Summer Reading

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Summer Reading
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Breathing Underwaterby Alex Flinn

• Sent to counseling for hitting his girlfriend,
  Caitlin, and ordered to keep a journal,
  sixteen-year-old Nick recounts his relationship
  with Caitlin, examines his controlling behavior
  and anger, and describes living with his abusive
  father.

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Hard Loveby Ellen Wittlinger

• After starting to publish a zine in which he
  writes his secret feelings about his lonely life
  and his parents' divorce, sixteen-year-old John
  meets an unusual girl and begins to develop a
  healthier personality.

4
Monsterby Walter Dean Myers

• While on trial as an accomplice to a murder,
  sixteen-year-old Steve Harmon records his
  experiences in prison and in the courtroom in the
  form of a film script as he tries to come to
  terms with the course his life has taken.

5
Safe at Secondby Scott Johnsonb

• Paulie Lockwood's best friend Todd Bannister is
  destined for the major leagues until a line drive
  to the head causes him to lose an eye and they
  both must find a new future for themselves.

6
Keeping the Moonby Sarah Dessen

• Fifteen-year-old Colie, a former fat girl, spends
  the summer working as a waitress in a beachside
  restaurant, staying with her overweight and
  eccentric Aunt Mira, and trying to explore her
  sense of self.

7
Hate Youby Graham McNamee

• Nursing hatred for the father who choked her and
  damaged her voice as a child, seventeen-year-old
  Alice writes songs she feels she cannot sing and
  seeks to reconcile her feelings for herself and
  her father.

8
Just Ellaby Margaret Peterson Haddix

• In this continuation of the Cinderella story,
  fifteen-year-old Ella finds that accepting Prince
  Charming's proposal ensnares her in a suffocating
  tangle of palace rules and royal etiquette, so
  she plots to escape.

9
Never Trust a Dead Manby Vivian Vande Velde

• In the medieval village of Penryth,
  seventeen-year-old Selwyn sets out to find the
  real killer of Farold, a young man he has been
  wrongfully convicted of murdering, with Farold
  himself as his only companion, brought back to
  life in the form of a bat by a cave-dwelling
  witch.

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The Perks of being a Wallflowerby Stephen Chbosky

• Charlie, a freshman in high school, explores the
  dilemmas of growing up through a collection of
  letters he sends to an unknown receiver.

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The Body of Christopher Creedby Carol Plum-Ucci

• Torey Adams, a high school junior with a
  seemingly perfect life, struggles with doubts and
  questions surrounding the mysterious
  disappearance of the class outcast.

12
Whale Talkby Chris Crutcher

• Intellectually and athletically gifted, TJ, a
  multiracial, adopted teenager, shuns organized
  sports and the gung-ho athletes at his high
  school until he agrees to form a swimming team
  and recruits some of the school's less popular
  students.

13
Dead Girls Dont Write Lettersby Gail Giles

• Fourteen-year-old Sunny is stunned when a total
  stranger shows up at her house posing as her
  older sister Jazz, who supposedly died in a fire
  months earlier.

14
Jade Greenby Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

• While living with her uncle in a house haunted by
  the ghost of a young woman, recently orphaned
  Judith Sparrow wonders if her one small
  transgression causes mysterious happenings.

15
Night of the Batby Paul Zindel

• Teenage Jake joins his father on an expedition to
  study bats in the Brazilian rain forest and finds
  the project menaced by a giant brain-eating bat.

16
Nobody Else has to Knowby Ingrid Tomey

• Fifteen-year-old Webber must either live with
  guilt or tell the truth about who was driving his
  grandfather's car when it struck and seriously
  injured a little girl.

17
Shades of Simon Grayby Joyce McDonald

• Seventeen-year-old Simon lies in a coma, finding
  his space and time overlapping with that of a man
  who was lynched over 200 years ago, while a
  member of the cheating ring he has been helping
  wonders if their actions have caused the plagues
  assaulting their New Jersey town.

18
The Exchange Studentby Kate Gilmore

• When her mother arranges to host one of the young
  people coming to Earth from Chela, Daria is both
  pleased and intrigued by the keen interest shown
  by the Chelan in her work breeding endangered
  species.

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Compass in the Bloodby William E. Coles Jr.

• While working with a Pittsburgh television
  journalist on a project to uncover the truth
  about the 1902 Katherine Soffel scandal, college
  student Dee Armstrong learns about different
  types of betrayal.

20
Close to a Killerby Marsha Qualey

• Seventeen-year-old Barrie finds herself involved
  in a string of murders that are somehow connected
  to her mother's hair salon.

21
Jasons Goldby Will Hobbs

• When news of the discovery of gold in Canada's
  Yukon Territory in 1897 reaches fifteen-year-old
  Jason, he embarks on a 10,000-mile journey to
  strike it rich.

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145th Street short storiesby Walter Dean Myers

• Ten stories portray life on a block in Harlem.

23
Stuck in Neutralby Terry Trueman

• Fourteen-year-old Shawn McDaniel, who suffers
  from severe cerebral palsy and cannot function,
  relates his perceptions of his life, his family,
  and his condition, especially as he believes his
  father is planning to kill him.

24
Hidden Talentsby David Lubar

• 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.

25
Speakby Laurie Halse Anderson

• A traumatic event near the end of the summer has
  a devastating effect on Melinda's freshman year
  in high school.

26
Sloppy Firstsby Megan McCafferty

• Sixteen-year-old Jessica Darling is devastated
  when her best friend moves away and leaves
  Jessica to face the trials of high school on her
  own.