of school and the students will receive a grade in both English and Literature.

The books on the list include a wide range of subject material as well as reading level. The books are available from the public library, local bookstores and on-line.

We hope that you will read more than the three books required. Take a book along – anytime you have to wait at a doctor or dentist’s office or at a restaurant as well as on vacation. Get a book on tape for those long car rides. The most important thing is to READ! READ! READ!

7th Grade Summer Reading List

Required for all incoming 7^th Grade:

Carbone, Elisa Lynn    Blood on the river: James Town 1607

Traveling to theNew World in 1606 as the page to Captain John Smith, twelve-year-old orphan Samuel Collier settles in the new colony of James Town, where he must quickly learn to distinguish between friend and foe.

Must choose two books:

Avi    Iron Thunder: The Battle Between The Monitor & The Merimac: A Civil War  Novel

Early in 1862, 13-year-old Tom Carroll must go to work when his father is killed in a Maryland battle. He finds a job at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, where he is put to work on "Ericsson's Folly," the ironclad that will become the Monitor. He works closely with Captain Ericsson and becomes fascinated with this odd "raft." Factual information and historical terms are woven smoothly into the narrative. Period photographs, engravings, and newspaper headlines are strategically placed throughout the text to further bring history to life.

Carbone, Elisa Lynn    Stealing Freedom

A novel based on the true story of Ann Maria Weems, a young slave girl from Maryland who endures all kinds of mistreatment and cruelty, including being separated from her family, but who eventually escapes to freedom in Canada.

Carter, Forest    Education of Little Tree         

The super-seller memoir of a Cherokee boyhood in the 1930s. The most sensitive and evocative autobiographical account ever of the Cherokee way, as seen through the eyes of a young boy in the Appalachian Mountains.

Cousins, Margaret    The Story of Thomas Alva Edison      

A biography of the great inventor whose creations have contributed to the comfort, convenience, and entertainment of people all over the world.

Cushman, Karen    Catherine, Called Birdy   

The thirteen-year-old daughter of an English country knight keeps a journal in which she records the events of her life, particularly her longing for adventures beyond the usual role of women and her efforts to avoid being married off.

Cushman, Karen    The Midwife's Apprentice 

In medieval England, a nameless, homeless girl is taken in by a sharp-tempered midwife, and in spite of obstacles and hardship, eventually gains the three things she most wants: a full belly, a contented heart, and a place in this world.

Gray, Elizabeth Janet    Adam of the Road       

The adventures of eleven-year-old Adam as he travels the open roads of thirteenth-century England searching for his missing father, a minstrel, and his stolen red spaniel, Nick.

Hahn, Mary Downing    Hear The Wind Blow

With their mother dead and their home burned, a thirteen-year-old boy and his little sister set out across Virginia in search of relatives during the final days of the Civil War.

Hiaasen, Carl    Flush

With their father jailed for sinking a river boat, Noah Underwood and his younger sister, Abbey, must gather evidence that the owner of this floating casino is emptying his bilge tanks into the protected waters around their Florida Keys home.

Hodgson Burnett, Frances    The SecretGarden      

Frances Hodgson Burnett's beloved classic is adapted for beginning readers in this colorfully illustrated version. The spoiled orphan Mary Lennox leaves India to live with her cold uncle in his dreary mansion in England. When Mary hears of a secret garden kept locked for ten years, she is determined to find it and tend it back to life.

With the help of her uncle's sickly son and a boy who knows all about nature, Mary secretly transforms the garden - and all of their lives.

Hunt, Irene     Across Five Aprils    

Young Jethro Creighton grows from a boy to a man when he is left to take care of the family farm in Illinois during the difficult years of the Civil War.

Kerby, Mona     Amelia Earhart: Courage in the Sky        

Follows the life of the pilot who was the first woman to cross the Atlantic by herself in a plane.

Speare, Elizabeth George     Witch of Blackbird Pond    

In 1687 in Connecticut, Kit Tyler, feeling out of place in the Puritan household of her aunt, befriends an old woman considered a witch by the community and suddenly finds herself standing trial for witchcraft.

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