Required Reading:

Cummings, Priscilla. Red Kayak. (Lexile: 800)
Living near the water on Maryland's Eastern Shore, thirteen-year-old Brady and his best friends J.T. and Digger become entangled in a tragedy which tests their friendship and their ideas about right and wrong.

Choose at least two others from the titles below:

Anderson, Laurie Halse. Chains. (Lexile: 780)
After being sold to a cruel couple in New York City, a slave named Isabel spies for the rebels during the Revolutionary War.

Armstrong, Jennifer. Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World: The Extraordinary True Story of Shackleton and the Endurance. (Lexile: 1090)
Describes the events of the 1914 Shackleton Antarctic expedition when, after being trapped in a frozen sea for nine months, their ship, Endurance, was finally crushed, forcing Shackleton and his men to make a very long and perilous journey to reach inhabited land.

Avi. The Good Dog. (Lexile: 480)
McKinley, a malamute, is torn between the domestic world of his human family and the wild world of Lupin, a wolf that is trying to recruit dogs to replenish the dwindling wolf pack.

Burleigh, Robert. Home Run: The Story of Babe Ruth. (Lexile: 280)
A poetic account of the legendary Babe Ruth as he prepares to make a home run.

Cashore, Kristin. Graceling. (Lexile: 730)
In a world where some people are born with extreme and often-feared skills called Graces, Katsa struggles for redemption from her Grace of killing, and teams up with another young fighter to save their land from a corrupt king.

Clare, Cassandra. City of Bones. (Lexile: 760)
Suddenly able to see demons and the Darkhunters who are dedicated to returning them to their own dimension, fifteen-year-old Clary Fray is drawn into this bizarre world when her mother disappears and Clary herself is almost killed by a monster. (Also in the series: City of Ashes, City of Glass, City of Fallen Angels.)

Cooper, Susan. Dark is Rising. (Lexile: 920)
On his eleventh birthday Will Stanton discovers that he is the last of the Old Ones, destined to seek the six magical Signs that will enable the Old Ones to triumph over evil forces of the Dark.

Crossley-Holland, Kevin. The Seeing Stone. (Lexile: 560)
Arthur, a 13-year-old boy in late 12th-century England, tells how Merlin gave him a magical seeing stone which shows him images of the legendary King Arthur, the events of whose life seem to have many parallels to his own.

Forde, Catherine. Fat Boy Swim. (Lexile: 790)
Teased and abused for being grossly overweight, Jimmy, a fourteen-year-old Scottish teenager who dreams mysterious dreams and secretly aspires to become a chef, decides to turn his self-loathing life around by learning how to swim.

Freedom Writers. The Freedom Writers Diary: How a Teacher & 150 Teens Used Writing To Change Themselves and the World Around Them. (Lexile: 900)
Tells the story of how young English teacher Erin Gruwell confronted the problem of racial and ethnic intolerance in her classroom, and features excerpts from the diaries of her students, now known as The Freedom Writers.

Juster, Norton. The Phantom Tollbooth. (Lexile: 1000)
Milo travels through a magical tollbooth and begins a journey to the Kingdom of Wisdom, where he and a "watch" dog named Tock try to end the feud between numbers and words.

LaFleur, Suzanne. Love, Aubrey. (Lexile: 570)
While living with her Gram in Vermont, eleven-year-old Aubrey writes letters as a way of dealing with losing her father and sister in a car accident, and then being abandoned by her grief-stricken mother.

London, Jack. The Call of the Wild. (Lexile: 1170)
The adventures of an unusual dog, part St. Bernard, part Scotch shepherd, who is forcibly taken to the Klondike gold fields where he eventually becomes the leader of a wolf pack.

Osborne, Mary Pope. Magic Tree House series.  (Lexile: 400)
Eight-year-old Jack and his younger sister Annie find a magic tree house and travel back in time on numerous adventures and missions throughout the world.  The first book in the series is Dinosaurs Before Dark.

Patterson, James. The Dangerous Days of Daniel X. (Lexile: 680)
Fifteen-year-old Daniel has followed in his parents' footsteps as the Alien Hunter, exterminating beings on The List of Alien Outlaws on Terra Firma, but when he faces his first of the top ten outlaws, the very existence of Earth and another planet are at stake. (Also in the series: Daniel X: Watch the Skies, Daniel X: Demons and Druids & Daniel X: Game Over.

Pullman, Philip. The Golden Compass. (Lexile: 930)
Accompanied by her daemon, Lyra Belacqua sets out to prevent her best friend and other kidnapped children from becoming the subject of gruesome experiments in the Far North. (Also in this series: The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass.)

Robinson, Sharon. Jackie's Nine: Jackie Robinson's Values to Live By. (Lexile: 1040)
Baseball hero Jackie Robinson's daughter discusses nine values that her father held dear, shares memories from her life and her father's that illustrate those values, and profiles individuals whom she considers heroes, including Christopher Reeve and Oprah Winfrey.

Rowling, J. K. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. (Lexile: 880)
Rescued from the outrageous neglect of his aunt and uncle, a young boy with a great destiny proves his worth while attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. (Also in the series: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, the Prisoner of Azkaban, the Goblet of Fire, the Order of the Phoenix, the Half Blood Prince, and the Deathly Hallows.)

Satrapi, Marjane. Persepolis. (Lexile: 380)
Contains black-and-white comic strip images in which the author shares the story of her life in Tehran, Iran, where she lived from ages six to fourteen while the country came under control of the Islamic regime.

Schlein, Miriam. The Year of the Panda. (Lexile: 520)
A Chinese boy rescues a starving baby panda and, in the process, learns why pandas are endangered and what the government is doing to save them.

Soto, Gary. The Skirt. (Lexile: 540)
When Miata leaves on the school bus the skirt that she is to wear in a dance performance, she needs all her wits to get it back without her parents' finding out that she has lost something yet again.

Spinelli, Jerry. Crash. (Lexile: 560)
Seventh grader John "Crash" Coogan has always been comfortable with his tough, aggressive behavior, until his relationship with a Quaker boy and his grandfather help him understand friendship.

Spinelli, Jerry. Maniac Magee. (Lexile: 820)
After his parents die, Jeffrey Lionel Magee's life becomes legendary, as he accomplishes athletic and other feats which awe his contemporaries.

Stead, Rebecca. When You Reach Me. (Lexile: 760)
As her mother prepares to be a contestant on the 1980s television game show, "The $20,000 Pyramid," a twelve-year-old New York City girl tries to make sense of a series of mysterious notes received from an anonymous source that seems to defy the laws of time and space.

Stine, R. L. Goosebumps series. (Lexile: 400)
Goosebumps a collection of horror, humor & supernatural stories.  There are 63 books in the series.  The first book is Welcome to Dead House.

Walls, Jeannette. The Glass Castle: A Memoir. (Lexile: 1010)
The child of an alcoholic father and an eccentric artist mother discusses her family's nomadic upbringing, during which she and her siblings fended for themselves while their parents outmaneuvered bill collectors and the authorities.

Wolff, Virginia Euwer. Make Lemonade. (Lexile: 890)
Fourteen-year-old LaVaughn, trying to earn the money for college, takes a job caring for the two children of Jolly, a single teenage mom, and must find the courage to make the right decision for all of them after Jolly is fired.  (Also in this series: True Believer and This Full House.)

Email readingsummer@chelseaschools.com 
if you have questions about the books or the assignments.

These books can be checked out from:

The Chelsea Public Library
Monday 10am-6pm
Tuesday 10am-8pm
Wednesday/Thursday/Friday 9am-5pm
(Closed on Saturday/Sunday)
 
Chelsea High School Library
Tuesday & Thursday
8am-1pm
June 28th - July 28th