Summer Reading Academy of the Sacred Heart Middle School Dear Sacred Heart Parents, Here you will find your child’s summer reading assignment as well as additional suggested titles to read over the course of their summer break. Every student must complete their REQUIRED reading which is assigned based on their incoming grade level as well as two addi- tional FREE CHOICE novels. We know how hard it can be to choose a just right book, so we’re including some sug- gestions in this packet for you to browse through together! Each title in our catalog is accompanied with a book review written by a student or faculty member. If you have any questions, please feel free to email! What’s Included: Ms. Diane Aiken Cover: Parent Letter PGS 2-5: Required Reading MS Librarian PGS 6-13: Student Book Recommendations [email protected] Back Cover: Summer Reading Challenge 5th Grade Required Reading Ninth Ward by Jewell Parker Rhodes Twelve-year-old Lanesha lives in a tight-knit community in New Orleans' Ninth Ward. She doesn't have a fancy house like her uptown family or lots of friends like the other kids on her street. But what she does have is Mama Ya-Ya, her fiercely lov- ing caretaker, wise in the ways of the world and able to predict the future. So when Mama Ya-Ya's visions show a powerful hurricane--Katrina--fast approaching, it's up to Lanesha to call upon the hope and strength Mama Ya-Ya has given her to help them both survive the storm. ISBN: 0316043087 Two Free Choice Novels 2 6th Grade Required Reading Esperanza Rising Esperanza isn't ready for the by Pam Muñoz Ryan hard work, financial struggles brought on by the Great Depres- Esperanza thought she'd always sion, or lack of acceptance she live a privileged life on her fami- now faces. When Mama gets sick ly's ranch in Mexico. She'd al- and a strike for better working ways have fancy dresses, a beau- conditions threatens to uproot tiful home filled with servants, their new life, Esperanza must and Mama, Papa, and Abuelita to find a way to rise above her diffi- care for her. But a sudden trage- cult circumstances because dy forces Esperanza and Mama to Mama's life, and her own, de- flee to California and settle in a pend on it. Mexican farm labor camp. ISBN: 9780439120425 ELA SS Chu Ju’s House Homeless by Gloria Bird by Glo- Whelan ria Whelan When a girl is born Like many girls to Chu Ju's family, it her age in India, is quickly deter- thirteen-year- mined that the baby old Koly faces must be sent away. her arranged After all, the law marriage with states that a family hope and cour- may have only two age. But Koly's children, and tradi- story takes a tion dictates that terrible turn every family should when in the have a boy. To make wake of the cer- room for one, this girl will have to go. Fourteen- emony, she discovers she's been horribly mis- year-old Chu Ju knows she cannot allow this to led—her life has been sold for a dowry. Can happen to her sister. Understanding that one girl she forge her own future, even in the face of must leave, she sets out in the middle of the night, time-worn tradition? vowing not to return. ISBN: 0064408191 ISBN: 0439799554 Two Free Choice Novels 3 7th Grade Required Reading Alabama Moon by Watt Key For as long as ten-year-old Moon can remember, he has lived out in the forest in a shelter with his father. They keep to themselves, their only con- tact with other human beings an occasional trip to the nearest general store. When Moon's father dies, Moon follows his father's last instructions: to travel to Alaska to find others like themselves. But Moon is soon caught and entangled in a world he doesn't know or understand; he's become property of the government he has been avoiding all his life. As the spirit- ed and resourceful Moon encounters constables, jails, institutions, lawyers, true friends, and true enemies, he adapts his wilderness survival skills and learns to survive in the outside world, and even, perhaps, make his home there. ISBN: 0312384289 Little Women by Louisa May Alcott Grown-up Meg, tomboyish Jo, timid Beth, and precocious Amy. The four March sisters couldn't be more different. But with their father away at war, and their mother working to support the family, they have to rely on one another. Whether they're putting on a play, forming a secret society, or celebrating Christmas, there's one thing they can't help wondering: Will Father return home safely? ISBN: 0147514010 Refugee by Alan Gratz JOSEF is a Jewish boy living in 1930s Nazi Germany. With the threat of concentration camps looming, he and his family board a ship bound for the other side of the world. ISABEL is a Cuban girl in 1994. With riots and unrest plaguing her country, she and her family set out on a raft, hoping to find safety in America. MAHMOUD is a Syrian boy in 2015. With his homeland torn apart by violence and destruction, he and his family begin a long trek toward Europe. All three kids go on harrowing journeys in search of refuge. All will face unimaginable dangers -- from drownings to bombings to betrayals. But there is always the hope of tomorrow. And although Josef, Isabel, and Mahmoud are separated by continents and decades, shocking connections will tie their stories to- gether in the end. ISBN: 9780545880831 Two Free Choice Novels 4 8th Grade Required Reading The Birchbark House by Louise Erdrich Nineteenth century American pioneer life is seen through the eyes of the spirited, 7-year-old Ojibwa girl Omakayas, or Little Frog, so named be- cause her first step was a hop. The sole survivor of a smallpox epidemic on Spirit Island, Omakayas, then only a baby girl, was rescued by a fear- less woman named Tallow and welcomed into an Ojibwa family on Lake Superior's Madeline Island, the Island of the Golden-Breasted Wood- pecker. We follow Omakayas and her adopted family through a cycle of four seasons in 1847, including the winter, when a historically docu- mented outbreak of smallpox overtook the island. ISBN: 9780786814541 Piecing Me Together by Renée Watson Jade believes she must get out of her poor neighborhood if she's ever go- ing to succeed. Her mother tells her to take advantage of every oppor- tunity that comes her way. And Jade has: every day she rides the bus away from her friends and to the private school where she feels like an outsider, but where she has plenty of opportunities. But some opportunities she doesn't really welcome, like an invitation to join Women to Women, a mentorship program for "at-risk" girls. Just be- cause her mentor is black and graduated from the same high school doesn't mean she understands where Jade is coming from. She's tired of being singled out as someone who needs help, someone people want to fix. Jade wants to speak, to create, to express her joys and sorrows, her pain and her hope. Maybe there are some things she could show other women about understanding the world and finding ways to be real, to make a difference. ISBN: 1681191059 The Book Thief by Markus Zusak It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier, and will become busier still. By her brother's grave- side, Liesel's life is changed when she picks up a single object, partially hidden in the snow. It is The Gravedigger's Handbook, left behind there by accident, and it is her first act of book thievery. So begins a love af- fair with books and words, as Liesel, with the help of her accordion- playing foster father, learns to read. Soon she is stealing books from Nazi book-burnings, the mayor's wife's library, wherever there are books to be found. But these are dangerous times. When Liesel's foster family hides a Jew in their basement, Liesel's world is both opened up, and closed down. ISBN: 0375831002 Two Free Choice Novels 5 Enticing, Inspirational, Hopeful Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus by Dusti Bowling “This book is about a girl, Aven, who has no arms. She has to move from Kan- sas to Arizona with her parents who will soon manage a theme park there. Aven doesn't feel like she is alone at first until she meets Connor, a kid with a disability too. Together, they unveil a secret that will change Aven's life for- ever. Most importantly, they discovered that what makes them different, is what makes them special. It is a really good feel-good novel. Its a pretty quick read and I found it very entertaining. I would recommend it to anybody who feels alone because this book teaches that most definitely aren't alone.” — Abbey Mohr, 8th Grade Exciting, Attention-Grasping, Mysterious The Lost Hero Books by Rick Riordan “This book is about three demi- with YA gods. They are Jason, Piper, and the YA Leo. Jason is the son f Jupiter (Zeus), Piper is the daughter of (Young Aphrodite, and Leo is the son of Adult) sym- bol Hephaestus. They are brought next to them are to a camp for Greek demigods, and Jason (who's memory has been taken away by Hera) is recommended for told he should be dead.