Luanne Posted July 7, 2009 Share Posted July 7, 2009 to help my daughter get her reading level up to make high school easier for her. She loves to read (especially history), but isn't quite ready for adult level books yet. What would be some good books for her to read? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kareni Posted July 7, 2009 Share Posted July 7, 2009 You might also consider books by Albert Marrin. Regards, Kareni Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Julie in MN Posted July 7, 2009 Share Posted July 7, 2009 I'm hoping Lightning Literature helps do this for my son. You might look at the books they use for 7/8, even if you don't do the program. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lori D. Posted July 8, 2009 Share Posted July 8, 2009 Below is a big list of young adult books of middle school level that are a great transition into high school level due to writing style and/or subject matter, plus classics that are accessible to teens/young teens. You might also check out the lists at: - 1000 Good Books (gr. 7-9) = http://www.classical-homeschooling.org/celoop/1000-junior.html - Ambleside Online (check the gr. 5, 6, 7 booklists; Ambleside tends to run *very* mature -- often 2-4 grades above what *I* would label the books) = http://www.amblesideonline.org/index2.shtml Enjoy! Warmly, Lori D. YOUNG ADULT classics - The Reluctant Dragon (Grahame) - Wind in the Willows (Grahame) - Just So Stories (Kipling) - The Jungle Book (Kipling) - The Great and Terrible Quest (Lovett) - The Princess & the Goblins; The Princess & Curdie (MacDonald) - Golden Key, Light Princess, Wise Woman (MacDonald) -- short stories - The Hobbit (Tolkien) - Five Children and It; The Phoenix and the Carpet; The Amulet; The Book of Dragons (Nesbit) - Tales From Shakespeare (Lamb) - Christy (Marshall) -- adult, but accessible to a teen; turn of century young woman like the classics - The Wolves of Willoughby Chase (Aiken) -- similar in theme/tone to a Dickens novel - The Twenty-One Balloons (DuBois) -- Jules Verne-like in story and vocabulary/writing - Hitty, Her First Hundred Years (Field) -- Victorian times vocabulary/sentence structures - Hind's Feet on High Places (Hurnard) -- allegory worldview - How to Be Your Own Selfish Pig (Macauley) sci-fi - The Giver (Lowry) -- utopia/dystopia - Enchantress from the Stars (Engdahl) -- sci-fi/fantasy blend - Flatland (Abbott) -- adult, but accessible to a teen fantasy - Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH (O'Brien) - Watership Down (Adams) -- adult, but very accessible to a teen - Aurelia's Colors; Cyndere's Midnight (Overstreet) -- adult, but very accessible to a teen - The Ordinary Princess (Kaye) -- fun and funny - The Tombs of Atuan (Le Guin) -- adult, but very accessible to a teen detective/mystery - The Westing Game (Raskin) - The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series (Smith) -- adult, but very accessible to a teen - Cadfael series (Peters) -- adult, but very accessible to a teen - Murder on the Orient Express (Christie) -- adult, but accessible to a teen - Lord Peter short stories (Sayers) -- adult, but accessible to a teen real life - Little Britches series (Moody) - Family Under the Bridge (Carlson) - The Wheel on the School (de Jong) - A Little Princess (Burnett) - The Secret Garden (Burnett) - Island of the Blue Dolphins (O'Dell) - The Black Stallion, The Black Stallion Returns, Island Stallion (Farley) - Where the Red Fern Grows (Rawls) - Cheaper By the Dozen (Gilbraith) historical fiction - The Golden Goblet; Mara Daughter of the Nile (McGraw) -- Ancient Egypt - The Bronze Bow (Speare) -- Ancient Rome/Israel - The Ides of April; Beyond the Desert Gate (Ray) -- Ancient Rome - Eagle of the Ninth; The Shining Company (Sutcliffe) -- Ancient Rome/Britain - Catherine Called Birdy; Midwife's Apprentice (Cushman) -- Medieval England - Adam of the Road (Gray) -- Medieval England - The Trumpeter of Krakow (Kelly) -- Medieval Europe - The King's Fifth (O'Dell) -- Spanish conquistadors search for gold in the New World - Walk the World's Rim (Baker) -- Spanish explorers in the New World - The Fighting Prince of Donegal (Reilly) -- captured heir to the Scottish throne - The Samurai's Tale (Haugaard) -- medieval Japanese samurai - The Master Puppeteer (Paterson) - 1700s Japan - Diary of an Early American Boy (Sloane) -- Colonial US - The Journeyman (Caldwell) -- Colonial US - Calico Bush (Field) -- Colonial US - The Dark Frigate (Hawes) -- British ship seized by pirates - Johnny Tremain (Forbes) -- Revolutionary War - A Gathering of Days (Blos) -- pioneer - Streams to the River, River to the Sea (O'Dell) -- Lewis & Clark expedition - All Set Sail (Armstrong) -- 1840s-50s clipper ships - Across Five Aprils (Hunt) -- Civil War - Turn Homeward Hannalee (Beatty) -- Civil War - Sounder (Armstrong) -- post Civil War South - Sing Down the Moon (O'Dell) -- 1870 Navajo Long Walk - Dragon's Gate (Yep) -- Chinese building the US Transcontinental Railroad - The Great Wheel (Lawson) -- building of the first Ferris Wheel in 1893 - After the Dancing Days (Rostkowski) -- post WW1 - Out of the Dust (Hesse) -- 1930s Depression/Dust Bowl; entirely written in free verse - Farwell to Manzanar (Houston) -- US Japanese imprisoned during WW2 - After the War (Matas) -- solo WW2 survivor of her family, Jewish teen makes her way to Israel - Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry (Taylor) -- 1950s Deep South African American culture - I Am David (Holm) -- communist prison camp boy escapes and travels across Europe to find his mother - Julie of the Wolves (George) -- Alaskan Native American girl - Water Sky (George) -- white American boy tries to understand Alaskan Native Americans - The Bridge to Terebinthia (Paterson) -- coming of age story; death of a teen boy's friend - Jacob Have I Loved (Paterson) -- coming of age story; "misfit" family member finding her place - Walk Two Moons (Creech) -- modern Native American girl coming of age story biographical - Indian Captive (Lenski) -- Colonial US/Native American - Carry On, Mr. Bowditch (Latham) -- early US - The Stout-Hearted Seven (Frazier) -- 7 pioneer children orphaned on the Oregon trail - The Terrible Wave (Dahlstedt) -- 1870s flood disaster - The Road From Home (Kherdian) -- WW1; Armenian Christian refugee - The Endless Steppe (Hautzig) -- WW2; Polish Jewish family exiled to Siberia - The Hiding Place (tenBoom) -- WW2; Christian family hides Jews; interned in concentration camp - Escape From Colditz (Reid) -- -- adult, but very accessible to a teen; British POWS in Germany - The Year of Impossible Goodbyes (Choi) -- post WW2 Korean family escapes communism - Red Scarf Girl (Jiang) -- Chinese communist cultural revolution - God's Smuggler (Andrew) -- adult, but very accessible to a teen - Bruchko (Olson) -- adult, but very accessible to a teen CLASSIC SHORT STORIES - Rikki Tiki Tavi (Kipling) - Sherlock Holmes series (Doyle) - Father Brown series (Chesterton) - Gift of the Magi; Ransom of Red Chief (Henry) - The Open Window (Saki) - The Monkey's Paw (Jacobs) - The Lady or the Tiger (Stockton) - Bride Comes to Yellow Sky (Crane) - The Most Dangerous Game (Connell) - The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County (Twain) - The Metamorphosis (Kafka) - Farmer Giles of Ham; Smith of Wooten Major (Tolkien) - Tales From the Arabian Nights (Lang) CLASSIC NOVELLAS - Animal Farm (Orwell) - A Christmas Carol (Dickens) - The Old Man and the Sea (Hemingway) CLASSIC NOVELS Historical - Till We Have Faces (Lewis) -- a retelling of the Cupid and Psyche myth - Ben Hur (Wallace) -- ancient Rome - Merry Adventures of Robin Hood (and others by Howard Pyle) -- middle ages - Treasure Island (Stevenson) -- 1700s pirates Real Life - Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Twain) - My Family and Other Animals (Durrell) - A Day of Pleasure (Singer) - All Creatures Great and Small (Herriot) - Anne of Green Gables; Anne of Avonlea (Montgomery) - Little Women (Alcott) - Call of the Wild; White Fang (London) - The Good Earth (Buck) Bioigraphical - Kon Tiki (Heyerdahl) Fantasy - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Carroll) - Lord of the Rings (Tolkien) -- trilogy Humor - Life With Jeeves (Wodehouse) - Three Men in a Boat (Jerome) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luanne Posted July 8, 2009 Author Share Posted July 8, 2009 and everyone else. You have been a big help. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bclerkin Posted July 16, 2009 Share Posted July 16, 2009 Lori D, thank you for the extensive list of books. Very helpful Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.