Engaging yet worthy Reading suggestions

[Matryoshka]

I'm tutoring two kids, 6th/7th grade, one boy, one girl, whose mom wants reading suggestions.  These are crisis schoolers using the online option whose mom wants them to have extra support with English, so they are still doing other schoolwork (and I'm assuming reading), so I don't want to necessarily kill them with analysis or make things too weighty, but I'm looking for suggestions that will engage them but still offer a bit more complex vocabulary and sentence structure than a lot of the modern fare (although if there's contemporary stuff that's really good and has come out since I had my own middle schoolers, please share!)

They have indicated a preference for fiction or fantasy with action or adventure and survival skills (the boy has read Island of the Blue Dolphins and My Side of the Mountain and maybe Hatchet already).  They've also read Percy Jackson; I'd like to give them suggestions that are written at a bit higher level than that; enough to stretch them but still enjoyable and not bog them down.  Holes, Frindle, and The City of Ember books,  were also mentioned.

They were fascinated by a bunny in my yard (we're outside on the porch!) and that made me think of Watership Down - do you think that would be engaging enough?  What about something like Treasure Island?  

I'm having trouble thinking of things that hit that sweet spot and are also at the right age/interest level.

 

 

[Zoo Keeper]

Treasure Island sounds good-- they can follow along with the excellent and free reading done by Adrian Praetzellis on Librivox.  https://librivox.org/treasure-island-by-robert-louis-stevenson-2/

My jr high aged kids have all loved The Thief  by Megan Whalen Turner... it is a series, if they like it, they can keep going. 🙂

Rosemary Sutcliff's Roman/Britain series is very good too... Eagle of the Ninth. 

Or maybe The Dark is Rising series? 

Watership Down is tricky-- I've made all my 8th graders read it, but only one kid so far actually enjoyed it.  The rest have barely endured it.

[Lori D.]

I like your thinking -- just not sure Watership Down and Treasure Island those might be the best options for kicking it up a notch.

Watership Down might be too long and heavy. I just did it last year with a high school homeschool Lit. & Comp. class, and some of the students had real troubles sticking with a much longer book. Also, like Zookeeper above, some enjoyed it, others tolerated it. I could see it as a possible read-aloud.

Treasure Island has some old-fashioned vocabulary and sentence structure that might put that out of reach for 6th/7th graders if they haven't read older, Victorian works before. And it drags in parts, so that it seem to take forever for something to happen... As previous poster suggested, a graphic novel of the book might go over better for this one... Or the Muppet Treasure Island movie 😂

Some ideas here, and then below the =========== is a copy-paste of a past post of mine with possible ideas. Very kind of you to help out this family! BEST of luck in finding what's a good fit! Warmly, Lori D.

older vocabulary/sentence structure
- Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Carroll) -- older vocabulary but not a hard read; zany and with humor
- Wondertales, and Tanglewood Tales (Hawthorne) -- Greek myths, short story length, older language/sentence structure
- Five Children and It (Nesbit) -- Victorian language, but with magic adventures and humor
- The Hobbit (Tolkien) -- older language and sentence structure, and longer passages of description, but adventure and fantasy and some humor
- The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Twain) -- older language AND dialect/accents; humor; misadventures
- Around the World in 80 Days (Verne) -- older language/sentence structure
- Call of the Wild (London) -- older language/sentence structure; note: violent things happen, some to animals; told from the animal's POV, but not anthropomorphized

adventure
- The Cay (Taylor) -- shipwreck adventure; also has one character speaking in Caribbean dialect
- A Long Walk to Water (Park) -- not a hard read, but a more difficult topic for good discussion; real life hardships
- The Twenty-One Balloons (du Bois) -- feels like a Jules Verne story, but more amusing and more accessible

fantasy
- Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH (O'Brien) -- gr. 5-8 level
- Lloyd Alexander books -- gr. 5.-8 level
 

=======================================================

Copy-pasting from a past post of mine of ideas for gr. 7-8 books -- also included links to lit. guides, if that helps with discussion:

A few good "beginner" classics for middle schoolers:
- The Hobbit -- Garlic Press Discovering Lit. guide
- Call of the Wild -- Glencoe Lit. Library guide, Portals to Lit. guide
- Sherlock Holmes short story mysteries (Doyle) - Core Knowledge free guide
- Around the World in Eighty Days (Verne) - The Best Notes - chapter summaries/analysis
- Ivanhoe (Scott) - The Best Notes - chapter summaries/analysis
- The Outsiders -- Garlic Press Discovering Lit. guide
- Anne of Green Gables -- Progeny Press guide
- The Adventures of Tom Sawyer -- Glencoe Lit. Library guide; Portals to Lit. guide; Progeny Press guide
- Treasure Island -- Blackbird & Co. guide
- A Christmas Carol -- Portals to Lit. guide
- To Kill a Mockingbird (Lee) -- Glencoe Lit. Library guide; Garlic Press Discovering Lit. guide
- The Invisible Man (Wells) -- 7 Sisters guide; Prestwick House guide
- Animal Farm (Orwell) -- Glencoe Lit. Library guide; Penguin teacher guide

A few more YA titles that are very discussion-able:
- Tuck Everlasting -- Glencoe Lit. Library guide
- Sounder -- Glencoe Lit. Library guide
- The Cay -- Progeny Press guide
- The Westing Game -- Blackbird & Co. guide
- The Witch of Blackbird Pond -- Blackbird & Co. guide; Glencoe Lit. Library guide; Progeny Press guide
- Eagle of the Ninth -- Progeny Press guide
- The Bronze Bow -- Progeny Press guide
- Island of the Blue Dolphins -- Glencoe Lit. Library guide; Garlic Press Discovering Lit. guide; Progeny Press guide
- Maniac Magee -- Progeny Press guide
- The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle -- Glencoe Lit. Library guide
- A Wrinkle in Time -- Blackbird & Co. guide; Glencoe Lit. Library guide; Progeny Press guide
- Where the Red Fern Grows -- Garlic Press Discovering Lit. guide; Progeny Press guide
- Bridge to Terebithia -- Glencoe Lit. Library guide; Progeny Press guide
- The Giver -- Garlic Press Discovering Lit. guide; Portals to Lit. guide; Progeny Press guide
- I Am David -- Blackbird & Co. guide
- Julie of the Wolves -- Glencoe Lit. Library guide
- Walk Two Moons -- Glencoe Lit. Library guide

And some more discussion-able YA titles (didn't have links to guides handy):
- A Long Walk to Water (Park)
- Enchantress from the Stars (Engdahl)
- Below the Root (Snyder)
- The Master Puppeteer (Paterson)
- The Great and Terrible Quest (Lovett)
- The House with a Clock in its Walls (Bellairs)
- Wonder (Palacio)
- The War That Saved My Life (Bradley)
- Love That Dog (Creech)

Middle school is also a great time to explore discussion and literary analysis with short stories. Check out these past threads for ideas of "discussion-able" short stories that are good for middle school ages (although it sounds like you covered short stories with Mosdos last year, so you may not need any classic short stories this year):

"Short stories for an 11yo girl"
"Short stories every middle school student should read"
"Best short stories for middle grades"
"Favorite Short Stories for 6th-8th"
"Suggestions for Short Stories for Literary Analysis -- 7th/8th grade level?"
"Middle School Literature Using Short Stories?"

[frogger]

Lori already mentioned all mine. LOL How do you always type so many so quick or do you have lists to cut and paste from. 🙂 You always have such great lists. 

 

[SereneHome]

Wow, what a great list

[Hillcottagemom]

I second that Lori D offered a fantastic list. Some modern books we've enjoyed for this age range:

The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place (fantasy series), Circus Mirandus  and The Bootlace Magician (fantasy), Nevermoor (fantasy series), Elijah of Buxton (historical fiction/adventure), The Mad Wolf's Daughter (historical fiction/adventure), Sweet Home Alaska (historical fiction/survival), The Many Reflections of Miss Jane Deming (historical fiction/adventure).

 

[gradchica]

Thanks for that awesome list! 

A fun series that is probably a bit below level but high interest for bunnies is  the Green Ember series. It has some discussion-worthy themes but won’t overtax them on difficulty...so might be a good break between two heavier/longer books. My 5th grader flew through them and passed them on to his 6th grade BFF for discussion. 

Edited February 3, 2021 by gradchica