8th Grade Humanities Supplementary Reading List 2010/2011
This is a supplementary reading list to complement the themes and curriculum
that will be covered throughout the Humanities program. We have a great selection of
books for you, from mystery, adventure and historical to some of the latest contemporary
fiction. We’ve included non-fiction, poetry and graphic novels in the list. Books that are
on the reading lists for higher grades have been marked by an asterisk.
Books have been coded by color according to the difficulty of the book. Level 3 is
the most challenging level. They have also been organized chronologically into the
themes we will cover throughout the year. We have included films that can serve as
additional background and text.
Before choosing a book we suggest that each student does a little research about
the book so that they make sure it is appropriate for them both in reading level and
interest. As education is a team effort, we would like to encourage parents to be a part of
this process.
We want to remind students that you should be reading a variety of different
genres and levels. Books at Level 1 have just as important a message as books at Level 3.
For Level 3 non-fiction books, students might find certain chapters easier than others. It
is okay to read 1 or 2 chapters within a book and to come back to the book when you are
older.
Level 1
Level 2
Level 3
Expanding (expanding vocabulary, ideas and concepts)
Bridging (age appropriate language, some familiar
concepts)
Reaching (sophisticated vocabulary, making connections
with new ideas, reaching beyond what you know and
exploring new concepts,)
Evidence
FILM:
Finding Forester (US)
Da Vinci Code
Wag the Dog
Déjà vu
Alcatraz
Down the Rabbit Hole: An Echo Falls Mystery, Peter Abrahams
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, E. L. Konigsburg
I Know What You Did Last Summer, Lois Duncan
The Game of Sunken Places, M.T. Anderson
Last Shot: A Final Four Mystery, John Feinstein
The Secret of the Red Silk Pouch, Les Simon
The Square Root of Murder, Paul Zindel
The View from the Cherry Tree, Wilo Davis Roberts
A Murder is Announced, Agatha Christie (a Hercule Poirot mystery)
Camp X, Eric Walters
The Ghost in the Tokaido Inn, Dorothy Hoobler
Jade Green: A Ghost Story, Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Paint by Magic: A Time Travel Mystery, Kathryn Reiss
Search for the Shadowman, Joan Lowery Nixon
The Star of Kazan, Eva Ibbotson
Ghost Canoe, Will Hobbs
Wild Man Island, Will Hobbs
A Study in Scarlet (Sherlock Holmes), Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
Edgar Allan Poe’s Tales of Mystery and Madness, Edgar Allan Poe
The Fall of the House of Usher, Edgar Allan Poe
The Hound of the Baskervilles, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Murders at the Rue Morgue, Edgar Allan Poe
The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, Alexander McCall Smith
Sophie’s World, Jostein Gaardner
The Woman in White, Wilkie Collins
Journeys
FILM:
Princess Bride
Lord of the Rings
Pirates of the Caribbean I
Stand By Me
A Walk To Remember
Big Fish
A Handful of Time, Kit Pearson
Archer’s Quest, Linda Sue Park
Dragon’s Gate, Laurence Yep
Extraordinary Adventures of Alfred Kropp, Rick Yancey
Lockie Leonard: Human Torpedo, Tim Winton
The North Star, Peter H. Reynolds
Number the Stars, Lois Lowry
So Far from the Bamboo Grove, Yoko Kawashima Watkins
Stanford Wong Flunks Big Time, Lisa Yee
The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
A Step from Heaven, An Na
Around the World in Eighty Days – Jules Verne
Time Cat: The Remarkable Journeys of Jason and Gareth – Lloyd Alexander
Anne of Green Gables, L. M. Montgomery
Crackback, John Coy
Crispin: Cross of Lead, Avi
Criss Cross, Lynne Rae Perkins
Dateline: Troy, Paul Fleischman
Drums, Girls and Dangerous Pie, Jordan Sonnenblick
The Egypt Game, Zilpha Keatley Snyder
Eragon, Christopher Paolini
Escape from Warsaw, Ian Serraillier
Green Angel, Alice Hoffman
I, Coriander, Sally Gardner
Handbook for Boys: A Novel, Walter Dean Myers
The Hobbit, J. R. R. Tolkien
I am the Cheese – Robert Cormier
Letters from Rifka, Karen Hesse
Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien
Parvana’s Journey, Deborah Ellis
Run, Eric Walters
Skellig, David Almond
Taste Berries for Teens, Bettie Youngs
Where the Red Fern Grows, Wilson Rawls
Worlds Apart, Kathleen Carr
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain *
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, Mark Twain
Great Expectations, Charles Dickens *
Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan Swift (abridged version available)
Journey to Topaz: A Story of the Japanese-American Evacuation, Yoshiko Uchida *
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte *
King Solomon’s Mine, H. Rider Haggard
Mysterious Island, Jules Verne
Nightsong: The Legend of Orpheus and Eurydice, Michael Cadnum*
Parade of Shadows, Gloria Whelan
Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
Yankees on the Doorstep: The Story of Sarah Morgan, Debra Smith
Challenge the Wind, Christine Echeverria Bender *
Shoeless Joe, W.P. Kinsella
Corbenic, Catherine Fisher
Zen and the art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert M. Pirsig
Global Issues
FILM: The Weeping Camel (Mongolia)
An Inconvenient Truth (US)
Into the Wild
Eight Below
Whale Rider
Baraka
The Baboon King, Anton Quintana
The Call of the Wild, Jack London
Flush, Carl Hiaasen
Hoot, Carl Hiaasen
Kensuke’s Kingdom, Michael Morpugo
Lockie Leonard: Scumbuster, Tim Winton
The Lorax, Dr Seuss (a book with a message, an easy read that makes you think)
Owls in the Family, Farley Mowat
California Blue, David Klass
Firestorm: The Caretaker Trilogy, David Klass
Frightful’s Mountain, Jean Craighead George
Hope Bay, Nicole Pluss
Keeper, Mal Peet
The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book 1), Rick Riordan
The Lioness and her Knight, Gerald Morris
The Malifex, Steve Alton
Green Boy, Susan Cooper
Riding the Flume, Patricia Curtis Pfitsch
A Ring of Endless Light, Madeleine L’Engle
The Secret Under my Skin, Janet McNaughton
Summerland, Michael Chabon
Trapped In Ice, Eric Walters
Whale Rider, (New Zealand) Witi Ihimaera
Un Lun Dun, (China) Mieville
Arctic Dreams – Barry Lopez (excerpts)
Feed, M. T. Anderson
High Noon, Jean-Francois Rischard
Czar of Alaska: The Cross of Charlemagne: A Novel , Richard Trout *
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Annie Dillard (excerpts)
Culture
FILM: Not One Less (China)
Dances with Wolves (USA)
Jean de Floret (France)
The Red Balloon (France)
To Live (China)
All Quiet on the Western Front (USA)
Fiddler On the Roof (Eastern Europe)
The Whale Rider (New Zealand)
The Amah, Laurence Yep
Bless Me Ultima, Rudolfo Anaya
Chinese Cinderella, Adeline Yen Mah
Confessions of a Closet Catholic, Sarah Darer Littman
Hiroshima, Laurence Yep
Project Mulberry, Linda Sue Park
Thief of Hearts, Laurence Yep
When the Legends Die, Hal Borland
American Born Chinese, Gene Luen Yang (graphic novel)
RiceWithout Rain, Minfong Ho
Children of the River, Linda Crew
The Conch Bearer (The Brotherhood of the Conch series) Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Cuba 15, Nancy Osa
The Deeper Song, Patricia Curtis Pfitsch
Dragon Keeper, Carole Wilkinson
The Good Earth, Pearl S. Buck *
Haroun and the Sea of Stories, Salman Rushdie (India)
The Legend of the Wandering King, (translated edition) Laura Gallego Garcia
Broken Circle, Christopher Dinsdale (Native Americans) *
Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, T. S. Eliot
Persepolis, (a graphic novel), Marjane Satrapi
Secrets in the House of Delgado, Gloria Miklowitz
Shabanu, Suzanne Fisher Staples
Shiva’s Fire, Suzanne Fisher Staples
Sky Burial: An Epic Love Story of Tibet, Xinran Xue
Our Secret, Siri Ang, Cristina Kessler (Africa)
Path to My African Eyes, Ermila Moodley
The Story of My Life: An Afghan Girl on the Other Side of the Sky, Farah Ahmedi with
Tamin Ansary
Ties that Bind, Ties That Break, Lensey Namioka
When My Name Was Keoko, Linda Sue Park
Year of Impossible Goodbyes, Sook Nyul Choi
Crescent Moon, Alden R. Carter (Native Americans)
The Book of the Dun Cow, Water Wangerin, Jr.
Wild Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys (Jamaica) *
The Last of the Mohicans, James Fennimore Cooper (abridged version available)
The House of Windjammer: Book I (Netherlands), V.A. Richardson
Photos that Changed the World (visual literacy), Peter Stepan (editor)
The Power of One, Bryce Courtenay
Clear Light of Day– Anita Desai (India)
Human Rights
FILM:
Gandhi (India)
Cry Freedom (South Africa)
Remember the Titans (USA, Civil Rights)
Dances with Wolves
Dead Poets Society
Glory
Shawshank Redemption
Farewell to Manzanar, Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston & James Houston
Holes, Louis Sacher
Last Summer with Maizon, Jacqueline Woodson
The Liberation of Gabriel King, K.L. Going
Maniac Magee, Jerry Spinelli
The Night Journey, Kathryn Lasky
The Stone Goddess, Minfong Ho
When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit, Judith Kerr
Sadako and the Thousand Cranes, Eleanor Coerr
The Acorn People, Ron Jones
Shattered, Eric Walters
After the War, Carol Matas
Among the Hidden (Book 1 of the Shadow Children series), Margaret Peterson Haddix
Ask Me No Questions, Marina Budhos
Broken Song, Kathryn Lasky
Biko, Donald Woods
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, Mark Haddon
Danger Zone, David Klass
The Ear, the Eye and the Arm, Nancy Farmer
Eyes of the Emperor, Graham Salisbury
The Freedom Writers Diary: How a Teacher and 150 Teens Used Writing to Change
Themselves and the World around Them, Zlata Filipovic
The Girls, Amy Goldman Koss
Jip: His Story, Katherine Paterson
Journey of the Sparrows, Fran Leeper Buss
Separate Fountains, Patti Wilson Byars
The Land, Mildred Taylor
The Mississippi Trial, Chris Crowe
Monkey Island, Paula Fox
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, Mildred Taylor
The Scorpion, Nancy Farmer
The Shimmershine Queens, Camille Yarbrough
Slake’s Limbo, Felice Holman
Somehow Tenderness Survives, (collection of short stories set in Africa)
Stargirl, Jerry Spinelli
Surviving Hitler: A Boy in the Nazi Deathcamps, Andrea Warren
The Wave, Morton Rhue
Animal Farm, George Orwell *
The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, Ernest J. Gaines
A Lesson before Dying, Ernest J. Gaines
Drummers of Jericho, Carolyn Meyer
Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury *
Lord of the Flies, William Golding *
Night, Elie Wiesel *
The Power of One, Bryce Courtenay
1984, George Orwell *
Freedom Songs, Yvette Moore
Keeping Corner, Kashmira Sheth
Little Brother, Cory Doctorow
Stormwitch, Susan Vaught