HI All:
My original query:
> I am an LMS in a middle school in Florida. We are
> trying to challenge our more advanced readers,
> (those who are reading at least one or two grade levels
> above their actual grade level)
> and I came up with the idea of establishing a book shelf
> just for them. I need ideas for titles. I have thought
> of adult historical fiction (Michener, Clavell, etc.)
> and some of the classics in their unabridged form.
>
> Anyone have any other ideas?
Advanced Reader Suggestions (from lm_net, yalsa, and middleschoollit
listservs):
I asked about this a few months ago when I was trying to compile a list
of contemporary fiction at an 8th or 9th grade reading level for a
librarian in a middle school (I'm a library consultant). It turned out
to be much harder than I thought. I did find a really great article in
Book Links (I love Book Links) about choosing books for gifted readers
that might help you. I got some great suggestions from that article (I
think it was from 2003), and I came up with this list:
Across the Lines/Reeder, Carolyn
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn/Twain, Mark
Animal Farm/Orwell, George
Ashes of Roses/Auch, Mary
Battle Dress/Efaw, Amy
Ben and Me/Lawson, Robert
Body of Christopher Creed/Plum-Ucci, Carol
Bone From A Dry Sea/Dickinson, Peter
Book of Fred/Bardi, Abby
Book Thief/Zusak, Markus
Briar Rose/Yolen, Jane
Canterbury Tales/Chaucer, Geoffrey
Chocolate War/Cormier, Robert
Christmas Carol/Dickens, Charles
Cold Sassy Tree/Burns, Olive
Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court/Twain, Mark
Contact/Sagan, Carl
Dicey's Song/Voigt, Cynthia
Ender's Game/Card, Orson Scott
Fahrenheit 451/Bradbury, Ray
Feed/Anderson, M. T.
Fever 1793/Anderson, Laurie Halse
Frankenstein/Shelley, Mary
Girl with a Pearl Earring/Chevalier, Tracy
Golden Compass/Pullman, Philip
Great and Terrible Beauty/Bray, Libba
Great Expectations/Dickens, Charles
Gulliver's Travels/Swift, Jonathan
House on Mango Street/Cisneros, Sandra
Hush/Woodson, Jacqueline
I Am the Cheese/Cormier, Robert
I, Robot/Asimov, Isaac
In the Time of the Butterflies/Alvarez, Julia
Indio/Garland, Sherry
Inside Out/Trueman, Terry
Jane Eyre/Bronte, Charlotte
Jazmin's Notebook/Grimes, Nikki
Jurassic Park/Crichton, Michael
Kim/Kipling, Rudyard
Kite Rider/McCaughrean, Geraldine
Life of Pi/Martel, Yann
My Brother, My Sister, And I/Watkins, Yoko
Neverending Story/Ende, Michael
Northern Light/Donnelly, Jennifer
Odyssey/Homer
Ophelia/Klein, Lisa
Over a Thousand Hills I Walk With You/Jansen, Hanna
Parrot in the Oven: Mi Vida/Martinez, Victor
Peace Like a River/Enger, Leif
Phantom of the Opera/Leroux, Gaston
Phantom Tollbooth/Juster, Norton
Poet Slave of Cuba: A Biography of Juan Francisco Manzano/Engle,
Margarita
Pride and Prejudice/Austen, Jane
Red Badge of Courage: An Episode of the American Civil War/Crane,
Stephen
Say Goodnight, Gracie/Deaver, Julie Reece
Scarlet Pimpernel/Orczy, Baroness
Sea Wolf/London, Jack
Secret Life of Bees/Kidd, Sue
Shizuko's Daughter/Mori, Kyoko
Stardust/Gaiman, Neil
Sweet Friday Island /Taylor, Theodore
Tales of Mystery and Terror/Poe, Edgar Allan
Three Musketeers/Dumas, Alexander
To Kill a Mockingbird/Lee, Harper
Under the Royal Palms: A Childhood in Cuba/Ada, Alma Flor
Walking Up a Rainbow/Taylor, Theodore
Whale Talk/Crutcher, Chris
What Happened to Lani Garver/Plum-Ucci, Carol
Whirligig/Fleischman, Paul
Woman Hollering Creek And Other Stories/Cisneros, Sandra
Wuthering Heights /Bronte, Emily
Z For Zachariah/O'Brien, Robert
***************************
I highly recommend Daphne Du Maurier for this age group. Also, Jonathan
Stroud's Bartimaeus Trilogy is written at a high level, I believe, as
is Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials series.
***************************
You may be better off with authors such a Laurence Yep, Lloyd
Alexander, and Philip Pullman. Most adult authors write at a 5th/6th
grade level. Lloyd
Alexander's books are generally at a 8th grade reading level.
***************************
I'd recommend House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer. If you have an
advanced seventh or eighth grader who is bi-lingual, esp. a boy, this
title is intriguing and quite an accomplishment for such a teen.
***************************
I have a few titles that you may like. Our better readers tend to like
science fiction and especially fantasy. Here are a few of our favs:
The Golden Compass series by Philip Pulman, anything by Tamara Pierce
and Jane Yolen, John Grisham novels, some of the Stephen King books (we
have “Eyes of the Dragon”, “Pet Sematary”, “The Talisman”, “The Running
Man” and “The Winter Hare”). My new favorite author is Scott
Westerfeld who wrote “The Uglies”, “The Pretties” and “Specials”.
**************************
Some of my best 8th grade readers are really into some of these more
mature titles and series:
Jonathan Stroud's, Ptolemy's Gate, Golem's Eye and Amulet of Samarkind.
Piers Anthony's, Dragons on a Pedestal, Ogre Ogre, etc. (series)
Stephen Ambrose's, Band of Brothers.
Jeffery Shaara's, Gods and Generals.
Michael Chabon's, Summerland and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier &
Clay
Michael Crichton's, Prey, Congo, Andromeda Strain, etc.
Louis Meyer's, Curse of the Blue Tattoo, In the Belly of the Bloodhound
(pirate series)
Philip Pullman's Dark trilogy
Tom Clancy, Clive Cussler....any titles.
********************
Find some of the lists for College bound; pick through them for titles
that would be fun and interesting for your students. Reward them with
fun things that keep inspiring them to read, not heavy huge things that
make them feel penalized for being a good reader. Create a list for
them, introduce them to the books and then have discussions with them.
Tell them they are the guinea pigs for the list, they are going to help
you find things to put on or take off the list. Two readers to put
something on the list, two readers to take it off. Can't just be their
best friend, needs to be somebody with a very different taste in
reading to get different views.
***************************
My 9th grade teachers don't let our readers use the Steinbeck books,
they are too short. Give them some of the Newbery or other award
books that are for advanced readers. View from Saturday is a great
book, won awards and just sits on the shelf, it wasn't for the target
audience of the Newbery. What about "The Island" and "The Monument" by
Paulsen. "Kit's Wilderness" by Almond, "Catalyst" and "Speak" by
Anderson; they are for more advanced readers.
***************************
Classics and historical fiction:
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by MarkTwain
The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
1984 by George Orwell
Animal Farm by George Orwell
The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare
A Break with Charity by Ann Rinaldi
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Fantasy:
His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman
The NeverEnding Story by Michael Ende
A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray
Rebel Angels by Libba Bray
Young Wizards series by Diane Duane
Poison by Chris Wooding
Stardust by Neil Gaiman
The Uglies trilogy by Scott Westerfeld
The Midnighters trilogy by Scott Westerfeld
The Fallen quartet by Thomas E. Sniegoski
Prowlers quarter by Christopher Golden
Drama:
The Tillerman Cycle by Cynthia Voigt
Staying Fat for Sarah Byrns by Chris Crutcher
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Give a Boy a Gun by Todd Strasser
Saving Francesca by Melina Marchetta
Looking for Alibrandi by Melina Marchetta
The Alison Rules by Catherine Clark
Cheating Lessons by Nan Willard Cappo
Say Goodnight, Gracie by Julie Reece Deaver
Body of Evidence series by Christopher Golden
Force Majeure by Christopher Golden and Thomas E.Sniegoski
Plays and poetry:
The Crucible by Arthur Miller
A collection of Emily Dickinson poems
The works of Sophocles
The works of William Shakespeare
***************************
When I was in middle school and reading above grade level my mom and
teachers began pushing the classics. Some of the books I enjoyed the
most:
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
all books by Louisa May Alcott (Little Women)
all books by LM Montgomery (Anne of Green Gables)
all books by Dumas (especially The Three Musketeers and The Count of
Monte Cristo)
The Human Comedy by William Saroyen
mysteries by Agatha Christie
Other authors that were not my favorites but that I suggest to kids
with different taste than my own:
Tolkein
Robert Louis Stevenson
Dickens
Mary Shelley
JD Salinger
George Orwell
It's hard to recommend adult fiction/mysteries in a school because of
sex scenes. One adult mystery series that I recently read that wasn't
explicit were the Gaslight Mysteries by Victoria Thompson. These are
set in turn of the 20th century New York City... a midwife and police
detective investigate murders in various New York neighborhoods.
*******************************
You might want to try the Abe Lincoln award titles; this is an IL-based
high school book award. The web site for this year and past year's
lists is http://www.islma.org/lincoln.htm . Of course, some titles are
still HS content, but others would be challenging reads (some are adult
titles) while still being junior-high appropriate.
*******************************
If you'll pardon my biased opinion, my work sounds ideal for your
advanced readers shelf. I'm writing an edgy fiction series for mature
young adult readers. Here are the books:
Alex and The Enderson Brothers: Book One - ISBN 0595400876
Invisible Shadow: Book Two - ISBN 9781587367762
Here's a professional book review, so you don't have to take my word
for it (scroll down to the YA section):
http://www.bookreviewers.org/reviews.htm
Book two was just released and I'm still in the process of getting
reviews.
I'm happy to hear any feedback from your students regarding my work.
Hope that helps!
Roz Monette
http://www.rozmonette.com
~a~
Anne Berkey, LMS, NBCT
Gamble Rogers Middle School
St. Augustine, Florida
~a~
"If I can't be a good example then I'll
just have to be a horrible warning."
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Please note: All LM_NET postings are protected by copyright law.
You can prevent most e-mail filters from deleting LM_NET postings
by adding LM_NET@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU to your e-mail address book.
To change your LM_NET status, e-mail to: listserv@listserv.syr.edu
In the message write EITHER: 1) SIGNOFF LM_NET 2) SET LM_NET NOMAIL
3) SET LM_NET MAIL 4) SET LM_NET DIGEST * Allow for confirmation.
* LM_NET Help & Information: http://www.eduref.org/lm_net/
* LM_NET Archive: http://www.eduref.org/lm_net/archive/
* EL-Announce with LM_NET Select: http://elann.biglist.com/sub/
* LM_NET Supporters: http://www.eduref.org/lm_net/ven.html
--------------------------------------------------------------------
LM_NET
Mailing List Home