help me choose literature for 8th grade

[caedmyn]

I'm trying to narrow down literature choices for my rising 8th grader.  I'd like to choose 6-8 of the following list.  Can someone give me a general idea of which are easier, which are moderately difficult, and which are most difficult?  Also would like to get opinions on which ones are must-reads, and which could be easily skipped or are better saved for high school.  She doesn't like books that are scary or particularly dark.

Lorna Doone
Kenilworth
Pickwick Papers
Children of Odin by Column
The Space Trilogy by C.S.Lewis
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
The Count of Monte Cristo

The Three Musketeers
Journey to the Centre of the Earth
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Hound of the Baskervilles
Across Five Aprils
Treasure Island
War of the Worlds

Edited March 17, 2019 by caedmyn

[hollyhock2]

I am not familiar with all the books on your list, but of the ones I have read, I would say The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Across Five Aprils and Treasure Island are probably the easiest and are good choices for 8th grade. I have not personally read Journey to the Center of the Earth, but some of my kids have around that age or younger, so it's probably a good choice, too.  The Count of Monte Cristo is definitely more difficult. I save it for high school. I'm not familiar enough with the others to say.

[Lori D.]

8th grade level:
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Hound of the Baskervilles
Across Five Aprils
Treasure Island
Children of Odin by Column
Journey to the Centre of the Earth

9th/10th grade level and up:
War of the Worlds
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

11th/12th grade and up
The Space Trilogy by C.S.Lewis
The Count of Monte Cristo
The Three Musketeers
Pickwick Papers*

* = This one by Charles Dicken is not a very accessible work. It is also a "lesser known/lesser read" work, so not a "must read" Dickens work. If wanting to do a Charles Dickens work in 8th grade, I recommend A Christmas Carol; if wanting Dickens in 9th/10th grade, then I recommend Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, or Great Expectations (warning: Great Expectations is quite a bit of a "downer"). If wanting Dickens in 11th/12th grade, then I recommend A Tale of Two Cities

JMO: I don't think these would be of interest:
Lorna Doone
Kenilworth

If interested in expanding the list to include some female authors / female protagonists for balance, these are some classic 8th grade books:
Anne of Green Gables (Montgomery)
Little Women (Alcott)
To Kill a Mockingbird (Lee)
The Outsiders (Hinton)
The Secret Garden (Burnett)

And if interested in expanding the list for balance to include some contemporary good YA books for 8th grade (perhaps a book basket?) -- all but one are by women, and all but one feature female protagonists:
Tuck Everlasting (Babbit)
A Long Walk to Water (Park)
I Am Malala (Yousafzi)
Brown Girl Dreaming (Woodson)
A Wrinkle in Time (L'Engle)
Island of the Blue Dolphins (O'Dell)
The Midwife's Apprentice (Cushman)
The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle (Avi)
The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate (Kelly)
Echo (Ryan)
Wonder (Palacio)

Edited March 17, 2019 by Lori D.

[Garga]

When I say that I read these, I read most of them somewhere between 7th and 12th, though I honestly can’t remember exactly when.  These would all be books I read on my own because I was/am a voracious reader and my mother wouldn’t let me read teen novels, so I turned to the classics when I was growing up.

Lorna Doone—didn’t read
Kenilworth—didn’t read
Pickwick Papers—can’t remember if I read.  Is this a particularly interesting Dickens?  Some Dickens is a bit boring.  If your dd hasn’t read any Dickens yet, is there a reason you’re not starting with the ones students normally start with,  like Great Expectations?  I think GE is often read in 8th grade.
Children of Odin by Column—didn’t read.
The Space Trilogy by C.S.Lewis—read, but I remember that the plot was very plodding and I barely made it through, even though I love classic novels and love Lewis. I remember thinking it was a feat of endurance to get through, but I did.  I was in high school.
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court—I probably read this in my 20s and that’s been so long ago, I don’t know if it’s easy to read or not.  
The Count of Monte Cristo—-read it in high school: note this is a LONG book.  Very, very big tome.  That was great for me, as the longer the better in my opinion, but for some kids they might sigh and droop at the length of it. It’s like 600 or 700 pages long.

The Three Musketeers—same as Monte Cristo (same author); is very LONG—600-700 pages.  I didn’t read this as a kid, but my 10th grader and I read it last year.  All I can say is that morality and ethics are different now and we were both amused at how aghast we were at what the Mukseteers considered right and wrong.  There were a lot of affairs, with the husbands painted as being insufferable.  And then it took a dark turn at the end with someone being executed outside of the law. Here we were enjoyin the hijinks and drama and then suddenly it was very dark.  And honestly, my son was pretty saddened by the ending.  The 3 Mustketeers parted ways, as life often does to people, and it sort of broke his heart to think of how they never hung out again after the book ended.
Journey to the Centre of the Earth—I read this in 8th grade and enjoyed it.  It’s Victorian Era, so the men are patronising and stuffy, but I didn’t recognize that as a kid.  It wasn’t until later that I started finding Verne’s male characters a bit annoying.
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes—-I could handle it just fine as a kid in 8th grade, but my own kids who don’t have any drive to read, don’t enjoy these books very much unless I read them out loud to them.  
Hound of the Baskervilles—this is just another Sherlock Holmes story, so see above.
Across Five Aprils—never read
Treasure Island—-didn’t read as a kid.  Read it to my boys when the oldest was in 6th or 7th grade.  After the first couple of chapters where the old pirate appears and the kid goes off with him, I quickly lost interest.  I found it boring after the story actually got going.  I’d have set it aside, but we were reading it for a co-op class. I found it very painful to read (as in painfully bored), but that’s a personal opinion.  Others like it.  It was very much a boy book.
War of the Worlds—never read. 

 

Lori gave you a list of books with female characters.  For 9th and 10th grade, I realized my son was reading almost nothing written by women or about women.  This year, I’ve made a point to read an equal number of books written by men and women.  

Edited March 17, 2019 by Garga

[PeachyDoodle]

4 hours ago, caedmyn said:

I'm trying to narrow down literature choices for my rising 8th grader.  I'd like to choose 6-8 of the following list.  Can someone give me a general idea of which are easier, which are moderately difficult, and which are most difficult?  Also would like to get opinions on which ones are must-reads, and which could be easily skipped or are better saved for high school.  She doesn't like books that are scary or particularly dark.

Lorna Doone
Kenilworth
Pickwick Papers
Children of Odin by Column
The Space Trilogy by C.S.Lewis
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
The Count of Monte Cristo

The Three Musketeers
Journey to the Centre of the Earth
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Hound of the Baskervilles
Across Five Aprils
Treasure Island
War of the Worlds

Just my personal opinion...

Of the ones here that I've read, I would recommend either The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes OR Hound of the Baskervilles (not both), Across Five Aprils, and Treasure Island (maybe -- my dd vastly preferred Kidnapped if you want to do RL Stevenson) as 8th grade level. My dd liked Hound; I hated Across Five Aprils when I read it in 8th, but it's not a difficult read.

Connecticut Yankee is slow and surprisingly difficult. I'd recommend Tom Sawyer, or perhaps some short stories by Twain instead. "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" is fun. If she's read Tom Sawyer, I might consider Huckleberry Finn, but I think that one is deeper and probably best reserved for high school.

War of the Worlds is meh, unless you have a real sci-fi lover. It's not that long though, and do-able. It could be made more fun if you listened to the radio recording and talked about its impact.

I agree that Pickwick wouldn't be my first choice for Dickens, especially not a first exposure. DD has read A Christmas Carol, Oliver Twist, and A Tale of Two Cities. AToTC was definitely her favorite, but Christmas Carol is a nice introduction to Dickens, and has the added benefit of being short and having ample movies and/or live performances to go along with it, especially if you read it around Christmas time.

I personally wouldn't want my student's first experience with Lewis to be the Space trilogy either. I'd do The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (even though it's below grade level) or even The Screwtape Letters. Or else wait until she was ready for some of his essays. Lewis is too good, and the Space trilogy doesn't do him justice.

The others I don't have personal experience with. 

Here is my dd's current 8th grade list:

Lord of the Flies by William Golding
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
The Importance of Being Ernest by Oscar Wilde
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling
The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Chinese Cinderella by Adeline Yen Mah

[LMD]

My 8th grader has Space Trilogy & Sherlock Holmes as options this year too. 

Connecticut Yankee is hard going, difficult language! I liked it but I struggled and never actually finished it (yet). My 8th grader would struggle on her own, and she's a very capable reader.

We did Treasure Island as an audio book and everyone enjoyed it. Not too difficult and not too dark iirc. I think that's a good choice for 8th.

I haven't read the others, though I do have an easy Dickens on her list- cricket on the hearth. I like Dickens but I think he needs a gentle intro. I'm not familiar with Pickwick.

I haven't read Journey to the Centre of the Earth, but my kids read 20,000 Leagues around 6th/7th and mostly enjoyed it. I think Verne at 8th is a decent choice.

[LMD]

Here's some of my 8th grader's list - she does like dark & scary

Importance of Being Earnest 

The Giver

Foundation (Asimov)

Man Who Was Thursday 

Animal Farm 

Murder on the Orient Express 

Strong Poison 

Angel on the Square/Zlata's Diary/Persepolis (all about girls living through revolution/war)

Cricket on the Hearth 

Hound of the Baskervilles

Longitude 

Space Trilogy

[Garga]

Just for fun, here’s a comparson of the size of Huckleberry Finn vs The Three Musketeers.  The font size of the words is about the same.

 

 

[Garga]

And now ‘cause I’m having fun taking pictures, Don Quixote is also very thick.  We only read half of this book.  What we all think of as “Don Quixote” is actually two separate books written by Cervantes years apart, but usually bound together as one book.  (For the backstory:  Cervantes wrote his book.  Some fan somewhere loved it and started writing what was basically fan fiction for the 1500/1600s.  Cervantes was affronted.  He then wrote the second novel to supercede the fan fiction that was floating out there.)  Further note: for Don Quixote, we chose the Edith Grossman translation.  Easy to understand and the book is hilarious.  There is something funny on just about every page.  I didn’t expect that!

Note:  the blue Stephen Mitchell translation of Gilgamesh was my son’s all-time favorite book ever, read in 9th grade.

 

 

Edited March 17, 2019 by Garga

[Lori D.]

2 hours ago, Garga said:

Just for fun, here’s a comparson of the size of Huckleberry Finn vs The Three Musketeers.  The font size of the words is about the same.

Side note: love the lego critters in front of the heavy classic lit. Helps lighten it up a bit somehow... (:D

[Lori D.]

Great "thumbnail" reviews/comments on the books, Garga, PeachyDoodle, and LMD!

re: Connecticut Yankee
Totally agree with everyone that Tom Sawyer (or a couple of short stories) is a better first introduction to Mark Twain than Connecticut Yankee.

re: Sherlock Holmes
Also agree that the Sherlock Holmes titles are a great fit for 8th grade. FYI: Hound of the Baskervilles is a novella and has a bit of a dark gothic/creepy/supernatural feel that is not in other of his stories. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is a fast-reading collection of short stories, and a good one to go with as they are his first mysteries.

re: War of the Worlds
I AM a sci-fi fan, and I found this one to be very slow going, in spite of a great idea for a book. If really wanting to do it, in addition to the above great idea of listening to the radio play version and talking about how people freaked out thinking it was a real invasion, you might consider also reading the YA book When the Tripods Came, which builds off War of the Worlds and what happened if the aliens HAD conquered earth. But otherwise, I would suggest going with HG Wells' The Invisible Man, or possibly the Time Machine. I've done both with middle/high school co-op class students. The Invisible Man was easier to read and had some interesting ethics issues to discuss, but was more "speculative fiction" than traditional sci-fi. The Time Machine is traditional time travel sci-fi, but it was hard in parts for the students, in spite of being a shorter work. And honestly -- at 8th grade age, if wanting an introduction to sci-fi, I'd probably suggest going with one of the more recent and pretty-well-written YA sci-fi books that are out there. Just me!

re: Space trilogy
I love this one, but it is an adult read. Rich, complex, and abstract theological/philosophical stuff within each story. His Space trilogy is not quite as good as his Till We Have Faces (his best work, IMO), but there is some really good stuff in there about the nature of evil and choices that shows evil up for what it is in a way that Screwtape Letters can't do (due to the more humorous tone and the theology/letter format).  I did the Space trilogy when they were 18 and 19yo, and found that I had to stop and explain a LOT -- and they were no slouches at literature or at analysis/complex thought by those end of high school ages. The first book of the trilogy (Out of the Silent Planet) *might* work as a stand alone for a strong 8th grade reader, as it is the most traditional story-like of the 3 books.

Edited March 17, 2019 by Lori D.

[Penelope]

UOther than choosing a Sherlock Holmes story or two, I wouldn’t say that any of them are must reads, even though there are some very good books on that list.

At this age, I think which ones are more difficult etc. depends very much on the student. What kind of reader is she? Is she used to reading older literature and chooses these sorts of books on her own? Because if so, probably most of them won’t be a problem, even if they aren’t of the highest interest. 

The Pickwick Papers is funny, and if she has read Little Women it might be of more interest. But whether or not it should be an eighth grade read, for me, would depend on whether she has read any other Dickens or whether you plan to have her read any in future. 

Lorna Doone is a great story and was a very popular novel of its time, but not a must read. What do you think about Jane Austen’s Emma? 

I also think Space Trilogy is better read older. Though I really don’t like it and can’t figure out why it shows up on so many lists, except that is is Lewis. Also there is some sexism in there to discuss. 

Connecticut Yankee is fabulous and has been totally readable here. But it won’t seem that funny IMO unless the student has already read some of the medieval literature and history the book is poking fun at, like some of the Mort de Artur or similar, not just children’s retelling of same. Also there should be some explanation of the context of industrialization and what was going on at Twain’s time, and there is a lot to discuss in that book about both medieval and Twain’s views of magic, religion, and faith. Even though my kids that read it liked it at that age or younger, I think they would have enjoyed it more in high school after our medieval literature year. And I also agree that it depends what other Twain you have read. I would choose Huck Finn, Tom Sawyer, or maybe even Life on the Mississippi before this one. 

I personally could not get through Count of Monte Christo, so there’s that.

The Children of Odin is a big yes, and all the books on the second list. I agree that the Time Machine might be better than War of the Worlds. 

 

Edited March 18, 2019 by Penelope

[PeterPan]

On March 17, 2019 at 10:35 AM, caedmyn said:

I'm trying to narrow down literature choices for my rising 8th grader.  I'd like to choose 6-8 of the following list.  Can someone give me a general idea of which are easier, which are moderately difficult, and which are most difficult?  Also would like to get opinions on which ones are must-reads, and which could be easily skipped or are better saved for high school.

Is this for the almost dyslexic, sorta ADHD dd? And are you planning on doing these on audio or having her read them? And what kind of responses or interaction are you wanting her to have to/with the lit?

My personal opinion, and this is just me, is that 8th is such a formative age. They're really wrangling with issues in their mind like depression, joy, value, love, what they like, who they are. I would choose things that speak to that. I would alternate easy/short and longer. I would choose things that have guides or some way to interact with if they're longer, and I would have some kind of plan for response if they're shorter. 

My dd was a stunningly avid reader, I'm talking like super high scores on the ACT for anything involving reading, and I would not have given her that list. It would have sucked the everlasting joy right out of her life. I really, really liked the BJU lit choices for 7th-10th grades. What I liked about them was the VARIETY. Just take a gander at the bibliography pages (which I think you can see online) and see what I mean. Like they had collections of short stories, poetry, hymns, all sorts of variety. Your dd could be interacting with Shakespeare.

Around then I had my dd do tons of OPERA, lots of opera. I got a book of opera librettos and she would read one a week and then look the opera up on youtube to watch it.                                             At the Opera by Ann Fiery (2003-10-02)                                       This is the book we used as a spine and it's WONDERFUL. We also had another book that was more factual. I think it was put out by the Met or something. It was more like year, jist, that kind of stuff. But yeah, she did opera once a week.

We also did Gilbert & Sullivan then, same gig. Clyde Bulla has a couple books of shorter retellings of the Gilbert & Sullivan light operas. They're happy, they're things educated people know, they're enriching, they're joyful. Junior high is such a tumultuous age. I'd strongly encourage you to look into JOYFUL things like this. Zero regrets on that. And then there are dvd movies and maybe even light opera productions you can attend.                                             The Pirates of Penzance                                       This is an utter hoot. Around here students can attend summer productions of light opera on the cheap, like $20 a ticket. Very happy, highly recommend.

I used the bibliographies from the BJU lit and found more for her to read. Technically they don't want you to do that because other stuff in the book could be objectionable. But for this particular author                                             The Grasshopper Trap                                       Rick McManus you're probably fine. There were some others, but McManus became a big fav of hers. Again, very positive, fun, short.

It's a good age to begin reading and responding to the news.

Literature beyond that? Well I think it's important to begin exposing our girls to their heritage of women's thought as shown in literature, so I'd be making sure she begins to read the Brontes, women's poetry, biographies of women, etc. and to know WHY she's reading them. What did it mean to be a woman in those times and what issues did they have to deal with and are those her issues today? 

I also had my dd read cookbooks. There's a lot of crazy history and thought to be covered in cookbooks. Again, they're connecting with their heritage and what women have shared about their lives and struggles.

Also at that age we would rabbit trail her particular interests and find newer lit (adult historical fiction, etc.) to go with her interests. So she was into the british monarchy and we got her Alison Weir, Starkey, etc. You basically just take the topic and go to that section in the library by call numbers and it will be there. It wasn't that I knew so much, but we just went to the section to see what we would find and boom. And again, this is stuff she can get on audio!!! If you want to make Alison Weir accessible, audible has the books on sale all the time. Or your library might have the audio. And then she can read paired fiction and nonfiction and respond to that, discussing, contrasting. Those conversations or charts she makes set her up for essays later.

We did some debate using a 50 Debate Prompts book that I *think* you can find online now as a free pdf. If you can't, maybe it's $10 on TPT or something. And she would read to get background info to debate those. It came with the info, but she'd sometimes read more.

We did some stuff with creepy short stories, but you said she didn't want that, hehe.

[Farrar]

Why these books?

I'm especially curious why Pickwick instead of a more popular, readable Dickens like Oliver Twist? And why Journey to the Center of the Earth and War of the Worlds instead of the more enduring Time Machine? Why Kenilworth instead of the much more famous Ivanhoe?

Why so many long, older books and no modern books at all? What's your goal for 8th grade literature? Is this for a student who already reads a lot and needs to be stretched?

Honestly, I'm not a major "canon of literature" kind of person, but I don't consider any of these "can't miss" books. Maybe some Sherlock Holmes. It's nice to be introduced to Treasure Island, Count of Monte Cristo, and Connecticut Yankee, but we only read one of those (Treasure Island) and we did it as an audiobook together around that age (I think 7th grade).

[freesia]

I love doing Sherlock Holmes in eighth. I vote for Hound of the Baskerville.  If you haven’t done Tom Sawyer, it’s also great for now. 

Books my eighth grade book club is reading this year: Animal Farm, O Henry  short stories, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Hiding Place, The Hobbit, Wrinkle in Time, Call of the Wild

Even my most advanced readers wouldn’t have enjoyed many of your titles. ( I do like War of the Worlds, though)

[Farrar]

43 minutes ago, freesia said:

I love doing Sherlock Holmes in eighth. I vote for Hound of the Baskerville.  If you haven’t done Tom Sawyer, it’s also great for now. 

Books my eighth grade book club is reading this year: Animal Farm, O Henry  short stories, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Hiding Place, The Hobbit, Wrinkle in Time, Call of the Wild

Even my most advanced readers wouldn’t have enjoyed many of your titles. ( I do like War of the Worlds, though)

That list is similar to our 8th grade list. We did all of those in 7th and 8th grade except The Hiding Place (and we did some other things, including a lot of other classic short stories and some other shortish, more recent classics like Fahrenheit 451). But my kids also could not have tackled that many long books.

[freesia]

4 minutes ago, Farrar said:

That list is similar to our 8th grade list. We did all of those in 7th and 8th grade except The Hiding Place (and we did some other things, including a lot of other classic short stories and some other shortish, more recent classics like Fahrenheit 451). But my kids also could not have tackled that many long books.

Fahrenheit 451 is a great one for this ages. We are doing it next year. 

Another one we are doing next year ( that I did for dd ninth) is Warriors Don’t Cry. 

OP, the Jules Verne books work really well as audiobooks on long car rides. 

[Ausmumof3]

On 3/18/2019 at 1:05 AM, caedmyn said:

I'm trying to narrow down literature choices for my rising 8th grader.  I'd like to choose 6-8 of the following list.  Can someone give me a general idea of which are easier, which are moderately difficult, and which are most difficult?  Also would like to get opinions on which ones are must-reads, and which could be easily skipped or are better saved for high school.  She doesn't like books that are scary or particularly dark.

Lorna Doone - haven’t read it
Kenilworth - haven’t read it
Pickwick Papers - there are easier dickens than this
Children of Odin by Column - ds12 read this last year and loved it
The Space Trilogy by C.S.Lewis - I haven’t read it
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court - probably ok - it’s years since I read it but it’s fairly readable 
The Count of Monte Cristo - this is pretty heavy going and very dark in the themes of revenge etc I wouldn’t go there yet

The Three Musketeers - I love these books but I feel eight grade may be a little early - some of the themes might involve some conversations so make sure you’ve read and are prepared for them 
Journey to the Centre of the Earth - haven’t finished it because I found it boring 
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - ds read last year and enjoyed it.  Chuck some of the tv episodes in to lighten up a bit
Hound of the Baskervilles
Across Five Aprils
Treasure Island
War of the Worlds

i haven’t read the other three

Overall your list seems pretty heavy.  I would try and mix it with some lighter/more modern reading or it might be a bit of a drag.

[Junie]

On 3/17/2019 at 2:02 PM, Garga said:

 

The Three Musketeers—same as Monte Cristo (same author); is very LONG—600-700 pages.  I didn’t read this as a kid, but my 10th grader and I read it last year.  All I can say is that morality and ethics are different now and we were both amused at how aghast we were at what the Mukseteers considered right and wrong.  There were a lot of affairs, with the husbands painted as being insufferable.  And then it took a dark turn at the end with someone being executed outside of the law. Here we were enjoyin the hijinks and drama and then suddenly it was very dark.  And honestly, my son was pretty saddened by the ending.  The 3 Mustketeers parted ways, as life often does to people, and it sort of broke his heart to think of how they never hung out again after the book ended.

@Garga

Oh, but they did hang out again!  The story doesn't end there.  The Man in the Iron Mask is the end of Dumas' Musketeers story.  I just read it a few weeks ago.  Your son would probably enjoy it!

(There are also some lesser known books in the middle of the series, but I haven't read any of those.  Yet.)

(Please excuse the rabbit trail.)

[caedmyn]

This list is a compilation of 2 other booklists, one of which is an AO-inspired list that we've been following for years.  So she is used to reading classics and has already read "starter" classics like A Christmas Carol, Oliver Twist, and Huck Finn (I think she choose it over Tom Sawyer as both were on her list for this year but I let her choose one).  This will not be her complete booklist.  I only listed the books I was trying to decide between.  I have "lighter"/more fun books on the list like the Anne of Green Gables books, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, and I Am Malala (and several others but I don't feel like listing them all).

[caedmyn]

20 hours ago, PeterPan said:

Is this for the almost dyslexic, sorta ADHD dd? And are you planning on doing these on audio or having her read them? And what kind of responses or interaction are you wanting her to have to/with the lit?

My personal opinion, and this is just me, is that 8th is such a formative age. They're really wrangling with issues in their mind like depression, joy, value, love, what they like, who they are. I would choose things that speak to that. I would alternate easy/short and longer. I would choose things that have guides or some way to interact with if they're longer, and I would have some kind of plan for response if they're shorter. 

My dd was a stunningly avid reader, I'm talking like super high scores on the ACT for anything involving reading, and I would not have given her that list. It would have sucked the everlasting joy right out of her life. I really, really liked the BJU lit choices for 7th-10th grades. What I liked about them was the VARIETY. Just take a gander at the bibliography pages (which I think you can see online) and see what I mean. Like they had collections of short stories, poetry, hymns, all sorts of variety. Your dd could be interacting with Shakespeare.

Around then I had my dd do tons of OPERA, lots of opera. I got a book of opera librettos and she would read one a week and then look the opera up on youtube to watch it.                                             At the Opera by Ann Fiery (2003-10-02)                                       This is the book we used as a spine and it's WONDERFUL. We also had another book that was more factual. I think it was put out by the Met or something. It was more like year, jist, that kind of stuff. But yeah, she did opera once a week.

We also did Gilbert & Sullivan then, same gig. Clyde Bulla has a couple books of shorter retellings of the Gilbert & Sullivan light operas. They're happy, they're things educated people know, they're enriching, they're joyful. Junior high is such a tumultuous age. I'd strongly encourage you to look into JOYFUL things like this. Zero regrets on that. And then there are dvd movies and maybe even light opera productions you can attend.                                             The Pirates of Penzance                                       This is an utter hoot. Around here students can attend summer productions of light opera on the cheap, like $20 a ticket. Very happy, highly recommend.

I used the bibliographies from the BJU lit and found more for her to read. Technically they don't want you to do that because other stuff in the book could be objectionable. But for this particular author                                             The Grasshopper Trap                                       Rick McManus you're probably fine. There were some others, but McManus became a big fav of hers. Again, very positive, fun, short.

It's a good age to begin reading and responding to the news.

Literature beyond that? Well I think it's important to begin exposing our girls to their heritage of women's thought as shown in literature, so I'd be making sure she begins to read the Brontes, women's poetry, biographies of women, etc. and to know WHY she's reading them. What did it mean to be a woman in those times and what issues did they have to deal with and are those her issues today? 

I also had my dd read cookbooks. There's a lot of crazy history and thought to be covered in cookbooks. Again, they're connecting with their heritage and what women have shared about their lives and struggles.

Also at that age we would rabbit trail her particular interests and find newer lit (adult historical fiction, etc.) to go with her interests. So she was into the british monarchy and we got her Alison Weir, Starkey, etc. You basically just take the topic and go to that section in the library by call numbers and it will be there. It wasn't that I knew so much, but we just went to the section to see what we would find and boom. And again, this is stuff she can get on audio!!! If you want to make Alison Weir accessible, audible has the books on sale all the time. Or your library might have the audio. And then she can read paired fiction and nonfiction and respond to that, discussing, contrasting. Those conversations or charts she makes set her up for essays later.

We did some debate using a 50 Debate Prompts book that I *think* you can find online now as a free pdf. If you can't, maybe it's $10 on TPT or something. And she would read to get background info to debate those. It came with the info, but she'd sometimes read more.

We did some stuff with creepy short stories, but you said she didn't want that, hehe.

Yes that's the one.  She can read or listen as she likes but usually chooses to read.  I basically just want her to be introduced to different books and genres.  Ideally we'll discuss 2 or 3 but...we're supposed to be doing that this year and it hasn't happened yet.  I don't have the bandwidth to do the type of planning and implementing that you're talking about.

[PeterPan]

47 minutes ago, caedmyn said:

Yes that's the one.  She can read or listen as she likes but usually chooses to read.  I basically just want her to be introduced to different books and genres.  Ideally we'll discuss 2 or 3 but...we're supposed to be doing that this year and it hasn't happened yet.  I don't have the bandwidth to do the type of planning and implementing that you're talking about.

Have you thought about something straightforward and totally planned like Lightning Lit?  https://www.hewitthomeschooling.com/Materials/mItem.aspx?id=3435

Edited March 19, 2019 by PeterPan

[Holly]

My 8th grader has read/is reading:

• Treasure Island
• Wind in the Willows
• As You Like It
• Tom  Sawyer
• Iliad/Odyssey (Butler translation)

And we're doing 3 Shakespeare plays with our co-op: King Lear, Much Ado About Nothing, Julius Caesar.  We like Shakespeare at our house!  🤣