Suggested Summer Reading List for Rising Eighth Graders
St. Michael School Library
Required Reading: The Boy on the Wooden Box, by Leon Leyson. You must also select one
book from each of these two lists, one fiction, one nonfiction:
Fiction:
Flora and Ulysses, Kate DiCamillo
One Came Home, Amy Timberlake
Doll Bones, Holly Black
City of Orphans, Avi
The False Prince, Jennifer A. Nielsen
Nonfiction:
I am Malala (Young Readers Edition), Malala Yousafzai
Outcasts United: the Story of a Refugee Soccer Team
That Changed a Town, Warren St. John
Mountains Beyond Mountains (Adapted for Young People),
Tracy Kidder
Lincoln’s Grave Robbers, Steve Sheinkin
Be sure to visit your public library regularly! Here are some suggestions for fun summer reading, but don’t
stop here! Look at the new books shelf at your library to see what just arrived.Have a wonderful summer of
reading!
Be sure to read the 2015 Nutmeg Award Teen Nominees:
Mary Amato, Guitar Notes
S.A. Bodeen, The Raft
Jasper Fforde, The Last Dragonslayer
Michelle Gagnon, Don’t Turn Around
Lynda Mullaly Hunt, One For the Murphys
S.J. Kincaid, Insignia
Johanna Knowles, See You at Harry’s
Kate Messner, Eye of the Storm
Jennifer A. Nielsen, The False Prince
Paul Volponi, The Final Four
Here are other books and authors you’ll enjoy, some of which we will discuss in Library next year.
Laurie Halse Anderson, Fever, 1793, Chains, Forge
Jay Asher, 13 Reasons Why
Mary Jane Auch, Ashes of Roses
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
Paolo Bacigalupi, Ship Breaker, The Drowned Cities
Tracey Barrett, King of Ithaka
Joan Bauer, Close to Famous, Hope Was Here, Squashed, Peeled, Almost Home (new!)
Karen Blumenthal. Bootleg: Moonshine, and the Lawless Years of Prohibition.
S.A. Bodeen, The Compound
Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, Something Wicked This Way Comes, The Martian Chronicles
James Bradley, Flags of Our Fathers: Heroes of Iwo Jima
Kimberly Brubaker Bradley. Jefferson’s Sons
Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights
Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game
Kristin Cashore, Graceling, Fire, Bitterblue
Agatha Christie , mysteries
Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, Mockingjay
Ally Condie, Matched, Crossed, Reached
Caroline Cooney, Code Orange, etc. (many good ones!)
Karen Cushman, Catherine, Called Birdy; Matilda Bone; Alchemy and Meggy Swan
Roald Dahl, Boy: Tales of Childhood, Going Solo
Stephen Davies. Outlaw
Sharon Draper. Out of My Mind
Richard Paul Evans, Michael Vey: The Prisoner of Cell 25
Catherine Fisher, Incarceron, Sapphique, series
Russell Freedman, excellent nonfiction
William Golding, Lord of the Flies
Rachel Hartman, Seraphina
Deborah Heiligman, Charles and Emma: The Darwins’ Leap of Faith
Ernest Hemingway, Old Man and the Sea
James Herriot, All Creatures Great and Small
John Hersey, Hiroshima
Karen Hesse, Safekeeping
Homer Hickam, Rocket Boys
S.E. Hinton, The Outsiders
Will Hobbs, Far North, Downriver, Go Big or Go Home, etc.
Philip Hoose, We Were There, Too!: Young People in U.S. History
Deborah Hopkinson, The Great Trouble: A Mystery of London, the Blue Death, and a Boy Called Eel. (new!)
Cynthia Kadohata, The Thing About Luck (new!)
Daniel Keyes, Flowers for Algernon
Rudyard Kipling, Captains Courageous, Kim
John Knowles, A Separate Peace
Lyn Miller-Lachmann, Rogue (new!)
Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
Ursula LeGuin, Wizard of Earthsea trilogy
Kristin Levine, The Lions of Little Rock
Lois Lowry, The Giver, Gathering Blue, Messenger, Son
Kekla Magoon, The Rock and the River
Albert Marrin. Flesh and Blood So Cheap: The Triangle Fire and Its Legacy
Victoria McKernan, Shackleton’s Stowaway
Carolyn Meyer, In Mozart’s Shadow: His Sister’s Story, Cleopatra Confesses
Andy Mulligan, Trash
Jim Murphy, The Boys' War (Civil War), An American Plague
Walter Dean Myers, Fallen Angels, Scorpions, The Greatest: Muhammad Ali
George Orwell, Animal Farm
Gary Paulsen, Woods Runner
Shane Peacock, The Boy Sherlock Holmes series: Eye of the Crow, Death in the Air, Vanishing Girl, The Secret
Fiend, Dragon Turn, Becoming Holmes (new!)
Mary Pearson, The Adoration of Jenna Fox
Michael Pollan. The Omnivore’s Dilemma: The Secrets Behind What You Eat: Young Reader’s Edition.
Terry Pratchett, Nation, Dodger
Margi Preus, Heart of the Samurai, Shadow on the Mountain, West of the Moon (new!)
Jennifer Roy, Mindblind
Graham Salisbury, Eyes of the Emperor
Jack Schaeffer, Shane
Gary Schmidt, Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy, Okay for Now
Ruta Sepetys, Between Shades of Gray
Steve Sheinkin, The Notorious Benedict Arnold, Port Chicago 50 (new!)
Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Jordan Sonnenblick, Zen and the Art of Faking It, Drums, Girls and Dangerous Pie, After Ever After
John Steinbeck, The Red Pony
Maggie Stiefvater, The Scorpio Races, The Raven Boys (new!)
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings trilogy
Clare Vanderpool, Moon Over Manifest, Navigating Early (new!)
Wendelin VanDraanen, The Running Dream
Scott Westerfeld, Leviathan; Behemoth, Goliath
Gloria Whelan, Small Acts of Amazing Courage