Theme: Acceptance

Acceptance is treating others with respect regardless of how different they are from you. The characters or situations in each of these books explore challenges and rewards of accepting each other's differences.

Assignment:

Students are required to read THREE books over the summer —
the one Required Reading & two other choices from the list below.

Click here for the assignments!

Required Reading:

Howe, James. The Misfits. (Lexile: 960)
Four students who do not fit in at their small-town middle school decide to create a third party for the student council elections to represent all students who have ever been called names.
On the web!: http://www.tolerance.org/magazine/number-29-spring-2006/totally-james

Choose at least two others from the titles below:

Abbott, Tony. Firegirl. (Lexile: 670)
A middle school boy's life is changed when Jessica, a girl disfigured by burns, starts attending his Catholic school while receiving treatment at a local hospital.

Abdel-Fattah, Randa. Does My Head Look Big In This? (Lexile: 850)
Year Eleven at an exclusive prep school in the suburbs of Melbourne, Australia, would be tough enough, but it is further complicated for Amal when she decides to wear the hijab, the Muslim head scarf, full-time as a badge of her faith -- without losing her identity or sense of style.

Clements, Andrew, 1949-. Things Not Seen. (Lexile: 690)
When fifteen-year-old Bobby wakes up and finds himself invisible, he and his parents and his new blind friend Alicia try to find out what caused his condition and how to reverse it.

Flinn, Alex. Beastly. (Lexile: 580)
A modern retelling of "Beauty and the Beast" from the point of view of the Beast, a vain Manhattan private school student who is turned into a monster and must find true love before he can return to his human form.

George, Jean Craighead. Julie of the Wolves. (Lexile: 860)
Escaping from an unwanted marriage, a thirteen-year-old Eskimo girl gets lost on the Alaskan tundra and is befriended by a wolf pack.

Going, K. L. Fat Kid Rules the World. (Lexile: 700)
Seventeen-year-old Troy, depressed, suicidal, and weighing nearly three hundred pounds, gets a new perspective on life when Curt, a semi-homeless teen who is a genius on guitar, asks Troy to be the drummer in a rock band.

Hoestlandt, Jo. Star of Fear, Star of Hope. (Lexile: 490)
Nine-year-old Helen is confused by the disappearance of her Jewish friend during the German occupation of Paris.

Kinney, Jeff. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Greg Heffley's Journal. (Lexile: 950)
Greg records his sixth grade experiences in a middle school where he and his best friend, Rowley, undersized weaklings amid boys who need to shave twice daily, hope just to survive, but when Rowley grows more popular, Greg must take drastic measures to save their friendship.

Langan, Paul. The Bully. (Lexile: 700)
Ninth-grader Darrell Mercer and his mother move to the Bluford area in the middle of the school year where, Darrell quickly becomes a target for Tyray Hobbs, the freshman class bully.

Lawrence, Iain. Ghost boy. (Lexile: 580)
Unhappy in a home seemingly devoid of love, a fourteen-year-old albino boy who thinks of himself as Harold the Ghost runs away to join the circus, where he works with the elephants and searches for a sense of who he is.

Lubar, David. Hidden talents. (Lexile: 590)
When thirteen-year-old Martin arrives at an alternative school for misfits and problem students, he falls in with a group of boys with psychic powers and discovers something surprising about himself.

Myers, Walter Dean. Shooter. (Lexile: 690)
Written in the form of interviews, reports, and journal entries, the story of three troubled teenagers ends in a tragic school shooting.

Rylant, Cynthia. I Had Seen Castles. (Lexile: 950)
Now an old man, John is haunted by memories of enlisting to fight in World War II, a decision which forced him to face the horrors of war and changed his life forever.

Smith, Jeff. Out from Boneville. (Lexile: 360)
Fone Bone, Phoney Bone, and Smiley Bone are run out of their home, Boneville, and become separated in the wilds, but better fortune begins when the three cousins reunite at a farmstead in a deep forested valley, where Fone meets a young girl named Thorn.

Spinelli, Jerry. Milkweed. (Lexile: 510)
A street child, known to himself only as Stopthief, finds community when he is taken in by a band of orphans in Warsaw ghetto which helps him weather the horrors of the Nazi regime.

Spinelli, Jerry. Smiles To Go. (Lexile: 490)
Will Tuppence's life has always been ruled by science and common sense but in ninth grade, shaken up by the discovery that protons decay, he begins to see the entire world differently and gains new perspective on his relationships with his little sister and two closest friends.

Westerfeld, Scott. Uglies. (Lexile: 770)
Tally is faced with a difficult choice when her new friend Shay decides to risk life on the outside rather than submit to the forced operation that turns sixteen year old girls into gorgeous beauties, and realizes that there is a whole new side to the pretty world that she doesn't like.

Weyn, Suzanne. The Bar Code Tattoo. (Lexile: 720)
Things for Kayla progress from bad, as in being told her computer grades disqualify her from an art scholarship, to worse, when she refuses to accept an identification bar code tattoo on her seventeenth birthday.

Whelan, Gloria. After The Train. (Lexile: 860)
Ten years after the end of the Second World War, the town of Rolfen, West Germany, looks just as peaceful and beautiful as ever, until young Peter Liebig discovers a secret about his past that leads him to question everything, including the town's calm facade and his own sense of comfort and belonging.

Yang, Gene Luen. American Born Chinese. (Lexile: 530)
Alternates three interrelated stories about the problems of young Chinese Americans trying to participate in the popular culture. Presented in comic book format.

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