th
“One benefit of summer was that each day we had more light to read by!”
~ Jeannette Walls, journalist & author of The Glass Castle: A Memoir
During the summer of 2015, all 8 th grade students are expected to read at least two books total .
At least one of these books must be a memoir, biography, or autobiography.
The other book(s) may be any of the student’s choice (fiction or nonfiction).
All books must be approved by a parent/guardian before reading!
As you read this summer, add the books you have finished onto the attached log.
Don’t forget to bring this with you on the first day of school, as it will count as your first homework grade of 8 th grade!
Be prepared to discuss the books you read this summer on the first day of school and to complete a project related to the memoir, biography or autobiography during the first few weeks.
If you have any questions about this, please email Mr. Conn (Conn@NVNet.org).
HAPPY READING!
Middle School Memoir, Biography, & Autobiography Suggestions

I Am Malala: How One Girl Stood Up for Education and Changed the World (Young Readers Edition) by Malala
Yousafzai & Patricia McCormick – Malala 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. Now Malala is an international symbol of peaceful protest and the youngest ever Nobel Peace Prize winner. In this Young Readers
Edition of her bestselling memoir, we hear firsthand the remarkable story of a girl who knew from a young age that she wanted to change the world – and did.

Unbroken: An Olympian's Journey from Airman to Castaway to Captive (Young Adult Adaptation) by Laura
Hillenbrand – On a May afternoon in 1943, an American military plane crashed into the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, leaving only a spray of debris and a slick of oil, gasoline, and blood. Then, on the ocean surface, a face appeared. It was that of a young lieutenant, the plane’s bombardier, who was struggling to a life raft and pulling himself aboard. So began one of the most extraordinary sagas of the Second World War. The lieutenant’s name was Louis Zamperini. As a boy, he had been a clever delinquent, breaking into houses, brawling, and stealing. As a teenager, he had channeled his defiance into running, discovering a supreme talent that carried him to the Berlin Olympics. But when war came, the athlete became an airman, embarking on a journey that led to his doomed flight, a tiny raft, and a drift into the unknown.

Marching For Freedom by Elizabeth Partridge – Ten-year-old Joanne Blackmon and many other brave children became the youngest to be arrested for participating in freedom marches in 1964 with Dr. Martin Luther King. Through quotes, songs, poetry and pictures, the writer present an inspiring account of the important role of children in the Civil
Rights Movement. The stories of these young people have never been told in such a special way.

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah – Ishmael was a 12-year-old in Sierra Leone who loved hip-hop music, his family and hanging out with friends. When his village is attacked and his family is killed, Ishmael is forced into service as a boy solder where he sees and does terrible things that are hard to read about. That Ishmael is able to come to America and graduate from Oberlin College – and do all that as a whole, positive person – is as astonishing and compelling a story as the harrowing events he describes with clarity and immediacy in the first part of the memoir.

Rocket Boys by Homer Hickam – Homer is a 14-year-old in a small coal mining town in West Virginia in the 1950s when the space missions begin. Inspired by NASA, Homer decides to build his own rockets as his ticket out. A fantasy?
Not at all. An American gem.


Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank – The original Holocaust memoir, still intimate, personal, claustrophobic and incredibly moving.

The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to his White Mother by James McBride – The moving memoir of growing up in the early 1960s with a mother who was raised in an Orthodox Jewish family in the South and an African-
American father who grew up Christian in the North. What is the soul, the spirit of a person? Is it black or white? It's the color of water.

Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger's by John Elder Robison – Growing up, John Elder Robison didn’t understand why he couldn’t communicate with other people and why he did so badly in school when he knew he was smart. Was he really lazy and weird? It wasn’t until Robison was 40 years old, and a successful antique car restorer, that he learned that he has Asperger’s syndrome. A fascinating, touching story of growth and discovery.

I Never Had It Made by Jackie Robinson
– A man of talent and character tells how he became one of baseball’s – and history’s – greats.

The Long Walk by Slavomir Rawicz – Unjustly imprisoned by the Communist Russians early in World War II, Rawicz was later transported to Siberia by train, and then marched through the cold countryside to a Soviet Gulag, witnessing the death by exposure and exhaustion of other unfortunate captives. In the prison camp, he was kept in horrendous conditions, over-worked, and underfed. Near the end of his rope, Rawicz and a handful of companions orchestrated a daring and desperate escape, and proceeded to run for their lives, on foot, toward freedom in India -- 4,000 miles away.
And that was just the beginning of their hardship and adventure!

Surviving Hitler: A Boy in the Nazi Death Camps by Andrea Warren – Warren tells the horrifying yet inspiring tale of
Holocaust survivor Jack Mandelbaum who was only 12 when he was first held in the Blechhammer death camp.

In My Hands: Memoirs of a Holocaust Rescuer by Irene Opdyke – A Catholic nursing student in Poland, Irene was abused by Russian soldiers and horrified by the treatment of Jews in the ghetto. How she made up her mind to act to save Jews is a riveting, inspiring story.

Red Scarf Girl: A Memoir of the Cultural Revolution by Ji-li Jiang – First-hand account of one of the most brutal periods of China’s history.

By Any Means Necessary: A Biography of Malcolm X by Walter Dean Myers – Myers, a major young adult novelist, writes a biography of this important American civil rights figure in a manner that is easily accessible to middle school students.

Boy by Roald Dahl – Dahl’s story about growing up in Britain in the 1930s in the world of the elite, but often brutal, prep schools. Humor is terror recollected in tranquility, they say, and nobody makes terror more delightful to read than
Roald Dahl. Sparkling writing style and a fascinating look at a lost world.

When I Was Puerto Rican by Esmeralda Santiago – Touching memoir of a young girl moving to Manhattan from
Puerto Rico in the 1970s.

Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood by Alexandra Fuller – The memoir of a white English girl’s tough – often bigoted, often thrilling – childhood on a Zimbabwe farm in the 1960s.

3.
4.
5.
1.
2.
th
(USE THE BACK OF THIS SHEET TO LOG ANY ADDITIONAL BOOKS YOU READ THIS SUMMER!)
st DAY OF SCHOOL! ***
st