WoodmereMiddle School

Grade 8 Summer Reading Titles

Please review the blurbs below and select a book to read.Complete the activities that follow before you return to school in September.Please be aware that one of the activities requires you to make predictions and/or preview the book before you read.Please draft a scrap copy and make your final copy as neat as possible!

Rumble Fish by S.E. Hinton

Rusty-James is the number-one tough guy among the junior high kids who hang out and shoot pool at Benny's, and he enjoys keeping up his reputation. What he wants most of all is to be just like his older brother, the Motorcycle Boy. But by his own admission, Rusty-James isn't a particularly smart person, and he relies more on his fists than his brains. Up until now he's gotten along all right because whenever he gets into something he can't handle, the Motorcycle Boy bails him out. But Rusty-James' lack of direction, his longing for the days of the street gangs and his blind drive to be like his brother eat away at his world until all come apart in an explosive chain of events. And this time the Motorcycle Boy isn't around to pick up the pieces.

Olive's Ocean by Kevin Henkes

Twelve-year-old Martha Boyle stands on the brink of discovery: about her family, about first love, and mostly about herself. As her family prepares for the annual visit to her paternal grandmother, Martha is given a journal entry from her classmate, Olive, who was killed in an automobile accident. Martha didn't really know Olive, but the journal entry makes Martha reflect on what might have been if Olive hadn't died. In her two weeks on Cape Cod, Martha learns to deal with the changing emotional landscape that comes with adolescence while noticing her grandmother's aging, experiencing adolescent alienation from her affectionate family, and feeling the self-consciousness pangs of growing up.

My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult

Thirteen-year-old Anna, conceived specifically to provide blood and bone marrow for her sister Kate who was diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia at the age of two, decides to sue her parents for control of her body when her mother wants her to donate a kidney to Kate. Anna refuses to budge on her position despite the fact that she clearly loves her sister and longs for her family's happiness. As the gripping court case builds, the story takes a shocking turn. Told in alternating perspectives by the engaging, fascinating cast of characters, Picoult's novel grabs the reader from the first page and never lets go.

Ghost Boy by Iain Lawrence

Harold Kline is an albino -- an outcast. Folks stare and taunt, calling him Ghost Boy. It's been that way all of his 14 years. So when the circus comes to town, Harold runs off to join it.

Full of colorful performers, the circus seems like the answer to Harold's loneliness. He's eager to meet the Cannibal King, a sideshow attraction who's an albino too. He's touched that Princess Minikin and the Fossil Man, two other sideshow curiosities, embrace him like a son. He's in love with Flip, the beguiling horse trainer, and awed by the all-knowing Gypsy Magda. Most of all, Harold is proud of training the elephants, and of earning respect and a sense of normality. Even at the circus, though, two groups exist -- the freaks, and everyone else.