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I created a huge list of Literature choices for my 7th grade dd (now edited with more)


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I tried to create a list of good 7th grade books to allow my voracious reader (12 yo, 7th grade) to be able to always have books to choose from this year. I thought I'd share. Basically I just pulled this list together from everyone else's posts over the years. If anyone has feedback as to books I should remove or add, I'm all ears.

 

I edited the below to include a few more recommendations and also a handful of non-fiction at the end. If anyone has more, please continue to add, and I will continue to add/edit.

 

Classics:

 

  1. The Enchanted Castle, E. Nesbit
  2. The Little White Horse, Elizabeth Goudge – we own this
  3. The Book of Three, Lloyd Alexander, and all others by him – we own these
  4. Over Sea, Under Stone, Susan Cooper
  5. Macbeth, Shakespeare
  6. Dr Jekyl & Mr Hyde, R L Stevenson
  7. The Invisible Man, HG Wells
  8. Shane, Jack Schaefer (there is also a movie we could watch afterwards)
  9. The Friendly Persuasion, Jessamyn West (also a movie)
  10. Arsenic and Old Lace, Joseph Kesselring (also a movie)
  11. Romeo & Juliet, Shakespeare (also a movie)
  12. Much Ado About Nothing, Shakespeare (probably a movie or play)
  13. Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe
  14. Kidnapped, Robert Louis Stevenson
  15. King Arthur: Tales of the Round Table, Andrew Lang
  16. Rip Van Winkle, Washington Irving
  17. Paul Revere’s Ride, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (we might own this)
  18. Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens
  19. The Bronze Bow, Elizabeth George Speare
  20. Kim, Rudyard Kipling
  21. Black Ships Before Troy, Rosemary Sutcliff (we own illustrated version)
  22. The Wanderings of Odysseus, Rosemary Sutcliff (we own illustrated version)
  23. Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain
  24. The Aeneid For Boys and Girls, Alfred Church
  25. The Light Beyond the Forest, Rosemary Sutcliff
  26. Carry On, Mr. Bowditch, Jean Latham (we own I believe)
  27. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (we own illustrated version)
  28. All Creatures Great and Small (we own)
  29. The Children of Odin
  30. The View From Saturday
  31. The Magic Garden (My Book House)
  32. Seabiscuit (we own this)
  33. The Light Princess and Other Stories
  34. Little Women (we have hardcover)
  35. Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe
  36. Treasure Island, Robert Stevenson (we have illustrated)
  37. Captains Courageous, Rudyard Kipling (we have movie from library)
  38. Around the World in 80 Days (do we own this?)
  39. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes or Hound of the Baskervilles
  40. Animal Farm (must discuss Russian Revolution and Stalin before reading)
  41. Witch of Blackbird Pond
  42. Island of the Blue Dolphins
  43. Caddie Woodlawn
  44. Anne of Green Gables series
  45. The Reluctant Dragon, Grahame
  46. Five Children and It, Nesbit

 

 

Fairy & Fantasy:

 

  1. Grimm’s Fairy Tales
  2. The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald (we have in our bookshelf)
  3. King Arthur books
  4. Wind in the Willows (before The Hobbit)
  5. The Hobbit (we have annotated version, which is recommended)
  6. The Lord of the Rings
  7. The Wizard of Earthsea trilogy
  8. The Glassblower’s Children
  9. The Thirteen Clocks
  10. Mio, My Son
  11. The Brothers Lionheart
  12. Ronia, the Robber’s Daughter
  13. The Black Cauldron series
  14. The Princess Bride (we have this book)
  15. Stardust
  16. Un Lun Dun OR Neverwhere
  17. The Once and Future King (recommended by Farrar as must read!)
  18. Moorchild
  19. Dark is Rising series
  20. The Rumpelstiltskin Problem, Velde
  21. The Green Book, Walsh
  22. Never Ending Story, Ende
  23. Gregor the Overlander series, Collins
  24. The Secret Platform 13, Ibbotson
  25. Inkheart series, Funke (we have?)
  26. Dragonkeepers chronicles, Paul
  27. Sea of Trolls series, Farmer (we have?)

 

7th grade history focused (Early Modern to Modern)

 

Russian Revolution

  1. Angel on the Square
  2. The Impossible Journey
  3. Letters from Rifka

 


 

India

  1. Homeless Bird

 

Depression Era

  1. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry
  2. Bud, Not Buddy
  3. Turtle in Paradise
  4. Moon Over Manifest
  5. Out of the Dust
  6. Esperanza Rising
  7. A Long Way From Chicago  & A Year Down Yonder

 

WWII and the aftermath

  1. War Horse
  2. War Game
  3. Listening for Lions
  4. Charlotte Sometimes

 

WWII

  1. Farewell to Manzanar
  2. Hiroshima
  3. Journey to America Book 1
  4. Number the Stars
  5. It Began with a Parachute
  6. Usborne True Stories of the Second WW
  7. The Spy Who Came in From the Sea
  8. Early Sunday Morning : Pearl Harbor Diary
  9. Snow Treasure
  10. If I Perish
  11. Waiting for Anya
  12. Goodnight Mr. Tom
  13. The Machine Gunners by Robert Westal
  14. Carrie’s War by Nina Baldwin
  15. The Diary of Anne Frank
  16. Operation Minemeat (there’s a documentary also)
  17. Under the Blood Red Sun
  18. Black Radishes (we have this)
  19. The Devil’s Arithmetic (we have this and there’s also a movie I believe)
  20. The Book Thief
  21. Yellow Star

 

Manhattan Project

  1. The Green Glass Sea
  2. Hiroshima (by Yep)
  3. Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes (we have this)

 

Post WWII Communism

  1. The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain
  2. Breaking Stalin’s Nose

 


 

Korea

  1. Year of Impossible Goodbyes
  2. When My Name Was Keoko (I believe we have this one)

 

Communist China

  1. Red Scarf Girl: A Memoir of the Cultural Revolution
  2. Homescik: My Own Story
  3. Red Land, Yellow River: Story from the Cultural Revolution
  4. The House of Sixty Fathers (we have this book)

 

Cuba & Missile Crisis

  1. Countdown
  2. 90 Miles to Havana
  3. The Red Umbrella
  4. Leaving Glorytown

 

Civil Rights

  1. One Crazy Summer series
  2. Sylvia and Aki
  3. The Watsons Go to Birmingham (also we watched the movie)
  4. The Rock and the River
  5. Revolution (by Wiles)

 

Vietnam

  1. Water Buffalo Days: Growing Up in Vietnam
  2. Inside Out and Back Again (we own this)

 

Africa

  1. Out of Bounds: Seven Stories of Conflict and Hope
  2. Journey to Jo’Burg & Chain of Fire
  3. A Long Walk to Water (we own this)

 

Afghanistan

  1. The Breadwinner & Parvana’s Journey

 

 

More Great Titles:

 

  1. Adam of the Road
  2. Golden Goblet
  3. Indian Captive
  4. Across 5 Aprils
  5. By the Great Horn Spoon (we own)
  6. Little House series (we own)
  7. Ben and Me (we own)
  8. Mr. Revere and I, Robert Lawson (do we own?)
  9. The Last Safe House
  10. The Birchbark House (plus its sequels, we own the first one)
  11. Hitty: Her First 100 Years
  12. The Wheel on the School (we own)
  13. All of a Kind Family series (we own the first one)
  14. Betsy Tacy series
  15. Om-kas-toe, Kenneth Thomasma (do we own?)
  16. Moccasin Trail (we might own)
  17. Little Britches series (non-fiction, we own the first two books)
  18. The Bronze Bow
  19. The Apple and the Arrow
  20. The Moffats
  21. Johnny Tremain
  22. True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle
  23. Bridge to Terabithia
  24. Call of the Wild, London
  25. I Am David (there’s a movie also)
  26. Julie of the Wolves, George (realistic, adventure with animals)
  27. The Pushcart War, Merrill (realistic with humor, borders on tall tales)
  28. Sounder, Armstrong (realistic with animals)
  29. Summer of the Swans, Byars (realistic)
  30. Angel on the Square, Whelan (historical)
  31. Catherine Called Birdy, Cushman (historical)
  32. The Westing Game, Raskin (mystery)
  33. A Wrinkle in Time series, L’Engle (sci-fi)
  34. Tuck Everlasting, Babbitt, (sci-fi)
  35. Canterbury Tales, McCaughrean
  36. Fever 1793
  37. The Whipping Boy
  38. Flowers for Algernon
  39. The Martian Chronicles
  40. Murder on the Orient Express
  41. Thank You, Jeeves
  42. Watership Down
  43. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
  44. Red Scarf Girl
  45. Great Expectations
  46. The Crucible
  47. The Endless Steppe: Growing Up in Siberia, Esther Hautzig
  48. The Winged Watchman, Hilda Van Stockum
  49. Miracles on Maple Hill, Virginia Sorensen (we may own?)
  50. The Von Trapp family singers, Maria Von Trapp
  51. Mysterious Island, Jules Verne
  52. Yearling, Majorie Kinnan (there’s a movie, I believe)
  53. I Lived on Butterfly Hill

 

Short Stories:

 

  1. The Lottery
  2. The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas
  3. Rikki Tikki Tavi, Kipling
  4. The Open Window, Saki
  5. The Gift of the Magi and other short stories, O. Henry (Christmas)

 

 

Non-Fiction:

 

  1. Small Steps: The Year I Got Polio, Peg Kehret
  2. Bomb, The Race to Build…
  3. The Family Romanov
  4. I Am Malala (there are two editions – adult and younger audience
  5. I Will Always Write Back
  6. Prisoner B-3087
  7. Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass The Story Behind an American Friendship
  8. The Notorious Benedict Arnold
  9. Angel Island : Gateway to Gold Mountain
  10. Pure Grit: How American WWII Nurses Survived Battle and Prison Camp in the Pacific
  11. Sugar Changed The World: A Story of Magic, Spice, Slavery, Freedom, and Science
  12. We are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball
  13. The Hiding Place

 

 

 

 

 

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Julie of the Wolves is the first book in a trilogy

The Oz books (I believe there are 14!)

Leaving Glorytown (Cuba) -- this was an excellent book; I would probably pre-check

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button -- F. Scott Fitzgerald  (not the movie)

Bernice Bobs Her Hair -- F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Gift of the Magi -- O. Henry

The Hiding Place -- Corrie ten Boom  (WWII concentration camp survivor)

 

 

ETA:  A Wrinkle in Time is the first book of a series.

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I'm so glad this is helpful to others as well! Since I don't really assign anything but do want her having lots of quality choices, I think this will work so well. There are quite a few she's read but I will also use it for my son, and I created this in a word doc with each bullet as a checkbox so she can mark off as she goes! We also own a bunch, and I've gathered a lot and created a special bookshelf in her room specifically for those so she can easily grab a book whenever she wants!

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I realized I need to go back and add in non-fiction. Here are a few but I will work more on this over the weekend. Any other suggestions for favorite non-fiction for grade 7?

 

- Bomb, The Race to Build...

- The Family Romanov

- I am Malala

- I Will Always Write Back

- I Lived on Butterfly Hill

- Prisoner B-3087

- Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass The Story Behind an American Friendship

- The Notorious Benedict Arnold

- Angel Island : Gateway to Gold Mountain

- Pure Grit: How American WWII Nurses Survived Battle and Prison Camp in the Pacific

- Sugar Changed The World: A Story of Magic, Spice, Slavery, Freedom, and Science

- We are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball

-

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When you study the polio epidemic, you might want her to read Small Steps: The Year I Got Polio, by Peg Kehret. I highly recommend this book!

Oh yes, we read that one a few years ago and loved it!!! There are a few that all of us have read so I didn't add to my list but that one would definitely be a great addition for anyone looking for non-fiction :)

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Good idea! Do you have any to recommend?

 

War Horse is probably my top pick, though I have taught All Quiet on the Western Front to 8th graders, I think I wouldn't suggest it for most kids before that age. There's some great shorter works, like War Game, and there's tons of poetry about the war that's just terrific stuff.

 

Also, for the aftermath, Listening for Lions is a good one - about the Spanish flu as well as African colonization. The ending is a bit silly, but the story is nice and Gloria Whelan is always a solid writer. Charlotte Sometimes is also about the flu, though a very different sort of book - at a boarding school.

 

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War Horse is probably my top pick, though I have taught All Quiet on the Western Front to 8th graders, I think I wouldn't suggest it for most kids before that age. There's some great shorter works, like War Game, and there's tons of poetry about the war that's just terrific stuff.

 

Also, for the aftermath, Listening for Lions is a good one - about the Spanish flu as well as African colonization. The ending is a bit silly, but the story is nice and Gloria Whelan is always a solid writer. Charlotte Sometimes is also about the flu, though a very different sort of book - at a boarding school.

 

Wonderful, thank you!

 

I read All Quiet on the Western Front a couple years ago and I found it hard to get through, lol!

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