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What is your middle schooler reading this summer?


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DS informs me he needs to have 3 books going at a time (eyeroll). He just finished To Kill a Mockingbird and Where the Red Fern Grows this week. Also a short retelling of the Oddisey. So maybe something light next? :)

He wants to read Animal Farm next. And he is reading Doctor Dolittle. Any other recommendations?

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DS just finished the Complete Works of Sherlock Holmes. He also read Hatchett by Gary Paulsen, The Green Ember – S.D. Smith, Sherlock Holmes and the Baker Street Irregulars: The Fall of the Amazing Zalindas.

 

Other books on his list include:

By the Great Horn Spoon

Island of the Blue Dolphins – Scott O’Dell

The Pepins and Their Problems – Polly Horvath

Life of Davey Crockett – Davey Crockett

The Book of Dragons – E. Nesbit

Robinson Crusoe – Daniel Defoe

Wolves of Willoughby Chase – Joan Aiken

Tik-Tok of Oz – L. Frank Baum

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Currently: Through Fairy Halls from My Book House, the second volume of The Sister's Grimm series, and Math Doesn't Suck. I'm reading The Game of Silence aloud.

 

Some lighter things:

The Phantom Tollbooth

Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes

Bambi

The View from Saturday

A Wrinkle in Time

Gentle Ben

Lassie, Come Home

The Neverending Story

 

A little heavier:

The Sword in the Stone

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Oliver Twist

Treasure Island

Robinson Crusoe

The Yearling

Captains Courageous

The Wizard of Earthsea series

Rosemary Sutcliff books - The Eagle of the Ninth trilogy, The Mark of the Horse Lord, etc.

Stories and Poems for Extremely Intelligent Children of All Ages

The Children of Odin

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This summer DS who is 12 is reading the last of the Star Wars X-Wing series for fun. We just finished Tom Sawyer, and we've started Huck Finn as a family audio book. DH wants him to read The Great Brain. We live in Rhode Island, so I'll have him read Swim that Rock since it's by a local author about the local quahog fishing community.

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DD 12 is currently reading Eragon, The Rangers Apprentice (she's on book 3), Harry Potter(book 3 or 4), Artemis Fowl (book 2, we have kindle she likes the real thing), Manga books from several series, and a ton of fan fic.  Pretty much all at the same time, skipping from book to book then back again.

 

DS is reading D&D books.

 

I have "better" stuff planned for them come August, right now I'm just happy that they're reading.

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Shannon is re-reading David Eddings The Belgariad and The Mallorean.  She has absolutely loved those series, they displaced Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, and pretty much everything else she's ever read at the very top of her book-love list.  She just finished the Tapestry series by Henry Neff and started the Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica series by James Owen.  Pretty much all fantasy, all the time around here.

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My 7th grader is not my reader. So far it's mostly Harry Potter re-reads. I have assigned her Treasure Island for summer reading and have also strongly suggested that she read The Hobbit or My Family and Other Animals to make her school life easier this year (all three are for Lightning Lit 8 and she has some difficulty reading with a deadline--we'll be working on it this year).

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Mushroom is reading Half a Chance and Out of My Mind. He also just read El Deafo. He has The Hunger Games sitting on his book pile because he asked for it, but he keeps looking askance at it like he's not sure he trusts it.

 

BalletBoy is reading The Terrible Thing that Happened to Barnaby Brocket. And rereading Wimpy Kids and Big Nates and so forth.

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From our last trip to the library, ds finished The Thief Lord (Funke), The Thickety: The Whispering Trees (White), and Gabriel Finley and the Raven's Riddle (Hagen). He's been rereading Ender's Game and Red Dragon Codex, but recently he has dropped everything to read The Count of Monte Cristo. He's really into it.

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Eldest who is 11 is finishing off the Warriors series by Erin Hunter.

 

After that I'm not sure which direction he will go.

 

He is also reading most of the books that Youngest is reading. So he is slowly making his way through, "Captain Underpants" "Heroes in Training" and "Dragon Masters"

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DS12 is reading Frankenstein and lots of Marvel comics. 

 

DD10 is reading Anne of Green Gables.

 

Eldest who is 11 is finishing off the Warriors series by Erin Hunter.

 

After that I'm not sure which direction he will go.

 

If he's still into cats, my kids highly recommend Varjak Paw and its sequel. My DD, who has read every single Warriors book, says she liked the Varjak books even better. She made me read them and I thought they were great.

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DS 12 read all 4 books in the Brixton Brothers series. He then got them all on audiobook and is listening through them now. He also read The Case of the Missing Moonstone. He is now looking for some more mysteries to read. 

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DD (10) is tackling some fun reads this summer, like Are You There God? It's Me Margaret and The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. She chooses her summer reads from her 5th grade reading list so I have no idea what's next. This is such a fun reading stage tho!

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Well, DD is going into 7th, and I usually require 10 books over the summer, plus her big summer project and math.  However, this year, since she is reading quite a bit anyway, I'm only requiring 4:

  • Phantastes by George MacDonald
  • The Odyssey for Boys and Girls
  • The Iliad for Boys and Girls
  • The Aeneid for Boys and Girls

I chose these because we will be doing a combined Bible/Lit study on The Chronicles of Narnia next year.

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12 year old:  Theodore Boone series, Sidekicked, just finished Under the Egg

 

10 year old:  Harry Potter-just finished 1 and started 2 as read alouds, Going to start The Genius Files on his own.  I hope.  

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I wish I could get mine to read Discworld, I own all the books but no interest, not even in Tiffany :crying: .

 

I think it's writer-reader chemistry - my dd likes quirky books with homour that borders on the dark.- terry pratchett, lemony snickett, neil gaiman, alexander McCall Smith, Eva Ibbotson et al. fwiw, dd hasn't shown any interest in Harry Potter or Percy Jackson despite my repeated attempts to get her to read them.

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I think it's writer-reader chemistry - my dd likes quirky books with homour that borders on the dark.- terry pratchett, lemony snickett, neil gaiman, alexander McCall Smith, Eva Ibbotson et al. fwiw, dd hasn't shown any interest in Harry Potter or Percy Jackson despite my repeated attempts to get her to read them.

My DS is the same except he is enamoured of Harry Potter (read multiple times) but Percy Jackson never really stuck.
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Shannon is re-reading David Eddings The Belgariad and The Mallorean.  She has absolutely loved those series, they displaced Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, and pretty much everything else she's ever read at the very top of her book-love list.  She just finished the Tapestry series by Henry Neff and started the Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica series by James Owen.  Pretty much all fantasy, all the time around here.

 

My oldest loved those! I once drove 40 miles on busy evening freeways so he could meet James A. Owen... lol. James drew the cover dragon by hand on the title pages of all 7 of DS's books before he autographed them. DS swooned. It was awesome.

 

The whole series is absolutely loaded with literary allusions. JAO is working on an annotations volume that will cover the whole series. If you think you'd enjoy chasing some of those rabbit trails, collect the hardcover editions as you go, since their page numbers will be keyed into the annotations volume.

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My oldest loved those! I once drove 40 miles on busy evening freeways so he could meet James A. Owen... lol. James drew the cover dragon by hand on the title pages of all 7 of DS's books before he autographed them. DS swooned. It was awesome.

 

The whole series is absolutely loaded with literary allusions. JAO is working on an annotations volume that will cover the whole series. If you think you'd enjoy chasing some of those rabbit trails, collect the hardcover editions as you go, since their page numbers will be keyed into the annotations volume.

 

Oh, that's cool! It's also the book the 8filltheheart used as an example of creating your own curriculum in her new homeschooling book:

 

http://www.treasuredconversations.com/homeschooling-at-the-helm-within-the-usa-only/

 

Looks like there is a lot in there to explore!

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I love to answer these questions on days ds is walking around reading Swiss Family Robinson. I'm more of a lurker on days when he is reading a 2nd grade Lego Chima graphic novel. Haha.

 

Soon I'll start assigning reading related to ancients, like Warrior Scarlet, but none of us are ready for anything that sounds "official" right now.

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My 13 year old daughter is reading:

 

Ivanhoe-Sir Walter Scott

The White Company-Arthur Conan Doyle

The Hobbit-Tolkien

Harry Potter books 4 &5-Rowling

The Mysterious Benedict Society-?

 

That's all we've got so far. We school year round and Ivanhoe and The White Company are part of her required reading list. The rest are her choices. :-)

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Rosemary Sutcliff's retelling of King Arthur (three books, I think the 1st was The Light in the Forest)

Dealing with Dragons 

random science fiction (I think there as been some David Weber and some Bolo books)

 

I'm about to add some more middle ages fiction.  I'm thinking of The King's Shadow or Ramsey Scallop.

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10 yo is plowing through tons of books that I jotted down from Newbery Award winners.  She has to have read 10 already. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, Young Fu of the Upper Yangtze, Island of the Blue Dolphins, Ella Enchanted, Bud, Not Buddy... She also read Dork Diaries 9.  

 

12 yo is a slower reader; she did finish DD 9 in hours though.  Right now she's reading The Witch of Blackbird Pond, as she'll be doing a PP guide on it in the fall. She's reading a chapter of Beautiful Girlhood every night too.  She also re-read Phantom Tollbooth for fun.

 

DH is reading Two Towers to the girls as well.

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Thank you!

We've read already a few of these but do you believe he found Sherlock too hard last we tried it a few months ago. Will check out the rest, thank you!

 

My kids got eased into Sherlock through listening to a few cases on audiobook - it helps with hearing someone read the language with proper pauses and emphasis and what not.  That also set a pretty good hook.

 

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My dd is currently plowing through the Pseudonymous Bosch series.

 

She also enjoyed:

 

The Candymakers, Wendy Mass

The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, Jacqueline Kelly (There is a sequel coming out July 7th!)

 

Dd12 just found The Candymakers on my kindle and read it again.

 

We're so excited about the sequel to Calpurnia! We enjoyed the first book so much when it first came out. I'm looking forward to reading it with little dd too.

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Harry Potter. Yes, I know everyone else read it years ago, but he's thoroughly enjoying them, and since I read them as an adult, I think it's great.

 

There are worse thing ;) DS is re reading them. I've ruined so many books by assigning them too soon. So happy not to have messed this one up. We are listening to Magyk in the car and I'm loving that.

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Family read alouds so far this summer:  Lawn Boy Returns (Paulsen), Series Unfortunate Events 1, Harry Potter 1 & 2 (will probably continue the series though I want to read other books - this is my 3rd time through).

DS12/7th Ender's Game

DS10/5th Diary Wimpy Kid 1 & 2

 

ETA 7/10

Read Aloud- Harry Potter 3

DS 12/7th Finished Ender's Game. Will start on King Arthur by Green after he finishes "Cool Careers in Video Games"

DS 10/5th  Diary Wimpy Kid 3 and starting on 4.

Love watching the movies of all the books we read as we finish them :)

 

ETA 9/1

Read Alouds for summer:  Lawn Boy Returns, Harry Potter 1-4, Series Unfortunate Events 1-3

DS 12/7th Grade summer:  Ender's Game, Gathering Blue, Eye of Minds

DS 10/5th Grader summer:  Diary Wimpy Kid 1-7

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My 11 year old boys are reading The Fire Within by Chris d'Lacey, and The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp by Kathi Appett. 

We just finished The Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathon Stroud  as a read aloud, and are currently reading Okay For Now by Gary D. Schmidt. 

I'm making it a priority for the rest of the summer to have an hour of reading every afternoon.

 

ETA: One boy reading The Fire Within and the other is reading The True Blue Scouts. Not both books at the same time! 

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