Name: ______7th and 8th Grade Summer Reading

 Students will be required to read one fiction and one nonfiction book this summer. When they return to school, they will be required to complete a book report regarding each of the books they read.

 All books are available for purchase through amazon.com. Most books are available through the Kindle app. Also, many of these books are available to borrow from New Haven Public Libraries.

 Take selfies with your summer reading book and email them to me over the summer. I should be able to see the book in the picture. Every student who sends me a reading selfie will be entered into a raffle to win a $20 gift card to Amazon! My email address is [email protected]. Please include the name of the book in your email.

 List the books you read on the attached form. Have your parent sign it to participate in a Jepson school- wide summer reading celebration at the beginning of the school year.

Fiction Book Suggestions to Read this Summer (You can read any fiction book you’d like, these are just some ideas)

***Future 8th Graders – May of you enjoyed reading the The Lightning Thief. The author, Rick Riodan, wrote may other books about Percy Jackson (including Sea of , The Titan’s Curse, and The Battle of the Labyrinth) as well as other books like The Lightning Thief which include themes of Greek Mythology including the Heroes of Olympus series or House of Hades. Read them if you enjoyed The Lightning Thief!

Title, Author, Lexile Description Absolutely Normal “A summer journal? I don’t know what a journal is! This is going to be boring.” That’s Chaos what Mary Lou Finney thinks, anyway. As it turns out, her summer is full of excitement. By: Sharon Creech It all begins when she learns that her weird cousin Carl Ray is coming to live with her. Lexile: 900 As if she doesn’t have enough chaos in her home already! But a sudden death in the neighborhood, a mysterious ring, a boy-crazy best friend, and Mary Lou’s first kiss come together to make this a completely amazing summer after all. Attack of the Mutant Have you ever had anything embarrassing happen to you in front of your friends or Underwear other kids at school? Well, imagine that this happens to you all of the . Cody is so By: Tom Birdseye excited because his family has moved to a new town where he doesn’t know anyone. Lexile: 770 This is his chance to start over-to be a good student and to be popular. Unfortunately, not everything goes as he plans. Forged by Fire Can you imagine living with a drug-addicted mother? Imagine what you would do if By: Sharon M Draper your mother left you alone to fend for yourself. This is exactly the situation Gerald finds Lexile: 780 himself in when at age 3 his mother leaves him alone in their apartment. The resulting fire is just the beginning of the troubles he must overcome. Gerald finally finds stability with his loving Aunt Queen. But when she dies unexpectedly, he is plunged back into a dark world filled with abuse. Angus, Thongs, and Full It is not easy being a teenage girl. Shoot, it’s not easy being a teenager, period! There Frontal Snogging all these issues to deal with like finding a bra that fits or avoiding your annoying parents. By: Louise Rennison Then, of course, you have to deal with smelly baby sisters, first kisses, mistakenly Lexile: 700 shaving off your eyebrows, and hitting your headmistress with a tennis racket. Welcome to the life of Georgia Nicolson, a witty, boy-stalking teenager who always seems to turn a disaster into an adventure! The Contender Have you ever felt like your options are few, and life is hitting you with too many By: Robert Lipsyte challenges? Have you ever felt like you were down for the count? What if your parents Lexile: 760 are dead, you’re losing your best friend, and your best option makes your stomach feel like ice? The Contender tells the story of Alfred Brooks, a teenage boy from Harlem faced with some incredibly difficult choices. When Alfred steps into the boxing ring, he faces his fears, meets his challengers, and strives to be a contender in life. The Dare Let’s talk about love. How far would you go to get the girl or guy of your dreams? By: RL Stine Would you murder someone for it? Believe it or not, some people would. In The Dare, Lexile: 490 Johanna is a high school student who would do almost anything to be loved and to be part of her school’s rich, popular crowd. How far will she go to get what she wants? Don’t Look Behind You Could you give up your name, your friends and everything else you’d ever known? By: Lois Duncan Imagine missing your first prom or your boyfriend’s graduation. Could you walk away Lexile: 1020 and never come back? April Corrigan feels like her life is ruined when, because of her father’s testimony in a drug trial, the family must go into hiding. With changed identities, appearances, and a new house, the Corrigans feel secure in the Federal Witness Security Program – but are they?

The Outsiders The leather jacket, the worn-out jeans, the fight in his eyes, and the “forget the world” By: SE Hinton attitude-we see this guy on the news. We avoid eye contact with him on the streets Lexile: 750 and whisper things behind his back. We all know this guy. Or do we? Let me introduce you to Ponyboy Curtis, a guy from the wrong side of the tracks who strives to see things in the right way. In The Outsiders Ponyboy takes us through the tough world of the Greasers and teaches us that people are more than they appear on the surface. Tears of a Tiger Imagine being responsible for your best friend’s death. Could you live with yourself? By: Sharon M Draper That’s the situation Andy faces when-after drinking-he chooses to drive his friends Lexile: 700 home. Under the Blood Red Bombs, smoke, red sky-picture it happening to you. One day your life is relatively Sun normal-and the next, it’s changed forever. In this story, Tomi is a boy who lives on the By: Graham Salisbury picturesque island of Hawaii. What happens there to Tomi and his family, however, is Lexile: 640 far from picturesque. Tomi encounters bombs, discrimination, harassment, death and loss of family. Over the Wall And now, approaching the batter’s box is Tyler Waltern. Tyler hails from California but By: John H Ritter is joining a summer league in New York City, where he stays with his cousin Louie. Will Lexile: 590 Tyler’s temper get him thrown out of the league? Pretties Can you be perfect looking? What about beyond perfect? Sixteen-year old Tally is By: Scott Westerfeld pretty-beautiful actually. Her body has been sculpted, stitched, and suctioned, making Lexile: 860 her a new Pretty in Pretties. Pretties party all night and have fun all day, but the world is not all that it seems. Is pretty all there is? Follow Tally as she discovers what lies beneath this perfect made-up world as she must choose between being “pretty” and simply being who she is. Slam At we all feel invincible. Greg Harris aka Slam is a 17-year-old Boy Wonder when By: Walter Dean Myers it comes to hoops. Basketball is his game, and Slam is his name. But off the court, Lexile: 750 Slam’s superhero status has been interrupted. To save him from the streets of Harlem, Slam’s mother enrolls his in a prestigious uptown school. Now he has to regroup and learn how to fit in. But low grades and a lack of academic drive threat to take him out of the game. The Year Without Have you ever argued with a brother or sister? What if those words were the last you Michael shared? Imagine if a family member disappeared. Who would you turn to? How would By: Susan Beth Pfeffer you feel? How would you survive? Do you think you could ever give up the search? Lexile: 670 The Year Without Michael explores the disappearance of Michael Chapman, a 14-year- old boy soon to a high school freshman. Jody, his 17-year-old sister, travels from hope to heartbreak and back again as she struggles to find her missing brother. Let the Circle be Have you ever wondered what life was like in the segregated South? Do you enjoy Unbroken sharing stories with your family? If so, join Cassie Logan and her family on their By: Mildred D Taylor Depression-era farm in Mississippi as they struggle to get along with both the blacks and whites of Strawberry. They must endure insults and racial tensions as they struggle to make enough money to cover their land taxes. When a half-white cousin Suzelle comes to visit, and Aunt Lee Annie decides to register to vote, tensions mount.

Nonfiction Book Suggestions to Read this Summer (You can read any fiction book you’d like, these are just some ideas):

Title, Author, Lexile Description 2gether 4ever Girls aren’t the only people who love to write notes. Boys do too, as they try to figure By: Dene Larson out what girls are all about. What about talking to girls face to face? No way! So what’s Lexile: NA a boy to do? Ask his friend to talk to the girl for him, of course! Note passing is definitely an art, especially in English class, where a boy doesn’t want to get caught sending his girlfriend-of-the-moment a note about his feelings for her. The notes, actual ones from Dene Larson’s junior high school years, follow the ups and downs of his friendships and crushes. The Adventures of How do you feel about computers, dragons, or invisible worlds? If you are interested in Penrose the any of these things, this book is for you. You will be introduced to 25 of the most Mathematical Cat interesting math-related topics you have seen. You can learn how to fold a square piece By: Theoni Pappas of paper into the shape of an , find the math in wildflowers, solve math puzzles, Lexile: NA or draw a dragon using only straight lines. The pictures and examples make each topic easy to understand. Horrible : Blood, How would you like it if your doctor made you a research subject? No big deal, you say? and Body Bits Well, what if you had accidentally blown a huge hole in your stomach, and your doctor By: Nick Arnold decided to leave the hole open so he could run experiments? What if one of the Lexile: 890 experiments was drinking some of the juices in your stomach? That’s a different story, isn’t it? In this book you can learn about this experiment, and many others doctors have done over time. Not only that, but you’ll learn about the in a way that’s far more entertaining than a science textbook…because it leaves in all the disgusting bits! Brainstorm! The Stories Have you ever heard yourself saying, “I wish I had invented that!”? Well, stop wishing of Twenty American Kid and get to work. Kids invent things all the time; we just don’t hear about it. If you’re Inventors wondering what kinds of things young inventors come up with, then this book is for By: Tom Tucker you! It features amazing young inventors, some who kept inventing as adults and Lexile: 1070 became famous. From the glo-sheet (a clipboard you can write on in the dark) to the television, their inventions will inspire you to create your own big ideas. Chicken Soup for the Okay teens, you know you’ve got issues. From boyfriends and girlfriends to living with Teenage Soul the consequences of your actions, life is one big lesson after the other. The good news By: Jack Canfield, Mark is that no what you are going through, you don’t have to feel alone. Everyone Victor Hansen, and needs a little nurturing, reassurance, and advice now and then, and this book is just Kimberly Kirberger what the doctor ordered. So if you want the next best thing to Mom, grab this book Lexile: 1050 and let the wisdom and experiences of teens just like you feed your soul. Do Drink Water? Everyone has some nagging questions that they just can’t answer. For example: Where By: Bill McLain did the idea for underwear come from? How much gold does the United States store in Lexile: NA Fort Knox? Why are gasoline prices listed to three decimal places, such as $2.899 per gallon? What brilliant person determined the sticky difference between jelly, jam, preserves and marmalades? This book is a sea of questions, answers, factoids, did-you- know sections, and resources. Escape! The Story of David Copperfield. Penn and Teller. Siegfried and Roy. Lance Burton. Criss Angel the Great Houdini Mindfreak. All these magicians owe some of their fame to Harry Houdini. This By: Sid Fleischman biography will help you uncover this secrets kept by the Great Houdini. From his Lexile: 940 impoverished childhood to this worldwide fame, Harry Houdini is one magician who will never be stuffed into a magic hat. Extreme Sports: The Imagine free falling thousands of feet in formation with other jumpers, scaling a vertical Illustrated Guide to rock formation, or racing a yacht around the world. These are just a few of the thrilling Maximum Adrenalin activities featured in this book. It will take you from air to land to sea on a wild ride of Thrills amazing sports adventures. An athlete himself, author Joe Tomlinson describes athletes By: Joe Tomlinson who are “surfing, flipping, gliding and bouncing through the air in defiance of .” Lexile: NA How do they do that? Find out in this book! Freedom Riders: John When you think of being a college student, what do you imagine? Classes? Late-night Lewis and Jim Zwerg on studying? Parties? Do you ever imagine fighting for other people’s rights? What if you the Front Lines of the were attacked by a mob, beaten, or jailed? Well, this is the story of two normal college Civil Rights Movement students-one black, one white-who took a bus ride that changed history. John Lewis, By: Ann Bausum Jim Zwerg and the rest of the Freedom Riders joined the Civil Rights Movement and Lexile: 1090 made a lasting impact. The Lost Boy: A Foster “Alone in my dreams I found myself standing at the end of a long, dark hallway. As Child’s Search for the shadowy figure emerged at the opposite end. The figure transformed into The Mother. Love of a Family She began to march toward me. For some reason, I stood still. I couldn’t move; I didn’t By: Dave Pelzer even try. The closer The Mother came, the more her red face, filled with hatred, came Lexile: 720 into focus. The Mother held a shiny knife above her, poised and ready to strike me down.” These are the words of a lost boy describing one of his dreams about the mother who abused him. The boy is lost because he spends his adolescence trying to understand what went wrong. From foster home to foster home, he searches for answers – the answers that will help him find himself. Uncle John’s Top What causes an ice cream headache? Why do your eyes sometimes look demon-red in Secret! Bathroom photographs? Is there really a job where you get to sit around tasting ice cream flavors Reader for Kids Only! all day? Find all the answers to these questions and more in this book. Learn all about a By: The Bathroom miraculous golfing sheep in Wales, discover how people and have come back Readers’ Institute from the dead, and read about where the ideas for some of your favorite TV shows Lexile: NA come from. You will be amazed! The Worst-Case We live in an exciting, fast-paced world where you never know what dangers you might Scenario Survival face. What would you do if you ran into trouble? Imagine if you were lost in the Handbook: Travel wilderness with no compass, or you were tied up and needed to escape. What would By: Joshua Priven and you do? This book will help you prepare for dangerous situations that may arise while David Borgenicht you are traveling. You never know when you might need your airplane night need to Lexile: 960 crash-land in the water, or you might need to remove a leech from some part of your body. The information in this book could save your life! ______(Cut Here)

Have your parent sign below to participate in a Jepson school-wide summer reading celebration at the beginning of the school year. Return this to Amy at the beginning of the school year!

Student Name: ______

Parent Signature: ______

Book #1: ______

Book #2: ______