Independent Reading: Suggestion List
*The following list was compiled based on popularity and difficulty. Please review the synopsis with your child before you agree to let them read it. Make sure that you are comfortable with the material, the majority of these titles are available in the Media Center.
On-Level:
Darkness Before Dawn- Sharon Draper
Forged By Fire- Sharon Draper
November Blues- Sharon Draper
Living Up The Street- Gary Soto
Monster- Walter Dean Myers
145th Street- Walter Dean Myers
Scorpions- Walter Dean Myers
House on Mango Street- Sandra Cisneros
Travel Team- Mike Lupica (he writes great sports books for 7-9th graders)
Slam- Nick Hornby
Red Kayak-Priscilla Cummings
The Rose That Grew From Concrete- Tupac Shakur
Twilight- Stephanie Meyer (this is a series of three novels that the kids seem to really like, it is vampire fiction)
Harry Potter- J.K. Rowling
Poetry 180- Billy Collins
Dracula- Bram Stoker
The Joy Luck Club- Amy Tan
Breath, Eyes, Memory- Edwidge Danticat
Daughter of Fortune- Isabel Allende
Advanced:
1984- George Orwell
The Alchemist- Paulo Coelho
The Hobbit- J. R. Tolkein
To Kill A Mockingbird- Harper Lee
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer- Mark Twain
The Collected Short Stories- Edgar Allen Poe
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier- Ishmael Beah
The Lord of the Rings- J.R.R Tolkien
Summerland- Michael Chabon
I, Robot- Isaac Asimov
A Seperate Peace- John Knowles
Lord of the Flies- William Golding
The Princess Bride- William Goldman
Fahrenheit 451- Ray Bradbury
Welcome to the Monkey House- Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Great Expectations- Charles Dickens
Night- Elie Wiesel
The Old Man and the Sea- Ernest Hemingway
Les Miserables- Victor Hugo
All Quiet on the Western Front- Erich Remarque
A Christmas Carol- Charles Dickens
Flowers for Algernon- Daniel Keyes
Sherlock Holmes Selected Stories- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Angela’s Ashes- Frank McCourt
Black Boy- Richard Wright
My Soul to Keep-Tananarive.
*For other suggestions please see me