St. Andrew Apostle School
Summer 2008 Reading
Lorraine Bentley, St. Andrew Librarian Media Specialist.
Please note an * indicates a title on the required reading list.
Using a tissue sample she believes is from one of her father's experiments in genetic engineering, Frankie accidentally creates a baby monster, which begins to grow at an alarming rate.
When the mysterious King Jaya arrives at his castle in the middle of the night and challenges him to a game of dice, Tamar, King of Sundari, loses everything. Then, he must go on a journey to recover his honor.
A naturalist teaches you about nature and drawing.
Left with no home and no possessions after his mother's death, accused of theft and murder, and forced to flee his small English village, Asta's son learns from a priest that his name is Crispin and is given his mother's cross of lead. On the road, he meets Bear, a juggler who forces Crispin to become his servant.
Winnie Foster stumbles across the great secret of the Tuck family and sets off a series of events that include a kidnapping, a murder, and a jailbreak.
While helping her father locate the remnants of a sunken ship, Kate Gordon is pulled under the waves and swallowed by a great whirlpool into an undersea world where she must battle ancient forces to save her father's life and her own.
Joel breaks a promise to his father and then must cope with the guilt of the accidental drowning of his best friend.
Because Dr. Bright has taught Widge a unique kind of shorthand, he is able to sell this poor orphan to a cruel, unfeeling cutthroat who, in turn, forces Widge to work his way into the Globe Theater to steal the text of Shakespeare's play Hamlet. See also the sequel, SHAKESPEARE'S SCRIBE.
Forced to attend a Catholic school after being expelled from public school, Abigail discovers a talent for drama and pursues a desire to annoy her parents by becoming Catholic.
One summer, Harvey, Thomas J, and Carlie are all three sent to the same foster home, the Masons. Carlie figures out their problem -- they are just like pin balls, with no control over where they settle.
Anna Marie Weems, a young slave girl on a Maryland farm, endures mistreatment and cruelty, including separation from her family, and seeks escape on the "Underground Railroad."
Will, Beanpole, and Henry join an underground band to fight the Tripods.
Bobby Phillips wakes up one morning and gets in the shower as usual. He begins washing and then realizes that he is INVISIBLE! He tells his parents, and, then, together, they must find out why.
Much to his own surprise, Vernon becomes friends with neighborhood outcast Maxine Footer, an alcoholic who is known as the Crazy Lady, and her mentally retarded son, Ronald.
Will, the seventh son of a seventh son, battles the forces of evil, the power of the dark, and unbelievable intense cold before he can complete his quest.
Charlie, armed with his unique ability to communicate with cats, sets out to rescue his father and mother, who have been kidnapped because of their secret scientific work. SEQUELS.
13-year-old Sophie sails with her two male cousins, Cody and Brian, and her three uncles from the US across the Atlantic to England where their Grandfather lives in a forty-five-foot sailboat named The Wanderer.
After being mistreated by a foster family, Bud, an orphan since his mother's death, runs away to search for the man he believes must be his father -- jazz musician Herman Calloway.
In her journal, 13-year-old Catherine, the daughter of an English country knight, records her struggles to learn the skills of a lady of the manor and of a kind and patient wife, her longing for adventure beyond the usual role of women, and her efforts to avoid being married off by her father.
A 12-year-old orphan boy becomes apprenticed to a kind physician in 1849 and is faced with the choice of applying limited medical knowledge or following macabre superstition.
Nore agrees to spend the summer with her father and his new wife on their Louisiana plantation. She soon discovers she is a threat to her new stepmother's world -- a world locked in time.
"How to Eat a Poem" ... "Don't be polite. Bite in. ..."
When the great lights of Ember, which have always kept the darkness that surrounds the city at bay, begin to flicker, Lina and Doon are determined to find out why. Sequel: THE PEOPLE OF SPARKS.
Women and girls are not allowed outside in Afghanistan, but Parvana is permitted to accompany her handicapped father to work each day . When her father is sent to prison without reason, Parvana must find a way to help her family survive.
When Francie becomes the tutor for a sixteen-year-old boy who wants to learn how to read, she soon finds herself becoming his protector as well and endangering her entire family.
Jack and his sister Lucy are kidnapped by Viking raiders and must use their wits to survive when they find themselves in the stronghold of King Ivar the Boneless and Queen Frith, his half-troll wife.
Forced to live in the streets of New York after his mother disappears, 11 year old Clay is befriended by two homeless men who help him survive.
Refused the right to perform at Constitution Hall because of the color of her skin, Marian Anderson instead performed before tens of thousands at the Lincoln Memorial. This is the story of her life and the parallel life of the civil rights movement.
When their mother dies leaving them orphans, Prosper and his little brother Bo run away from a cruel aunt and uncle to Venice where they join forces with a mysterious 13-year-old boy and his band of thieves.
Jack has a "roller coaster" sixth grade year.
When Therese, an unenthusiastic student, is chosen to do the plum assignment on local hero Ethan Allen, her repeated efforts at presenting an acceptable oral report help her discover her own talent for storytelling.
Lily makes up stories all the time -- stories about her involvement with spies, and submarines, and anti-Nazi plots. Then, she tells a really big lie - a lie that could endanger the life of an orphaned Hungarian refugee named Albert.
Hollis Woods is the place where she was abandoned as a baby. Hollis Woods is her name. Hollis Woods, 12 years old, has lived in many different foster homes. Hollis Woods likes to draw, especially pictures of a family. Hollis Woods is now in big trouble!
Chuck Close, a well-known artist today recognized for his enormous, photographically realistic portraits of himself and his friends, overcame many learning disabilities as a child and also faced many physical challenges after an adult illness.
Melly and Anny Beth, residents of a nursing home, are selected for a special experiment, Project Turnabout, and are given injections that reverse the aging process. In other words, they begin growing backwards, from their 80's to middle age, the teen years, and eventually childhood and infancy.
In a small Maryland town in 1944, two girls help a seriously ill Army deserter, a decision that changes their perceptions of right and wrong.
In a dramatic, fictionalized account of the famous trial in Boston, slave Anthony Burns tests the Fugitive slave Act of 1850.
Martha receives a page from the journal of a classmate, Olive, who died in an accident. Martha did not know Olive well but Olive had written about wanting to be Martha's friend, wanting to see the ocean, and wanting to become a writer.
In 1768, 11-year-old Nicholas Young stows away on Captain James Cook's ship, The Endeavor, and records in his journal this historic and remarkable voyage that covered much of the world and lasted more than three years.
Clay has many adventures on his "big wander" through Arizona's canyon country in search of his missing uncle.
May Amelia, the only girl in a Finnish American family in Washington state, has seven brothers and resents being treated as a little lady in this family where the boys seem to get to do all of the neat things and have all of the fun.
Set in 1953, Penny looks forward to spending her summer rooting for the Brooklyn Dodgers and hanging out with her cousin Frankie. Instead, she finds herself caught between her two families and discovering the reason for their estrangement.
When her grandmother dies, 12-year-old Tiger Ann must make a choice that will determine the future for herself and her mentally retarded parents.
Matthias, a clumsy, young, peace-loving mouse, galvanizes himself to defeat the evil rat, Cluny the Scourge. SEQUELS.
Abdullah is whisked away to a magic kingdom when he falls asleep on a magic carpet he has just bought.
Milo found everything in life boring. When a tollbooth mysteriously appears in his room, he drives through because he has nothing better to do and soon discovers more excitement than he ever thought possible.
12-year-old Sumiko, with her family, is relocated from southern California to a Japanese Internment Camp on an Indian reservation in the desert during WW II.
12-year-old Margaret Rose Kane, rescued from a horrible summer camp experience by one of her beloved great-uncles, becomes involved in a campaign to save the uncles' eccentric glass tower artwork they have built in their backyard.
Why are mummies so important? And what do they reveal about the civilizations in which they were made?
After a vicious storm, John Spencer finds himself to be the sole survivor of his father's ship, the Isle of Skye, when it is shipwrecked off the coast of Cornwall. It is not long, however, before John discovers an evil plot in this small village and becomes aware that his father too survived but must be saved. Sequels.
Joseph Lemasolai Lekuton tells his story from his Maasai village boyhood in northern Kenya to his education in the US and his current job as a teacher at the Langley School.
Meg and Charles Wallace Murray and their friend Calvin go in search of the Murray children's father, a scientist who has disappeared while doing secret work for the government on "tessering."
At birth, Ella is cursed with a gift -- the gift of obedience. Forced to obey every command made of her, she becomes aware that she must take charge and somehow learn to say, "NO!"
When an extraordinary old woman gives her a wish for sharing her seat on the bus, Wilma Sturtz wishes to be the most popular kid at Claverford School. She likes being popular and having friends. Then she realizes she has only three more weeks at Claverford before going on to high school!
Richard Riley Moncrief knows everything about baseball and is an avid Boston Red Sox fan, but he is totally baffled by his friendship with Napoleon Charlie Ellis, a new student from the island of Dominica at his Catholic school, in racially charged Boston of 1975.
Grandfather's new hobby of taking family photographs helps Journey come to terms with his anger and his grief over his mother's running away.
Menolly wants desperately to be a Harper, but on the planet Pern women are not allowed to play and sing. Unwilling to give up her music, she runs away. SEQUELS.
Harry Crewe, bored with her dull and sheltered life, finds magic, love, and her destiny as a woman warrior when she is kidnapped by a handsome king with mysterious powers.
Through amazing photographs and fascinating text, you will learn all you could ever want to know about spiders, including the world's largest, the Goliath birdeating tarantula.
Michael's grandmother shares with him her story of growing up in World War II England with her adored cat, Adolphus.
When Terence begins his service as a knight of King Arthur, his life changes dramatically.
Sub-zero temperatures, 85-mile-per-hour winds, and an ocean of snow are all vividly re-created in this vivid account of the blizzard of March 1888 which paralyzed the Northeast.
Mouse, his ace Styx, and other friends search for money hidden by a 1930's gangland leader.
Ruby deals with her real life problems by visualizing screen plays in her head.
Julia, a Korean American trying very hard to be American, finds it difficult to work with her best friend Patrick on a science project on silk worms, a project suggested by her mother.
Robbie Hewitt, the son of a Congregational minister in a small Vermont town in 1899, finds himself in the biggest scrape of his life where he is finally forced to choose whether to hide or to tell the truth.
A young city boy, sent to his aunt and uncle's farm to spend the summer, experiences all kinds of crazy escapades and finds himself in all kinds of trouble with his cousin Harris, a "wild, ragtag, daredevil of a boy."
On the way to visit his father, Brian Robeson survives a plane crash only to find himself on his own in the Canadian wilderness.
During World War II, Davy Bowman's life in Illinois is dominated by homefront activities, like air-raid drills in the classroom, paper drives, and metal scrap drives, while he worries about his brother Bill flying B-17's and headed for the war front in Europe.
Gussie Davis and her two sisters can hear, unlike their parents. Gussie, unlike her two sisters, is always tempted to misbehave and get into trouble.
At the end of the Civil War, 12 year old Will has lost all of his family and must leave his city home to live in the Virginia countryside with an aunt and an uncle - a man Will resents because he had refused to fight the Yankees.
Naomi and her brother have lived happily with their Gram for seven years. When their mother suddenly resurfaces to claim the children, they flee to Mexico in search of their father.
When 12 year old Summer hears that the spirit of May, her mother for the last six years, has appeared to her husband Ob near their West Virginia trailer, she is none too pleased. She needs help from May herself to keep Ob from dying too.
Tomi and his family live in Hawaii during World War II and suffer discrimination because they are Japanese.
Francine Gill and Paul Rhodes each have the SAME nightmare every night.
When 13-year-old San Lee finds himself in another new town and another new school, he invents a new past for himself and creates the impression that he is a reincarnated mystic. He achieves the popularity he wants, but then the lies begin to unravel!
Eighth grader, Crash Coogan, reflects on his life as a football star and a bully and his relationship with the dweeb, Penn Webb.
Jake, a budding juvenile delinquent, has been kicked out of every school he has attended. His last chance is the artistic and eccentric Applewhite family's Creative Academy.
Abandoned by their mother, Dicey Tillerman leads her younger sister and two brothers from Connecticut to Maryland and a new home. Sequels -- DICEY'S SONG and SOLITARY BLUE.
When 12-year-old Ellie Dunklie's estranged grandmother dies, Ellie inherits the family farm and a box of diaries -- diaries her father warns her not to read!
Bat 6 is the big softball game played every year by the sixth grade girls of Barlow and Bear Creek. May 28, 1949 marks the 50th anniversary game, and what a game it is!
Frannie's friendship with the new white boy in her sixth grade class, nicknamed "The Jesus Boy", helps her start to see many things in a new light.
Cimorene is not a proper princess. She is too tall, too stubborn, and finds being a princess unbearably dull. She runs away to become the princess of the dragon Kazul and gets involved with a witch, a jinn, a death-dealing bird, a stone prince, and some very disreputable wizards.
Millicent, a child prodigy, decides the best way to make friends over the summer is to keep her IQ score and all her awards a secret.
When basketball star Stanford Wong flunks English, he must forego sports camp to attend summer school and make up the class in order to continue playing ball.
When Stacy is paired at school with a Chinese girl, newly arrived from Hong Kong, she is forced to come to terms with her own Chinese and American heritage.
Jakkin's freedom is ensured when the dragon he steals and secretly trains wins its first fight.
Copyright © 2008 by Lorraine Bentley