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.
Seconds before the earth is demolished to make room for a galactic freeway, an earthman is saved by his friend.
When Sir Ernest Shackleton undertakes his second Antarctic expedition in 1914, his ship becomes frozen in ice floes, leaving him and his crew in a fight for survival. This, one of the most spectacular real-life survival stories ever experienced, is documented by the expedition's photographer. (If you are interested in early photography, see also PHOTO BY BRADY, A PICTURE OF THE CIVIL WAR.)
In this Book Three of the Lost Years of Merlin, Merlin travels to the Otherworld where he must face fire in many different forms and deal with the possibility of losing his own magical powers.
When Madeline Gladstone, the elderly owner of a shoe store chain, hires 16-year-old Jenna, a new driver with a talent for selling shoes, to drive her to Texas, Jenna begins a summer-long adventure. See also the sequel, BEST FOOT FORWARD.
Ned Begay becomes one of the brave Navajo code talkers whose messages helped the U.S. achieve victory in World War II.
Dr. Ben Carson, head of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital, relates his story from his inner-city childhood, his struggles to beat the odds growing up, to his current prominent career in brain surgery .
When his father takes a job at Alcatraz Prison and moves his family to the "Rock," Moose tries to protect his sister Natalie, to live up to his parents' expectations, and to stay out of trouble. Trouble, however, just keeps finding him.
Mitty, a likable slacker at a NY prep school, leaves his biology paper until the last minute. When he does begin his research, he discovers an envelope containing a couple of smallpox scabs from the 1902 epidemic in an old book. Are they contagious?
The summer of 1965, Grace celebrates her 13th birthday, and her older brother Collin burns his draft card and goes to Canada to avoid serving in Vietnam. Grace and her cousins, Dolly and Theo, try to make sense out of the war.
A young priest, facing his own death, participates in the life of an Indian village and learns the meaning of life and death.
While traveling cross-country, Salamanca Tree Hiddle tells her grandparents stories about herself and her best friend and, in turn, begins to accept the loss of her mother.
At age 13, Sundara fled Cambodia to escape the Khmer Rouge army. Now, four years later, she is torn between the customs and lifestyle of her own people and enjoying her Oregon high school days as a "regular" American teenager.
Eric and Sarah are social outcasts, Eric because he is fat and Sarah because her hands and face are disfigured from a childhood accident, and friends. When Eric begins swimming and losing weight, their friendship is threatened.
Brat, a young homeless girl, is rescued from a dung heap by Jane the Midwife. Jane needs a helper so Brat becomes a midwife's apprentice, learns to deal with Jane's wicked temper and sour disposition, and finds a place for herself and a future in medieval England. Try also MATILDA BONE by this author.
When the bush war ends, orphaned, 12-year-old boy-soldier Paul Kagomi buries his beloved AK rifle. Peace, however, does not last long, and Paul is again involved in another civil war.
A diverse anthology of poems by Dr. Seuss, Shakespeare, and many others.
Matt is the young clone of El Patron, the 140-year-old leader of a corrupt drug empire located between Mexico and the United States. While El Patron protects and educates Matt, the rest of the family treats him like a beast. Amidst love and hate, Matt struggles to understand his existence.
Brent Bishop makes a fatal mistake one night driving home from a party. His punishment requires him to travel cross-country to build whirligigs.
This story of the civil right's movement's landmark victory is told through the eyes of the people who were there. Try some of Freedman's great biographies as well!
Meggie learns that her father Mo can "read" fictional characters to life.
In ancient Arabia, Prince Walid sets out on a quest to right the terrible wrong he has committed out of jealousy.
On his grandfather's South African farm, Frikkie establishes a friendship with the Black hired-hand's son Tengo, a friendship that is challenged by the injustices of apartheid.
Mikey spends his summer working as an assistant to his stepfather Bill on Bill's charter fishing boat in Hawaii where he finds adventure, risk, and difficult choices.
A sampler of original poems that celebrate the richness of American art!
When Wesley Boone shares one of his poems with his English class, Open Mike Friday is born in Mr. Ward's English class.
13-year-old Haswell Magruder helps a wounded Confederate soldier who shows up at his farm and sets off a chain of events that leaves him and his sister orphans and homeless.
Nyle Sumner and her grandmother have a good life on a Vermont sheep farm, but that life changes dramatically after an explosion at a nearby nuclear plant.
Neither Leonora, a twelve-year-old African-American girl, nor Esther, a six-year-old Jewish girl, are safe when the Ku Klux Klan tries to infiltrate their small Vermont town in the 1920's.
Because of his dad's job, Roy's family moves a lot. One day in his new Florida town when the school bully is smashing his face against the school bus window, he spots a barefoot boy running away from the bus -- the first interesting thing he has seen since he arrived -- and Roy determines to find out who this boy is. In his recent title FLUSH, Noah is determined to prove his father's allegation that a local casino boat is dumping sewage into the bay.
Jason Hawthorn is in New York City when he reads about the discovery of gold in the Canadian Yukon in 1897. Struck by a bad case of Klondike fever, he sets out on a 5000-mile journey to stake his claim and strike it rich.
When Zachary Beaver, the fattest boy in the world, comes to Antler, Texas, in the summer of 1971, Toby and his best friend find their lives changed after the 600-pound Zachary is abandoned in a tiny trailer across the street from the Bowl-a-Rama Cafe.
When Jeanne Wakatsuki, a native-born American child, was seven years old, her family was taken from their home and sent to live at Manzanar, an internment camp for Japanese - Americans in the U.S. complete with barbed wire and armed guards.
Ji-li Jiang was 12 years old in 1966 when the Cultural Revolution in China changed her life and forced her to choose between her family and the Communist party.
17-year-old Sophie, turned into an old woman by a witch, goes to live with the feared Wizard Howl in his castle and becomes involved in many events that lead to her happiness.
Caught in a boxing match during a raid at a New York City bar in 1885, 15-year-old Johnny is sent to prison. There he meets Professor O'Shaunnessey who teaches him the art of boxing and how to use his talent to help his mother and five younger siblings better their lives.
A moving tribute to the remarkable humanity and compassion of this great American poet.
Buddy loves his grandfather but discovers that he is hiding a sinister past.
When a mouse named Algernon becomes a genius among mice after an experimental operation, Charlie, who has always been slow mentally, is persuaded to have the same operation. He keeps a journal to demonstrate the operation's success. But, is it?
Jason and his two friends look forward to spending an unchaperoned summer in his "cool" older brother's apartment in Toronto. Then Joe's best friend -- 300 lb. Rootbeer -- moves in too.
Hattie Brooks, a 16-year-old orphan, travels to Montana to take over her uncle's homesteading claim, which she has inherited and is determined to maker her own. (A 2007 Newbery Honor book.)
When his gambling debts mount, Pierce Butler decides to cash in on his assets and holds the biggest slave auction in American history.
200-pound Bobby Marks finds out that heroes come in all shapes and sizes.
Jonah, age 12, receives his lifetime assignment at the Ceremony of Twelve. He is to become the receiver of memories -- an assignment shared by only one other person, an unnamed man called only the Giver.
Kira, physically challenged and orphaned on the death of her mother, finds herself facing a frightening, uncertain future in a civilization that shuns and discards the weak.
A quiet, abused boy is evacuated from London to the countryside during World War II. With the help of Mr. Tom, he learns to be friendly and not afraid. Then a telegram from his mother says he must return to London immediately.
Adeline Yen Mah recalls her childhood growing up in China in the 1940's, ruled by a cruel stepmother.
Aerin, the only child of the King of Damar and his rightful heir, battles Maur, the Black Dragon, meets the wizard Luthe, and faces the evil mage Agsded who has seized the Hero's Crown -- the greatest treasure and the strength of Damar.
Popular young adult author, Walter Dean Myers, shares the story of his own troubled teen years. See also his biography, THE GREATEST: MUHAMMAD ALI.
When sixteen-year-old Steve Harmon is charged as an adult accomplice to a murder, he uses his love of film-making and presents his case as a movie. Is Steve the monster the prosecutor says he is, or is he a victim of circumstances?
Six Old Testament stories, told from the young adult narrator's point of view, explore the meaning of love.
Young Ju emigrates from Korea to the United States believing that America is heaven. The family struggles to adjust to life in America, a new culture, and the difficulty of learning English, and that struggle takes its toll on the family.
Naledi learns that her village in South Africa is to be relocated to a "homeland." When students demonstrate peacefully, the police violently terminate the demonstration.
Kidnapped from a movie theater in Venice by German soldiers, Roberto is forced to work for the German war effort. Escape becomes his only hope.
Ryan has always wanted to be a working cowboy on the Saddlebow Ranch in Wyoming where he lives with his family; but, when his brother and his best friend Matt become involved in a local militia group run by Matt's dad, Ryan faces some difficult choices.
Geraldine has always had a close relationship with her older brother Wing and his best friend Sam, but that relationship changes when Wing joins the Marines and Sam becomes involved in a peace march against the Vietnam War.
Irene Gut is a Polish patriot, a good Catholic girl, and just seventeen years old and training to be a nurse when war breaks out. Finding herself in the midst of Nazi officers and determined to fight their evil, she takes incredible risks to help the Jews.
14-year-old Marek helps a young Jewish man hide from the hated German soldiers in his grandparents' home in the Warsaw ghetto.
Tree-ear, an orphan living under a bridge in a potters' village in 12th century Korea, watches the potters at work and secretly wishes he too could learn to throw the delicate celadon ceramics himself. His desire leads him on a long and dangerous journey.
When the Japanese occupied Korea in World War II, Kim Sun and her brother Tae-yul had to take Japanese names, attend Japanese schools, and give up their Korean identity.
In the shadow of her beautiful and talented twin sister Caroline, Louise struggles to find her place and her own identity.
Jake and Rosa form an unlikely friendship as they try to survive and understand the 1912 Bread and Roses strike of mill workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts.
Charley Goddard enters military service at age 15 and, through various Civil War battles, discovers the grim reality of war.
Kate, the leader Buck, a boy who lives with his father in a trailer parked at a service station, and Trav, a brilliant but troubled son of one of the prominent, affluent families.... They are three best friends, but how well do they know each other?
When the Rob Roy steamboat, traveling up the Mississippi River, docks in a little town along the river in Illinois, two remarkable young women disembark and change the life of Tilly Pruitt and her family forever.
Russell hates school and dreams of quitting. When his mean old teacher Myrt Arbuckle dies right before school begins, he is delighted until he learns that his older sister is going to take over the teaching in his one-room school house.
Harriet Hemmings, rumored to be Thomas Jefferson's daughter, faces the choice of passing as a white or remaining a slave in the sheltered life at Monticello.
In the aftermath of World War I, Annie develops a friendship with a badly disfigured soldier.
"Americans eat 13 billion hamburgers each year. If you put them in a straight line, they would circle the earth more than 32 times." For more about junk food, eating habits and fast-food restaurants, read this book!
Turner Buckminster, son of the new minister in Phippsburg, Maine, is miserable until he meets Lizzie Bright, a girl from a community of former slaves. Together they get caught up in a fight for justice. 2005 Newbery Honor book.
At the turn of the century, a young black girl struggles to live up to her father's ideals and to make a place for herself in a white Southwestern town.
Five 16-year old orphans find themselves alone in an experimental nightmare -- where only stairs and landings stretch as far as the eye can see and a strange red light trains them to dance for their food.
Living in the Warsaw Ghetto in World War II, Misha, a homeless and gutsy young boy, desperately seeks an identity.
All of Palmer LaRue's friends want to be wringers. Palmer, however, does not; but he is running out of time.
Shabanu, a member of a Nomadic tribe in the Pakistani dessert, is torn between allegiances to her family and its traditions and her own growing independence.
The year is 1935, and this sequel to Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry finds the Logan family deep into the problems of the Depression in rural Mississippi. Followed by The Road to Memphis, in which Cassie Logan must help a good friend escape to the North after a violent racial incident on the eve of World War II.
14-year-old Elenor and her betrothed, Lord Thomas, just returned from a Crusade to the Holy Land, are sent by their priest on a religious pilgrimage across France to a shrine in Spain.
When Dicey, James, Sammy, and Maybeth are taken in by their grandmother, Dicey must adjust to being a "kid" again with someone else in charge.
Socially conscious sophomore Izzy dates Marco, a senior, to enhance her popularity. Then Marco drinks too much at a party and on the way home crashes his car into a tree.
A companion book to DICEY'S SONG. Jeff feels confused about his relationship with his parents -- a quiet, intellectual father and a mother who left him when he was very young.
At age 13, Koly is getting married, not uncommon for girls her age in India. She is apprehensive but know it will help the financial burden on her family. Then she discovers that her husband is younger than promised and very sickly!
Ben agrees to guide Madec on a hunting trip for bighorn sheep in the desert mountains because he needs the money, but it almost costs Ben his life.
In his journal for English class, senior Jake Callahan tells about his experiences in charge of seven teenagers, who live at the Pineville Motel Sunday night through Friday because their own town is too far away from the school to commute each day.
When he accidently kills a Manchu, Otter is sent from China to America to join his father Squeaky and his Uncle Foxfire and other Chinese men working to build a tunnel through the Sierra Nevada Mountains for the Transcontinental Railroad.
Hannah wonders why she has to spend every Jewish holiday listening to boring stories of the past. Then, at Passover Seder, she opens the door to symbolilcally welcome the prophet Elijah and suddenly finds herself in a Jewish village in Poland in the 1940's.
"It's just a small story really, about, among other things: a girl, some words, an accordionist, some fanatical Germans, a Jewish fist fighter, and quite a lot of thievery ..." Narrated by Death, Liesel's story is anything but small!
Copyright © 2008 by Lorraine Bentley