DOCSLIB.ORG

GORDON KORMAN : Book Descriptions ​ ​ Interested in Some Fun and Adventurous Reading? Try Some Or All of Gordon Korman’S Books

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text

Load more

GORDON KORMAN : Book Descriptions ​ ​ Interested in some fun and adventurous reading? Try some or all of Gordon Korman’s books. See how many you can read before he arrives at our school on March 30 & 31, 2016. Most of his books are realistic fiction. Several of his stand­alone books are quite humorous but also have a valuable message. Many of his series are adventurous and quite suspenseful. Enjoy ! Section 1­­­ Korman’s stand-alone books; considered appropriate for grades ​ ​ 5-8. Ungifted: Ungifted is a new title about a young struggling student troublemaker who is ​ accidentally transferred to a school for highly­gifted genius­level students. To say he doesn't fit in would be a severe understatement. But while Donovan Curtis in no way belongs, he does find things he can contribute. How long will it take for the school to realize he doesn't belong? How much trouble will he get in as they figure it out? And how many lives will he change in the process? These are hard questions to answer without reading the book. Thankfully, it is a fun read, so discovering these answers will be a joy. (Lexile 730) Schooled : Capricorn, 13, lives with his hippie grandmother on a farm commune. He's never been to school, never watched TV, and doesn't even own a phone. When Rain falls out of a tree whilepicking plums and is sent to rehab for several weeks, Cap stays with a social worker and is sent to the local junior high school. There he is introduced to iPods, cell phones, spit balls, and harassment. Cap, with his long frizzy hair, hemp shoes, and serene ignorance of everything most of the kids care about, is the dweebiest of the dweebs, and it's the custom at this school to elect such a kid to be eighth­grade class president (which offers extra humiliation opportunities). The story is told from multiple points of view, adding depth to even the most unsympathetic characters. Korman's humor is a mix of edgy and silly, the plot moves along at a steady pace. School Library Journal ​ Korman's novel narrated by the good, the bad and the only slightly involved is his usual smart, funny, slightly skewed realism. Tweens will definitely identify and could view their grandparents in a whole new light. Ages 9­14 Kirkus Review (Lexile 740) ​ ​ No More Dead Dogs: Eighth­grade football hero Wallace Wallace is sentenced to detention attending rehearsals of the school play where, in spite of himself, he becomes wrapped up in the production and begins to suggest changes that improve not only the play but his life as well. (Lexile 610) th The 6 ​ Grade Nickname Game: ​ Eleven­year­old best friends Jeff and Wiley, who like to give nicknames to their classmates, try to find the right one for the new girl Cassandra, while adjusting to the football coach who has become their new teacher. (Lexile 640) POP: When Marcus Jordan moves to a new town over the summer, he doesn’t ​ know a soul. While practicing football for impending tryouts, he strikes up an unlikely friendship with a middle­aged man. Charlie is a charismatic prankster – and also the best football player Marcus has ever seen. Marcus can’t believe his luck when he finds out that Charlie is actually Charlie Popovich, of “The King of Pop,” as he had been nicknamed during his career as an NFL linebacker. But that’s not all. There’s a secret about Charlie that his family is desperate to hide … (Lexile 740) Maxx Comedy—The Funniest Kid in America: Eleven­year­old Max Carmody feels he has met his destiny when he sees an announcement for "The Funniest Kid in America" contest, but his quest to create a video that will get him into the running turns into a comedy of errors. (Lexile 770) The Chicken Doesn’t Skate Milo’s science project charts the growth of a baby chick, but he’s baffled by the rest of his class. They name the chick Henrietta. They sign up to take her home on weekends. They claim she’s a good luck charm, a friend, and the hockey team’s new mascot. But when they find out that Henrietta will be cooked and eaten at the science fair, the feathers really start to fly. (Lexile 710) he Toilet Paper Tigers: The Feather­Soft Tigers never imagined Little League could be so humiliating. Life is tough when your team sponsor is a bathroom tissue manufacturing company. Worse, the Tigers are awful! Forget about winning – they can’t even ​ ​ get a man on base. Enter Kristy Pendergast, the coach’s obnoxious granddaughter and a gigantic pain in the neck. But when Kristy takes over as coach, her crazy schemes pull the Tigers out of their slump and send them on the ultimate Cinderella­story winning streak. (Lexile 650) Radio Fifth Grade: All Benjy Driver ever wanted was for his school’s radio show to be a success. When he finds himself stuck with a talking parrot who won’t talk, a bully who hogs the airwaves, and way too much homework, he’s sure Kidsview is doomed. Instead, the ratings soar, and he and his co­hosts have to come up with one scheme after another to keep their show on top, and themselves a step ahead of disaster. (Lexile 690) Liar Liar Pants on Fire: Zoe, an imaginative third grader, thinks that she has to make things up to be interesting, until a good friend and an eagle convince her that she does not have to lie to be special. (This one often appeals to a slightly younger audience) (Lexile 460) Section 2­­­Korman’s series books; considered appropriate for grades 5­8. ​ Masterminds (Book 1 of Korman’s NEWEST evolving trilogy) Eli Frieden ​ ​ lives in the most perfect town in the world: Serenity, New Mexico. Everyone has a great house, with a pool. Money problems and crime are unheard of. Honesty and integrity are valued above all else. The thirty kids who live there never lie. They know it’s a short leap from that to the awful problems of other, less fortunate places. Eli has never left Serenity … until, one day, he bikes to the edge of the city limits and something so crazy and unexpected happens that it changes everything. Eli convinces his friends to help him investigate further, and it soon becomes clear that nothing is as it seems in Serenity. The clues mount to reveal a shocking discovery, linking their ideal community to some of the greatest criminal masterminds ever known. (Lexile 730) COMING IN FEBRUARY 2016 ­ MASTERMINDS: BOOK 2 ​ ​ Get ready for the next installment of my newest series. Follow Eli, Tori, Malik, and Amber as they try to discover the truth of their origins and carve a life for themselves in an outside world that is unfamiliar, baffling, and dangerous. But Project Osiris and its enforcers, the Purple People Eaters, are hot on their trail. They’re free for now. But for how long …? The Hypnotist trilogy The Hypnotist (Book 1) 12­year­old Jackson Opus doesn’t know it, but he’s the ​ ​ most powerful natural hypnotist on earth. At first, Jax thinks his new talent is beyond awesome. How would you feel if you could make anybody do whatever you want them to? But the reality turns out to be a little more complicated. What will his remarkable abilities be used for? That’s the big question for Jax as his hypnotic gifts draw him into a conspiracy that has him racing against time to save his best friend, his parents, and the entire free world. (Lexile 750) Memory Maze (Book 2): The world’s most powerful mind­bender is back! Jax ​ ​ and his family have escaped New York City, but are they really any safer in hiding? Strange things are happening, starting with an unbelievable invitation from one of the richest men on earth. Back in New York, hypnotists are mysteriously disappearing. Could it be the work of Dr. Elias Mako and his Sentia Institute? Or is something entirely different going on? (Lexile 780) The Dragonfly Effect: (Book 3): The thrilling conclusion of THE ​ ​ HYPNOTISTS trilogy. Jax has been recruited by the U.S. Army’s Hypnotic Warfare Research Department. But Dr. Elias Mako has escaped from prison, and this time he has a plan to use mesmeric power to bring the entire world to its knees. (Lexile 760) Swindle series­­­ (These books all have the same characters, but they actually ​ can be read and enjoyed independently of one another.) Swindle: After unscrupulous collector S. Wendell Palamino cons him out of a valuable baseball ​ card, sixth­grader Griffin Bing puts together a band of misfits to break into Palomino's heavily guarded store and steal the card back, planning to use the money to finance his father's failing invention, the Smart Pick fruit picker. (Lexile 710) Zoobreak: After a class trip to a floating zoo where animals are mistreated and Savannah's ​ missing pet monkey is found in a cage, Long Island sixth­grader Griffin Bing and his band of misfits plan a rescue. (Lexile 700) Framed: The Man with the Plan needs help from his friends at Cedarville Middle School to ​ ​ clear him of a crime he didn't commit. When a valuable Super Bowl ring goes missing, the principal is convinced that Griffin is involved, and the kids are convinced that Principal Egan is trying to pin the heist on them. It appears that Griffin has been framed, and each attempt to clear his name seems to get the friends in more trouble.
Recommended publications
  • Unleashed (Turtleback School Library Binding Edition) (Swindle) Online

    Unleashed (Turtleback School Library Binding Edition) (Swindle) Online

    OPfIu (Download free pdf) Unleashed (Turtleback School Library Binding Edition) (Swindle) Online [OPfIu.ebook] Unleashed (Turtleback School Library Binding Edition) (Swindle) Pdf Free Gordon Korman ePub | *DOC | audiobook | ebooks | Download PDF 2016-01-05Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 7.50 x .50 x 5.20l, Binding: Library Binding208 pages | File size: 54.Mb Gordon Korman : Unleashed (Turtleback School Library Binding Edition) (Swindle) before purchasing it in order to gage whether or not it would be worth my time, and all praised Unleashed (Turtleback School Library Binding Edition) (Swindle): 1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. Another Great Swindle StoryBy Daniel JohnstonUnleashed is the seventh book in the popular Swindle series by Gordon Korman. Each book stands on its own and is about the gang of Griffin Bing and his group of his friends. Griffin is the Man with The Plan and the books are about kids doing stuff and taking matters into their own hands.This book starts out with action as the kids have an invention contest at their school. Everyone assumes Griffin will be able to make a great invention because his dad's an inventor, but he knows it's not going to be that easy. He and his worst nemesis Darren Vader make a bet on who will win the contest.When Griffin tries to enlist his friend Melissa's technological skills to help him, it creates a riff in the group as another friend, Pitch, claims that Griffin is looking down on her because she's a girl. Of course the charge is ridiculous, but it splits them up.At the same time, Luthor, Savannah's pet dog, is constantly going into the street and chasing a particular car.
  • Swindle Series Discussion Guide (PDF)

    Swindle Series Discussion Guide (PDF)

    DISCUSSION GUIDE Grades 4-7 About the books In these fast-paced and entertaining stories, readers will meet friends who work as a team, each contributing a special talent to their adventures. In the process, they face ethical dilemmas, learn how to think quickly, and demonstrate both the courage and cleverness they will need in order to carry out Griffin’s plans. In the face of seemingly impossible odds, these friends never give up until justice is served. swindle Griffin Bing is known as The Man With The Plan. Griffin acquires a rare baseball card, only to be cheated out of its true value by an unscrupulous dealer named S. Wendell Palomino—who is quickly nicknamed “Swindle” by Griffin and his friend Ben. After a failed attempt to retrieve the card, Griffin recruits a group of classmates. Each member of the group is able to contribute a specific skill, but even the best of plans can be disrupted by unexpected circumstances. Luckily for the reader, these circumstances create hilarious and heart- stopping adventure. Zoobreak Griffin’s class visits a floating zoo, where his friend Samantha finds her own recently stolen capuchin monkey. Planning a break-in to retrieve the monkey requires the talents of all Griffin’s friends. The plan becomes more complicated when Samantha becomes determined to help all the animals escape their terrible conditions. They soon realize that they will need to stage a completely different sort of break-in. Framed When Griffin’s dental retainer shows up in a locked display case where a valuable Super Bowl ring should be, even The Man With The Plan is stumped.
  • Discussion Guideguide Grades 4-7

    Discussion Guideguide Grades 4-7

    DiscussionDiscussion GuideGuide Grades 4-7 Griffin Bing is known as The Man with a Plan, especially one that involves kids outwitting adults. In Swindle, Griffin acquires a rare baseball card, only to be cheated out of its true value by an unscrupulous dealer, S. Wendell Palomino, who is quickly nicknamed “Swindle” by Griffin and his friend Ben. After one failed attempt to retrieve the card, Griffin recruits a group of classmates, each with a specific skill his new plan requires. But even the best of plans can be thrown off by unexpected circumstances, creating hilarious and heart-stopping adventure for this motley group of sixth graders. In Zoobreak, Griffin’s class visits a floating zoo where his friend Samantha finds her own recently stolen capuchin monkey. Planning a break-in to retrieve the monkey requires the talents of all Griffin’s friends, and a lot of last-minute changes to make the plan work. But when they reach the zoo boat, Samantha becomes determined to help all the animals escape their terrible conditions, making the plan much more complicated. Dividing up the animals and keeping them safe in a variety of ways, the kids soon realize they will need to stage a completely different sort of break-in. In both of these adventures, the friends work as a team and learn a lot about each other in the bargain. They face some ethical dilemmas, learn how to think quickly, and demonstrate both courage and cleverness in carrying out their plans. PRE-READING VOCABULARY EXERCISE 1. In Swindle, Gordon Korman introduces a lot of words that are associated with crime and wrongdoing.
  • Talking Book Topics March-April 2015

    Talking Book Topics March-April 2015

    Talking Book Topics March–April 2015 Volume 81, Number 2 About Talking Book Topics Talking Book Topics is published bimonthly in audio, large-print, and online formats and distributed at no cost to individuals who are blind or have a physically disability and who participate in the Library of Congress reading program. It lists digital audiobooks and magazines available through a network of cooperating libraries and covers news of developments and activities in network library services. The annotated list in this issue is limited to titles recently added to the national collection, which contains thousands of fiction and nonfiction titles, including bestsellers, classics, biographies, romance novels, mysteries, and how-to guides. Some books in Spanish are also available. To explore the wide range of books in the national collection, access the NLS International Union Catalog online at loc.gov/nls or contact your local cooperating library. Talking Book Topics is available online in HTML at www.loc.gov/nls/tbt and in downloadable audio files on the NLS Braille and Audio Reading Download (BARD) service at http://nlsbard.loc.gov/. Library of Congress, Washington 2015 Catalog Card Number 60-46157 ISSN 0039-9183 Where to write Order talking books through your local cooperating library. If you wish to make changes in your current subscription, please also contact your local cooperating library. Patrons who are American citizens living abroad may request delivery to foreign addresses by contacting the overseas librarian by phone at (202) 707-5100 or e-mail at [email protected]. Only send correspondence about editorial matters to: Publications and Media Page 1 of 86 Section, National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, Library of Congress, Washington DC, 20542-0002.
  • Swindle Series Discussion Guide (PDF)

    Swindle Series Discussion Guide (PDF)

    DISCUSSION GUIDE Grades 4-7 About the books In these fast-paced and entertaining stories, readers will meet friends who work as a team, each contributing a special talent to their adventures. In the process, they face ethical dilemmas, learn how to think quickly, and demonstrate both the courage and cleverness they will need in order to carry out Griffin’s plans. In the face of seemingly impossible odds, these friends never give up until justice is served. swindle Griffin Bing is known as The Man With The Plan. Griffin acquires a rare baseball card, only to be cheated out of its true value by an unscrupulous dealer named S. Wendell Palomino—who is quickly nicknamed “Swindle” by Griffin and his friend Ben. After a failed attempt to retrieve the card, Griffin recruits a group of classmates. Each member of the group is able to contribute a specific skill, but even the best of plans can be disrupted by unexpected circumstances. Luckily for the reader, these circumstances create hilarious and heart- stopping adventure. Zoobreak Griffin’s class visits a floating zoo, where his friend Samantha finds her own recently stolen capuchin monkey. Planning a break-in to retrieve the monkey requires the talents of all Griffin’s friends. The plan becomes more complicated when Samantha becomes determined to help all the animals escape their terrible conditions. They soon realize that they will need to stage a completely different sort of break-in. Framed When Griffin’s dental retainer shows up in a locked display case where a valuable Super Bowl ring should be, even The Man With The Plan is stumped.
  • 2014 Children and Teens Department Summer Favorites

    2014 Children and Teens Department Summer Favorites

    2014 CHILDREN AND TEENS DEPARTMENT SUMMER FAVORITES , copyright 2014 with permission from Candlewick from with permission 2014 , copyright Firefly July Firefly Illustration from from Illustration 1 PICTURE BOOKS Never turn the page too quickly. Never assume you know what happens next. These are the rules for reading Rules of Summer (Arthur A. Levine, $18.99). In this tale of two brothers’ summertime adventures and mistakes, Shaun Tan creates a world in which meteors are caught like fireflies, robots populate parades, Kazuno Kohara animates the sleeping hours in and a giant rabbit menaces those who leave The Midnight Library (Roaring Brook, $16.99), red socks on the clothesline. Tan’s sweeping a charming tale of the nocturnal life of a library surreal paintings pair with sparse text to create and the librarian who shepherds its animal a world of commonplace marvels that invite patrons. Characters will inspire giggles in young the full participation of the reader. His work readers and ring true to daytime librarians: never confines a reader to a single, easily the loud squirrel musicians, the tortoise who interpretable narrative. Its appeal is part wonder, has plodded only halfway through his tome by part adventure, and part lurking menace. Wildly closing (sunrise). The linocut illustrations’ bold inventive and richly layered, this meditation outlines and minimal color palette add a layer on friendship, childhood, and imagination will of nighttime fantasy and heighten the book’s engage a wide range of readers. The book’s an magic. A sweet homage to librarians, the book adventure in itself, the kind to which one returns also works as a bedtime read, closing with a again and again.
  • The 39 Clues Blog Tour: Access Granted, Peter Lerangis

    The 39 Clues Blog Tour: Access Granted, Peter Lerangis

    The 39 Clues Blog Tour: Access Granted, Peter Lerangis Posted by Bianca Schulze on August 18, 2010 By Peter Lerangis, for The Children’s Book Review Published: August 18, 2010 Welcome to the 7th stop of The 39 Clues blog tour. We are thrilled to host Peter Lerangis! Be sure to enter the giveaway for your chance to win books 1-7 of this exciting and groundbreaking series. The teacher looked distressed as she greeted me. “I can’t believe what happened to my class,” she said. I braced myself. Behind her, hundreds of excited kids were filing in to the gym. They sat in sections based on the colors of their shirts: red, blue, green, gold, representing the four branches of the Cahill family. Most were dressed as 39 Clues characters. Jonah Wizard (with his bling) and Nellie Gomez (with her punk attire) were very popular — but also a set of twins dressed as fish (Saladin’s red snapper), a girl in a three-piece suit (Jonah’s dad), and a guy dressed as Nellie. They seemed happy and engaged. So what had gone wrong? I knew the school had chosen The 39 Clues as the theme for that year’s curriculum. Makes sense — the series is a worldwide search (geography) for Clues left by the most influential people of all time (history, science), involving twisty plots and strong emotional character connections (language arts) among colorful locales (visual art) and requiring the decoding of cryptic clues (mathematics, logic). Hmm. Was the teacher disturbed by the intensity? It was kind of extreme … That morning, the school had warned us to call ahead.
  • 2008-2009 Lone Star Reading List

    2008-2009 Lone Star Reading List

    2008-2009 Lone Star Reading List Berryhill, Shane. Chance Fortune and the Outlaws. Starscape, 2006. ISBN-13: 978-0-7653-1468-0 (publisher’s hardcover). Even though he seems to have no superhero powers, Chance is accepted into the school of his dreams, the Burlington Academy for the Superhuman, where he uses his skills to help his team and battle the forces of Evil. Try These Too: The Awakening , Michael Owen Carroll Demonkeeper , Royce Buckingham PS 238 , Aaron Williams True Talents , David Lubar Bryant, Jen. Pieces of Georgia: A Novel. Knopf, 2006. ISBN- 13: 978-0-375-93259-5 (publisher’s hardcover). ISBN-13: 978- 0-440-42055-2 (paperback). In journal entries to her mother, a gifted artist who died suddenly, thirteen- year-old Georgia McCoy reveals how her life changes after she receives an anonymous gift membership to a nearby art museum. Try These Too: Runaway , Wendelin Van Draanen Sand Dollar Summer, Kimberly Jones Way Down Deep , Ruth White Flinn, Alex. Beastly . HarperTeen, 2007. ISBN-13: 978-0-06- 087416-2 (publisher’s hardcover). ISBN-13: 978-0-06-087417-9 (library binding). Kyle Kingsbury has everything going for him - money, good looks, and charm - until the day he mocks the wrong girl (a witch in disguise) who transforms him into a terrifying beast. Kyle has two years to find true love before he becomes a monster forever in this very modern retelling of the classic Beauty and the Beast story. 1 Lone Star Reading List 2008-2009 Try These Too: Beast , Donna Jo Napoli East , Edith Pattou Fairest , Gail Carson Levine The Princess and the Hound , Mettie Ivie Harrison Tattoo , Jennifer Lynn Barnes Hale, Marian.
  • 39 Clues’ Wave by Sally Lodge – 9/22/2010

    39 Clues’ Wave by Sally Lodge – 9/22/2010

    David Baldacci on Author Roster for Second ‘39 Clues’ Wave By Sally Lodge – 9/22/2010 The powerful Cahill family will be pitted against a ruthless cabal in Scholastic’s follow-up to its multimedia franchise, The 39 Clues. The new series, The 39 Clues: Cahills vs. Vespers, launches in April 2011 with Vespers Rising by Rick Riordan, Peter Lerangis, Gordon Korman, and Jude Watson, and will wrap up in March 2013 with a seventh installment penned by bestselling thriller author David Baldacci. Vespers Rising has an announced first printing of 500,000 copies. Continuing the multi-platform concept, the second part of the series will entail collectible cards and an online game and will include enhanced interactive features on the series’ Web site. The 39 Clues model has obviously clicked with young readers: there are more than 8.5 million copies of the original 10-book series in print, the series has been licensed for publication in 24 languages, and the Web site has more than 1.2 million registered users to date. Asked about the incentive for creating part deux, David Levithan, v-p and editorial director of Scholastic Press and multi-media publishing, has a simple answer: “The kids wanted it.” He notes that the 10th book, Margaret Peterson Haddix’s Into the Gauntlet, which pubbed in August, “was our best launch yet. And when that book came out, the first installment, The Maze of Bones by Rick Riordan, was still among the top 10 titles on BookScan’s children’s list. The 39 Clues has engaged both readers and gamers and has created a world that kids don’t want to leave and that new kids are discovering all the time.” Rachel Griffiths, senior editor of Scholastic Press and editor of The 39 Clues, says that the 2.0 version immerses readers into the series’ action more extensively than before.
  • WEST SCHOOL AUTHOR VISIT! Author Gordon Korman Will Visit West School in Glencoe on Wednesday, October 4, 2006!

    WEST SCHOOL AUTHOR VISIT! Author Gordon Korman Will Visit West School in Glencoe on Wednesday, October 4, 2006!

    WEST SCHOOL AUTHOR VISIT! Author Gordon Korman will visit West School in Glencoe on Wednesday, October 4, 2006! Best-selling author, Gordon Korman (www.gordonkorman.com) will visit Glencoe West School on Wednesday October 4, 2006, for a day of presentations. The visit is being underwritten by the Glencoe PTO. The New York-based author of more than 55 books, with 7 million copies in print, Korman is best known for his Bruno and Boots titles, as well as his award- winning young adult books, including Son of Interflux. His newest titles include Born to Rock, a new young adult title from Hyperion (published Spring, 2006) and Kidnapped, an adventure series published this summer According to his official bio, Gordon Korman was born October 23, 1963 in Montreal, Quebec in Canada. He wrote his first book, This Can't be Happening at Macdonald Hall when he was 12 years old for a coach who suddenly found himself teaching 7th grade English. He later took that episode and created a book out of it, called the Sixth Grade Nickname Game. Mr. Huge, a character in the book, was based on that 7th grade teacher. His first book was published with Scholastic. The company then published his next 20 books. Hyperion and Scholastic both publish Korman’s books. Gordon divides his time between Toronto, New York and Florida, and is currently under contract for several more books, the six-volume On the Run adventure series, and new young adult and children’s titles. Korman will talk to Glencoe West School students about characterization, how he goes about finding topics to write about, and other tricks of his writer’s life.
  • 6Th Grade Summer Reading List 2019

    6Th Grade Summer Reading List 2019

    Incoming 6th Grade Summer Reading List 2019 REQUIRED READING: ​ Butler/Fountain: Schooled by Gordon Korman ​ ​ ​ & two (2) additional books as long as one is fiction. ​ Cooper/Popham: Restart by Gordon Korman ​ ​ & two (2) additional books as long as one is fiction. ​ (Try to save Schooled/Restart for last so the book is fresh in your mind for ​ ​ September.) See the following list for recommendations. We would encourage you to: ● Read a book in a format or genre you don’t usually read for fun ● Read a book about a character who doesn’t look like you or live like you ● Read a book about a topic you don’t know a lot about ● Enjoy your summer reading! **Please note all non-fiction books are at the end of this list, starting on page 13. ** FICTION Adventure / Survival Alabama Moon by Watt Key -- After the death of his father, 10-year-old Moon ​ ​ Blake is removed from the Alabama forest where he was raised and sent to a boy's home, where, for the first time, he has contact with the outside world and learns about friendship, love, and humanity. 1 The Blackthorn Key by Kevin Sands -- n 1665 London, fourteen-year-old ​ Christopher Rowe, apprentice to an apothecary, and his best friend Tom try to uncover the truth behind a mysterious cult, following a trail of puzzles, codes, pranks, and danger toward an unearthly secret with the power to tear the world apart. (Sequels: Mark of the Plague; The Assassin’s Curse; Call of the Wraith) The Cay by Theodore Taylor -- Shipwrecked on a tiny Caribbean island, Philip ​ must overcome his prejudice towards Timothy, the old black sailor who becomes the key to his survival.
  • Lakewood City Schools Middle School Reading Assignment - Summer 2008

    Lakewood City Schools Middle School Reading Assignment - Summer 2008

    Lakewood City Schools Middle School Reading Assignment - Summer 2008 Important Information from Next Year’s Middle School Language Arts Teachers Monday, June 2, 2008 Dear Parent or Guardian: All future sixth, seventh, and eighth grade students are required to read at least two books this summer. After reading each book, students will have a choice from two assignment options. Students should complete the two assignments (one for each book) before school starts in the fall. Students are required to bring their assignments with them to school and turn them in to their language arts teacher no later than Friday, September 5, 2008. Teachers will NOT accept late assignments after this date. Grading Procedures: Students need to read two books and complete two assignments. Any combination of the assignments listed below will be accepted. For example, a student could complete option A for one book and option B for the other book OR complete option B for two different books. Students will be graded on the assignments based upon following the instructions listed in this packet. This grade will count for up to ten percent of your student’s first marking period grade in language arts. Students should select books to read that they have not already read for previous assignments. Assignment Option A: • Read a book (or books) from the attached list, the Scholastic Reading Inventory Recommended Reading Report list, a book that falls within the student’s Lexile Level, or a combination of these three sources. • While reading, students will complete three journal responses for each book. These assignments can be hand-written or typed.