8th Grade Humanities Recommended Reading List

These books have been popular with past 8th grade students.

YOUNG ADULT FICTION AND FANTASY

Douglas Adams The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Becky Albertalli Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda

Kwame Alexander The Crossover

M.T. Anderson Feed

Stephen Chbosky The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Ernest Cline Ready Player One

Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games Trilogy

Robert Cormier The Chocolate War AND I Am the Cheese ​ ​ Sharon Draper Copper Sun AND Tears of a Tiger ​ ​ Nancy Farmer The House of the Scorpion

John Green Looking for Alaska AND Paper Towns AND The Fault in ​ ​ ​ ​ Our Stars AND Turtles All the Way Down ​ ​ John Green and David Levithan Will Grayson, Will Grayson

Mark Haddon The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Laurie Halse Anderson Speak AND Chains Trilogy ​ ​ E. Lockhart We Were Liars

Lois Lowry The Giver

Marie Lu Legend Trilogy

Patricia McCormick Sold

Jandy Nelson I’ll Give You the Sun

Philip Pullman His Dark Materials Trilogy

Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely All American Boys Rainbow Rowell Eleanor and Park AND Fangirl ​ ​ Meg Rosoff How I Live Now

Veronica Roth Divergent Trilogy

Benjamin Alire Saenz Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

Andrew Smith Winger AND Grasshopper Jungle ​ Angie Thomas The Hate U Give

J.R.R Tolkien The Hobbit AND The Lord of the Rings Trilogy ​ ​ Ned Vizzini Be More Chill AND It’s Kind of a Funny Story ​ ​ Scott Westerfeld Uglies Series

Markus Zusak I Am the Messenger AND The Book Thief ​ ​

CLASSICS and CONTEMPORARY FICTION

Jane Austen Pride and Prejudice

Ray Bradbury Fahrenheit 451

Emma Donoghue Room

F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby

Arthur Golden Memoirs of a Geisha

William Golding Lord of the Flies ​ Sara Gruen Water for Elephants

Khaled Hosseini The Kite Runner AND A Thousand Splendid Suns ​ ​ Daniel Keyes Flowers for Algernon

John Knowles A Separate Peace

Harper Lee To Kill a Mockingbird

Jack London The Call of the Wild

Cormac McCarthy The Road

Tim O’Brien The Things They Carried George Orwell Animal Farm AND 1984 ​ ​ J.D. Salinger The Catcher in the Rye AND Nine Stories ​ ​ Betty Smith A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Kathryn Stockett The Help

Mark Twain The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

NON-FICTION (including memoir)

Mitch Albom Tuesdays with Morrie

Maya Angelou I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Bill Bryson A Walk in the Woods

Dave Eggers Zeitoun

Anne Frank The Diary of a Young Girl

Laura Hillenbrand Unbroken

Phillip Hoose The Boys Who Challenged Hitler

Walter Isaacson Steve Jobs: A Biography

Ji-li Liang Red Scarf Girl

Jon Krakauer Into the Wild

James McBride The Color of Water

Sarah Miller The Borden Murders: Lizzie Borden and the Trial of the

Century

Trevor Noah Born a Crime

Michael Pollan The Omnivore’s Dilemma

Marjane Satrapi Persepolis Series

Steve Sheinkin Bomb: The Race to Build-and Steal-the World’s Most

Dangerous Weapon

Rebecca Skloot The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Dashka Slater The 57 Bus: The True Story of two Teenagers and the

Crime that Changed Their Lives

Jeannette Walls The Glass Castle AND Half Broke Horses ​ ​ Tobias Wolff This Boy’s Life

Jacqueline Woodson Brown Girl Dreaming

Malala Yousafzai I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and

Was Shot by the Taliban