Welcome to the 2018 Summer Reading List for students entering Class VI in September!
This summer, you are required to read a total of five books. Read the required book for Class VI, The Giver by Lois Lowry, plus four other books of your choice from the summer reading list. Of course, we welcome and encourage you to read more than five, if you’d like!
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Keep a record of what you read by writing down the title and author of each book to share with your teacher and your classmates in September.
Students are asked to avoid reading the following works, which are part of the Middle School English curriculum:
Black Ships Before Troy, Johnny Tremain, Beowulf the Warrior, Before We Were Free, The Miracle Worker, Forge, Fever, Chains, Ashes, The Outsiders, The House on Mango Street, A Raisin in the Sun, Animal Farm, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, This Boy’s Life, The Crucible, Macbeth, and Annie John.
A printable version of this list is available here. If you are accessing this site from your cell phone, you will need to choose to view the desktop version of the site, not the mobile version.
This haunting story centers on twelve-year-old Jonas, who lives in a seemingly ideal, if colorless, world of conformity and contentment. Not until he is given his life assignment as the Receiver of Memory does he begin to understand the dark, complex secrets behind his fragile community.
Classics
The young Herriot takes up his calling and discovers that the realities of veterinary practice in rural Yorkshire are very different from the sterile setting of veterinary school. From caring for his patients in the depths of winter on the remotest homesteads to dealing with uncooperative owners and critically ill animals, Herriot discovers the wondrous variety and never-ending challenges of veterinary practice.
When Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert of Green Gables, Prince Edward Island, send for a boy orphan to help them out at the farm, they are not prepared for the error that will change their lives. The mistake takes the shape of Anne Shirley, a redheaded 11-year-old girl who can talk anyone under the table. Fortunately, her sunny nature and quirky imagination quickly win over her reluctant foster parents. Anne's feisty spirit soon draws many friends and much trouble her way.
This is based on the true story of a Native American girl who lived alone for eighteen years on an isolated island off the California coast when her tribe emigrated and she was left behind.
This novel is about a young boy named Wart (aka Arthur) who befriends a magician named Merlyn. The title refers to a sword that is magically embedded in a stone and which only the future, true-born king of England is able to remove.
Fiction
Wadjda stages small acts of rebellion at her girls' school in Riyadh. Eleven-year-old Wadjda isn't supposed to wear Chuck Taylor sneakers to school or sell bracelets and candy to her fellow students for extra cash. But money is tight at home, and Wadjda has always preferred to be like the tough, mischievous older girls like Fatin and Fatima .
Every year Elders of the Protectorate leave a baby in the forest, warning everyone an evil Witch demands this sacrifice. In reality, every year, a kind witch named Xan rescues the babies and find families for them. One year Xan saves a baby girl with a crescent birthmark who accidentally feeds on moonlight and becomes "enmagicked." Magic babies can be tricky, so Xan adopts little Luna herself and lovingly raises her, with help from an ancient swamp monster and a chatty, wee dragon. Luna's magical powers emerge as her 13th birthday approaches. This is a story where an elderly witch, a magical girl, a brave carpenter, a wise monster, a perfectly tiny dragon, paper birds, and a madwoman converge to thwart a magician who feeds on sorrow.
This story is told entirely from the point of view of Jason, an autistic boy who is a creative writing whiz and deft explainer of literary devices, but markedly at a loss in social interactions with “neurotypicals” both at school and at home. He is most comfortable in an online writing forum called Storyboard, where his stories kindle an e-mail-based friendship with a girl. His excitement over having a real friend (and maybe even girlfriend) turns to terror when he learns that his parents want to take him on a trip to the Storyboard conference, where he’ll no doubt have to meet her in person.
Foster McFee dreams of having her own cooking show like her idol, celebrity chef Sonny Kroll. Macon Dillard's goal is to be a documentary filmmaker. Foster's mother Rayka longs to be a headliner instead of a back-up singer. And Miss Charleena plans a triumphant return to Hollywood. Everyone has a dream, but nobody is even close to famous in the little town of Culpepper. Until some unexpected events shake the town and its inhabitants—and put their big ambitions to the test.
Student at a top-secret boarding school for girls trying to become spies; mother is the principle of the boarding school and her father died during a spy mission; falls for a boy who doesn't know anything about her secret life.
Fifteen-year-old Bobby thinks he knows what it’s like to be invisible—he’s used to being ignored by the popular kids at school (especially the girls). Even his parents hardly seem to
notice whether he’s home or not. Then one morning, Bobby wakes up to find that he IS invisible—for real.
Eleven-year-old Elijah lives in Buxton, Canada, a settlement of runaway slaves near the American border. He's the first child in town to be born free, and he ought to be famous just for that. Unfortunately, all that most people see is a "fra-gile" boy who's scared of snakes and talks too much. Everything changes when a former slave steals money from Elijah's friend, who has been saving to buy his family out of captivity in the South. Now it's up to Elijah to track down the thief. His dangerous journey just might make a hero out of him, if only he can find the courage to get back home.
(Sequel to The Secret Language of Girls)
Kate and Marylin are in the seventh grade and they know they can never be best friends like they used to be. Marylin is a middle school cheerleader obsessed with popularity and hairstyles, and Kate is the exact opposite with her combat boots and hankering to learn guitar and write her own songs. Still, Kate and Marylin yearn to find some middle ground for their friendship—but it’s harder than they ever imagined.
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Life for Alex Schrader has never involved girls. He goes to an all-boys prep school and spends most of his time goofing around with his friends. But all that changes the first time he meets Bijou Doucet, a Haitian girl recently relocated to Brooklyn after the earthquake
and he is determined to win her heart. For Bijou, change is the only constant, and she's surprised every day by how different life is in America, especially when a boy asks her out. Alex quickly learns that there are rules when it comes to girls—both in Haitian culture and with his own friends. And Bijou soon learns that she doesn't have to let go of her roots to find joy in her new life.
Truly Lovejoy's dad loses his arm while piloting helicopters in Afghanistan, and now her whole life is a mess. Instead of living in sunny Austin near her best friend, she, along with her parents and four siblings, has to move to sleepy Pumpkin Falls, New Hampshire, where her unhappy dad will try to save his parents' struggling bookstore. She feels terribly awkward and out of place especially because at almost six feet tall, she towers over the rest of her seventh-grade class. When she discovers a puzzling letter tucked in a signed first edition of Charlotte's Web (a treasure that could easily solve the bookstore's financial woes), she follows the clues to uncover a 20-year-old secret. Will she be able to save the store and will any of this make her dad feel better?
When the motherless twelve-year-old Lidie leaves Brazil to join her father and brother on a horse ranch in New York, she has a hard time adjusting to her changed circumstances. She is not alone. Pai, the new horse on the ranch can’t adjust either. Perhaps they can tame one another.
A magical retelling of the Grimms's fairy tale of the princess who became a goose girl before she could become queen. Anidori-Kiladra Talianna Isilee, Crown Princess of Kildenree, is born with the ability to speak to animals, a gift that is nurtured by her aunt. When the king dies, the queen announces that Ani's younger brother, not the crown princess, will succeed her on the throne. Unbeknownst to anyone, the queen has promised Ani in marriage to the prince of neighboring Bayern. The devastated teen is sent with a retinue over the mountains to Bayern and is betrayed by Selia, her lady-in-waiting, and most of her guards during the journey. Ani escapes, takes the name "Isi," disguises her distinctive blonde hair, and becomes a tender of geese to survive until she can reveal her true identity and reclaim her crown from the imposter, Selia.
Bunny Starch, the most feared biology teacher ever, is missing. She disappeared after a school field trip to Black Vine Swamp. And, to be honest, the kids in her class are relieved. The principal tells the students that Mrs. Starch has been called away on a family emergency but Nick and Marta don't buy it. Before they can figure out what is really going on, Nick and Marta will have to reckon with an eccentric eco-avenger, a stuffed rat named Chelsea, a wannabe Texas oilman, a singing substitute teacher, and a ticked-off Florida panther.
Apple has always felt a little different from her classmates. She and her mother moved to Louisiana from the Philippines when she was little, and her mother still cooks Filipino foods and chastises Apple for becoming “too American.” When Apple’s friends turn on her and everything about her life starts to seem weird and embarrassing, Apple turns to music. If she can just save enough to buy a guitar and learn to play, maybe she can change herself. It might be the music that saves her . . . or it might be her two new friends, who show her how special she really is.
There is bad luck, good luck, and making your own luck-which is exactly what Summer must do to save her family. Summer knows that kouun means "good luck" in Japanese, and this year her family has none of it. Just when she thinks nothing else can possibly go wrong, an emergency whisks her parents away to Japan—right before harvest season. Summer and her little brother, Jaz, are left in the care of their grandparents, who come out of retirement in order to harvest wheat and help pay the bills. The thing about Obaachan and Jiichan is that they are old-fashioned and demanding, and between helping Obaachan cook for the workers, covering for her when her back pain worsens, and worrying about her lonely little brother, Summer just barely has time to notice the attentions of their boss's cute son
Mai, a girl born and raised in California can’t wait to spend her vacation at the beach. That is not about to happen. Instead, she has to travel to Vietnam with her grandmother, who is going back to find out what really happened to her husband during the Vietnam War. Mai’s parents think this trip will be a great opportunity for their out-of-touch daughter to learn more about her culture. But to Mai, those are their roots, not her own. Vietnam is hot, smelly, and the last place she wants to be. Besides barely speaking the language, she doesn’t know the geography, the local customs, or even her distant relatives. Even so, this trip is about to change Mai forever.
Eleven-year-old Finley Hart sometimes has blue days, when she wakes with an unshakable sadness or is overwhelmed by a racing panic that takes her breath away. The only thing that helps is the stories she writes about the Everwood, a magical forest where she is an orphan queen. A dark secret threatens this wood, however, and if Fin is to save it, she must first confront her own darkness, which weighs heavily on her heart. Her tales take on new life the summer Fin is sent to stay with her estranged grandparents while her parents work on their troubled marriage. Grandma and Grandpa Hart's sprawling house butts up against a real, live Everwood, and Fin's imagined realm soon casts a spell over her visiting cousins. Meanwhile, mounting family secrets add to Fin's anxieties, and it becomes evident that it will take more than stories to free her from her blue days.
Rory has been waiting her whole life to turn twelve. You can pierce your ears when you're twelve. You can go to the mall with your friends unchaperoned when you're twelve. You can babysit when you're twelve. You can get a cell phone when you're twelve. Hey, and not for nothing, you can even ride in the front passenger-side seat when you're twelve. Well, in exactly 18 hours, 36 minutes, and 52 seconds, it will finally happen. Rory's life will officially begin.
Afraid that she is crazy, thirteen-year-old Mia, who sees a special color with every letter, number, and sound, keeps this a secret until she becomes overwhelmed by school, changing relationships, and the death of her beloved cat Mango.
Lara revels in her gift for handling the elegant borzoi hunting dogs bred and trained for Russian nobility. Lara hopes to follow her father as kennel master, a decidedly nontraditional female role, until her baby brother is born, dashing Lara's hopes and setting the stage for the battle to realize her dream. Lara's supernatural visions of dog-related calamities frighten her, but she summons enough courage to challenge her father's decisions on hunts; test the champion hunting ability of her little wonder dog, which she rescued from being culled at birth; and prove her worth on the grand Russian estate.
This the story of the invasion of Earth by aliens known as the Boov. All Americans are relocated to Florida (but then to Texas, once the Boov figure out the joys of orange juice). Gratuity only wants to find her mom. She sets out on her own, joins forces with a renegade Boovian mechanic named J.Lo, has to figure out how to save the Earth, and then the Boov from the Gorg
Ten-year-old Sugar is named after the cane she sharecrops with other freed people, and hates, hates, hates her name. It makes her think of her father being sold off into slavery, her mother who died from the hard work in the fields, and her own life of hard work cutting down the sugarcane. She would rather be playing but she is the last child around after all the other young people left the plantation with their families to live in the
In the snowy wilderness of Russia, a stormy girl and her mother live in a cabin with only wolves for company, which is exactly how they like it. The two are wolf wilders, who retrain wolves to survive in nature when they fall out of favor with the Russian nobility who kept them as pets. It is a joyous existence for Feo, until insane, violent General Rakov decrees the wild wolves a nuisance and arrests Feo's mother, burning their home in the process. Feo manages to escape into the night, but knows Rakov will be following close behind. With a newborn pup snuggled to her chest, her wolf pack best friends, and a soldier boy defector, Feo strikes out toward St. Petersburg to rescue her mother.
The arrival of a rival Afghani food market at the same California shopping plaza as the Shinwari family's already established store brings with it the threat of an awakened family feud. Eleven-year-old Ariana Shinwari feels klutzy and inadequate next to her almost-12-year-old perfect cousin, Laila, who has moved in with Ariana's family after fleeing the Taliban in Afghanistan, leaving her father, a translator for the American Army, behind. And now it looks like Ariana's best friend, Mariam, who also fled Afghanistan with her family, has all of her classes with Laila, leaving Ariana out. But when strange things start to happen at both Kabul Corner and the upstart Pamir Market, Ariana, Laila, Mariam and Wali, the son of the new store's owner must find a way to get past their grudges and find a solution.
Twelve-year-old Willow Chase lived with her adoptive parents in Bakersfield, California. There in the midst of the high desert, she grew a garden in her backyard, her sanctuary. She was excited about starting a new school, hoping this time she might fit in, might find a friend. Willow had been identified in preschool as highly gifted, most of the time causing confusion and feelings of ineptness in her teachers. Now at her new school she is accused of cheating because no one has ever finished the state proficiency test in just 17 minutes, let alone gotten a perfect score. Her reward is behavioral counseling with Dell Duke, an ineffectual counselor with organizational and social issues of his own
From the day she arrives at quiet Mica High in a burst of color and sound, the hallways hum with the murmur of “Stargirl, Stargirl.” She captures Leo Borlock’s heart with just one smile. She sparks a school-spirit revolution with just one cheer. The students of Mica High are enchanted. Then, they turn on her. Stargirl is suddenly shunned for everything that makes her different, and Leo, panicked and desperate with love, urges her to become the very thing that can destroy her: normal.
Isobel Lindgren—Izzy—is a cheerleader, the only sophomore on the entire squad. Pretty, blonde, and from a wealthy family, she's the kind of girl who everyone notices. And as much as she hates to admit it, Izzy loves that. So when Marco, a popular senior, asks her to a party, how can she say no? And how can she say no when he wants to drive her home? But days later, when Izzy wakes up in the hospital, severely injured from a car accident, home has never felt so far away. Izzy's determined not to show how scared she is, but every day it gets harder and harder to accept that things will never be the same again.
One day in her apartment in Reno, Bernadette heard a pitiful sound in the hallway. She opened the door a crack and saw a young woman standing there in her raincoat holding a crying baby wrapped in a blanket. The baby was Heidi, and they had come from the almost empty apartment next door. Heidi's Mama can't tend her week-old child because she has, as Heidi later says, "a bum brain." Bernadette steps in and cares for them both. Mama says her name is "So Be It," but with her twenty-three-word vocabulary, this is all the information she can give Bernadette.
When Chu Ju is 14 years old, her mother gives birth to a second daughter. Rural China policy restricts families to two children, and when Chu Ju's bitter grandmother convinces the parents to put the new baby up for adoption, leaving space in the family for a possible boy "to care for us in our old age," Chu Ju runs away. She wanders, finding sporadic work and shelter, but will she ever have a loving home again?
Who would have thought being smart could be so hard (and so funny)? Millicent Min is having a bad summer. She has no friends. Her fellow high school students hate her for setting the curve. Her fellow 11-year-olds hate her for going to high school. As if that was not enough, her mother has arranged for her to tutor Stanford Wong, the poster boy for Chinese geek-madman of piney Woodsdom. All is not lost for Millie that summer. She meets Emily a regular girl who does not know Millicent’s IQ score. She actually thinks Millie is cool.
Historical Fiction
SEWING! NO ONE could hate it more than Dina Kirk. Endless tiny stitches, buttonholes, darts. Since she was tiny, she's worked in her family's dressmaking business, where the sewing machine is a cranky member of the family. When 13-year-old Dina leaves her small town in Germany to join her uncle's family in Brooklyn, she turns her back on sewing. Never again! But looking for a job leads her right back to the sewing machine. Why did she ever leave home? Here she is, still with a needle and thread—and homesick to boot. She didn't know she could be this homesick, but she didn't know she could be so brave either, as she is standing up to an epidemic or a fire.
World War II has come to Patty Bergen's hometown of Jenkinsville, Arkansas, in the form of a German prisoner of war camp. Patty, a twelve-year-old Jewish girl, is curious about these Nazi soldiers, who must be monsters for the killing they have done. She is also lonely and awkward, and looking for a friend. Anton, a German soldier, is not the monster that Patty imagined, but a frightened young man with feelings not unlike her own. He sees Patty in a way no one else does, as "a person of value." When she decides to help him escape from the camp, the consequences will change Patty's life forever.
In 1927 Mrs. Livingston reluctantly recalls her experiences at the Triangle Shirtwaist factory, including miserable working conditions that lead to the death of her two best friends.
Twelve-year-old Sumiko feels her life has been made up of two parts: before Pearl Harbor and after it. Raised on a flower farm in California, Sumiko is used to being the only Japanese girl in her class. Even when the other kids tease her, she always has had her flowers and family to go home to. All of that changes after the horrific events of Pearl Harbor. Other Americans start to suspect that all Japanese people are spies for the emperor, even if, like Sumiko, they were born in the United States! As suspicions grow, Sumiko and her family find themselves being shipped to an internment camp on an Indian reservation in one of the hottest deserts in the United States.
In Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1958, politicians rage for and against the struggle to integrate schools. In the middle of all this comes the story of 13 year old Marlee, and her new friend Lizzie. Lizzie is the new girl in school who befriends Marlee and helps her to speak up. But as suddenly as Lizzie appears, she disappears under the rumor that she is a black girl “passing for white.” In kicking Lizzie out, the school officials are defying the federal integration order. Marlee and Lizzie meet secretly, until it becomes too dangerous. They receive threatening phone calls and the KKK is always around. Marlee discovers dynamite in a classmate's car, and even then the police do nothing. Marlee has to find a way to stand up for what she knows is right.
A Jewish family fleeing Nazi Germany in 1938 endures innumerable separations before they are once again united.
When Beniamino, a nine-year-old Jewish boy from Napoli, is smuggled aboard a cargo ship heading to America in 1892, he assumes his mother is onboard, too. Soon realizing that Mamma isn't with him, his goal is to return home as soon as possible. Landing at Ellis Island, he evades good-hearted people who would send him to an orphanage and patrones who would put him to work begging on street corners. Assuming the name Dom Napoli, he sleeps in barrels and under bushes, and he quickly learns the lessons of the street: think fast, watch what's going on, and find friends who will help you. With the aid of two other streetwise urchins, he sets up a profitable sandwich business and eventually realizes that he likes New York and that his mother sent him there to make a better life for himself.
Sun-hee and her older brother, Tae-yul, live in Korea with their parents. Because Korea is under Japanese occupation, the children study Japanese and speak it at school. Their own language, their flag, the folktales Uncle tells them-even their names-are all part of the Korean culture that is now forbidden. When World War II comes to Korea, Sun-hee is surprised that the Japanese expect their Korean subjects to fight on their side. But the greatest shock of all comes when Tae-yul enlists in the Japanese army in an attempt to protect Uncle, who is suspected of aiding the Korean resistance. Sun-hee stays behind, entrusted with the life-and death secrets of a family at war.
Mystery & Suspense
Ten strangers—each with a sordid past—are summoned by an absent millionaire to a private island off the coast of Devon and begin to die one by one upon arrival.
Before dying, Jack, Theodora's grandfather, whispers, "There's a letter... And a treasure" hidden "under the egg." After his passing, Theo could certainly use a treasure; her absent minded mother hides herself away on the top floor of their dilapidated Greenwich Village townhouse while the 13-year-old struggles to make ends meet with the $463 that Jack left. Hanging above the mantelpiece is one of her late grandfather's paintings which depicts a large egg. Could a treasure be hiding underneath?
In a future where the Population Police enforce the law limiting a family to only two children, Luke has lived all his twelve years in isolation and fear on his family's farm, until another "third" convinces him that the government is wrong. This is the first book in a very exciting series. You won’t be able to read just one.
When a diphtheria epidemic hits her 1840 village, Jessie discovers it is actually a 1995 tourist site under unseen observation by cruel scientists. It's up to Jessie to save the lives of the dying children.
This is a strange title but don’t be put off. This is a great book. A huge, old house with secret tunnels, a cantankerous caretaker, and buried treasure is a dream-come-true for thirteen
year-old Thomas. As soon as his family moves in, Thomas senses something strange about the Civil War era house, which used to be a critical stop on the Underground Railroad. Ghosts!
Fantasy
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Science Fiction
Every year Elders of the Protectorate leave a baby in the forest, warning everyone an evil Witch demands this sacrifice. In reality, every year, a kind witch named Xan rescues the babies and find families for them. One year Xan saves a baby girl with a crescent birthmark who accidentally feeds on moonlight and becomes "enmagicked." Magic babies can be tricky, so Xan adopts little Luna herself and lovingly raises her, with help from an ancient swamp monster and a chatty, wee dragon. Luna's magical powers emerge as her 13th birthday approaches.
After visiting the castle in Scotland which her family has inherited and returning home to Canada, twelve-year-old Emily finds that she has accidentally brought back with her a boggart, an invisible and mischievous spirit with a fondness for practical jokes.
As Wordsmiths, young Letta and her master, Benjamin, are charged with the task of maintaining the List, a collection of 500 words that make up the only language available to the residents of Ark. John Noa formed Ark after the great Melting, when the world was flooded and the land destroyed. This new society was meant to be a safe haven, and Noa their savior, creator of a world free from the ignorance of those who would deny the realities of the harm that humans have caused the planet. But when Letta meets a boy named Marlo and is drawn into his world of beauty and art, she begins to doubt whether Noa's intentions are as pure as she once thought or, worst of all, if he's actually been lying to them all along.
Two orphaned brothers, Prosper and Bo, have run away to Venice, where crumbling canals and misty alleyways shelter a secret community of street urchins. Leader of this motley crew of lost children is a clever, charming boy with a dark history of his own: He calls himself the Thief Lord. Prosper and Bo relish their new "family" and life of petty crime. But their cruel aunt and a bumbling detective are on their trail. And posing an even greater threat to the boys' freedom is something from a forgotten past: a beautiful magical treasure with the power to spin time itself.
Unemployed after high school in the highly robotic society of 2154, Lisse and seven friends live a boring existence in their “Designated Area” until the government invites them to play “The Game.”
A tangle of ingenious riddles, an evil necklace called a torc, and flocks of menacing birds: these are just some of the obstacles that stand between Gabriel and his father, Adam Finley, who has vanished from their Brooklyn brownstone. When Gabriel rescues an orphaned baby raven named Paladin, he discovers a family secret: Finleys can bond with ravens in extraordinary ways. Along with Paladin and three valiant friends, Gabriel sets out to bring his father home
Meg's father had been experimenting with time-travel when he suddenly disappeared. Will Meg, Charles Wallace, and Calvin outwit the forces of evil as they search through space for their father.
Rose has always felt out of place in her family. When an enormous white bear mysteriously shows up and asks her to come away with him, she readily agrees. The bear takes Rose to a distant castle where, each night, she is confronted with a mystery. In solving that mystery, she finds love, discovers her purpose, and realizes her travels have only just begun.
Magnus Chase has always been a troubled kid. Since his mother's mysterious death, he's lived alone on the streets of Boston, surviving by his wits, keeping one step ahead of the police and the truant officers. One day, he's tracked down by an uncle he barely knows-a man his mother claimed was dangerous. Uncle Randolph tells him an impossible secret: Magnus is the son of a Norse god. The Viking myths are true. The gods of Asgard are preparing for war. Trolls, giants and worse monsters are stirring for doomsday. To prevent Ragnarok, Magnus must search the Nine Worlds for a weapon that has been lost for thousands of years.
Biography
&
Memoir
No growing pains have ever been more hilarious than those suffered very loudly by the riotous Gilbreth clan. First there are a dozen red-haired, freckle-faced kids to contend with. Then there's Dad, a famous efficiency expert who believes a family can be run just like a factory. Finally there's Mother, his partner in everything except discipline. How they all survive such escapades as forgetting Frank Jr. in a roadside restaurant or going on a first date with Dad in the backseat or having their tonsils removed en masse will keep you in stitches.
James Herriot collects fifty of his tales about his very favorite animal—man’s best friend: the dog.
In 1861, when war erupted between the States, President Lincoln made an impassioned plea for volunteers. Determined not to remain on the sidelines, Emma Edmonds cropped her hair, donned men's clothing, and enlisted in the Union Army. Posing in turn as a slave, peddler, washerwoman, and fop, Emma became a cunning master of disguise, risking discovery and death at every turn behind Confederate lines.
"I want to go to school, Mother. . . . How wonderful it would be if I could go to school forever!" Thirteen-year-old Ma Yan, a peasant in the drought-scarred province of Ningxia, China, evidently scrawled this message in frustration at having to work in the fields. According to a preface, Ma Yan's mother passed her daughter's plea to visiting French journalist Haski, along with journals documenting about nine months of Ma Yan's life. Haski published them in France and established a charity to assist similarly impoverished Ningxia students, to which Ma Yan has since promised 25 percent of her royalties.
These are stories written by Jacqueline Woodson in flowing verse. They are stories of her early years when she lived in the South at the time that the South exploded into a war for civil rights. Martin Luther King was ready to march on Washington; Malcolm X was speaking about revolution; Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat only seven years earlier and three years have passed since Ruby Bridges walks into an all-white school.
Graphic Novels
Welcome to Stately Academy, a school which is just crawling with mysteries to be solved! The founder of the school left many clues and puzzles to challenge his enterprising students. Using their wits and their growing prowess with coding, Hopper and Eni are going to solve the mystery of Stately Academy no matter what it takes!
In August of 1976, 10-year-old Sunny's parents send her to Florida to visit Gramps. Unfortunately, staying with Gramps means a creaky hide-a-bed, early dinners, and, well, tons of old people. Soon Sunny meets Buzz, whose dad works at Gramps' retirement resort, and thank goodness! Buzz introduces Sunny to Swamp Thing, Spiderman, and Batman, and a whole universe opens.
Catrina and her family have moved to the coast of Northern California for the sake of her little sister, Maya, who has cystic fibrosis-and Cat is even less happy about the move when she is told that her new town is inhabited by ghosts, and Maya sets her heart on meeting one.