Avi. NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH: A DOCUMENTARY NOVEL. Orchard, 1991. Multiple perspectives grace this
complex tale of censorship and duplicity, all begun by a ninth grader's refusal to sing the "Star Spangled Banner."
Avi. THE TRUE CONFESSIONS OF CHARLOTTE DOYLE. Orchard, 1990. As the lone "young lady" on a transatlantic
voyage in 1832, Charlotte learns that the captain is murderous and the crew rebellious.
Bauer, Joan. SQUASHED. Delacorte, 1992 As a sixteen-year-old pursues her two goals growing the biggest pumpkin in Iowa
and losing twenty pounds herself she strengthens her relationship with her father and meets a young man with interests similar to
her own.
Block, Francesca Lia. WEETZIE BAT. Harper, 1989. * This modern parable is set in the fairy tale land of modern Los
Angeles.
Brooks, Martha. TRAVELING ON INTO THE LIGHT AND OTHER STORIES. Orchard, 1994. Eleven short stories
portraying teenagers who, even when face-to-face with adversities, discover inner strength and growth.
Carlson, Lori M. COOL SALSA. Holt, 1994. These bilingual poems reflect what it's like to grow up Latino in the United
States.
Cole, Brock. THE GOATS. Farrar, 1987. Stripped and marooned on a small island by their fellow campers, a boy and a girl
form an uneasy bond that grows into a deep friendship when they decide to run away and disappear without a trace.
Cooney, Caroline B. THE FACE ON THE MILK CARTON. Bantam, 1990. * A photograph of a missing girl on a milk
carton leads Janie on a search for her real identity.
Cormier, Robert. THE CHOCOLATE WAR. Pantheon Books, 1974. A high school freshman discovers the devastating
consequences of refusing to join in the school's annual fund raising drive and angering the school bullies.
Creech, Sharon. WALK TWO MOONS. HarperCollins, 1994. After her mother leaves home suddenly, thirteen-year-old Sal
and her grandparents take a car trip retracing her mother's route. Along the way, Sal recounts the story of her friend Phoebe,
whose mother also left.
Crutcher, Chris. ATHLETIC SHORTS: SIX SHORT STORIES. Greenwillow, 1991. These six stories about athletes portray
their innermost feelings.
Cushman, Karen. CATHERINE, CALLED BIRDY. Clarion, 1994. The thirteen-year-old daughter of an English country
knight keeps a journal in which she records the events of her life, particularly her longing for adventures beyond the usual role of
women, and her efforts to avoid being married off.
Dickinson, Peter. EVA. Delacorte, 1989. When Eva awakes after long coma caused by a traffic accident, she discovers that
she is now living in the body of a chimp.
Farmer, Nancy. THE EAR, THE EYE AND THE ARM. Orchard, 1994. In 2194 in Zimbabwe, General Matsika's three
children are kidnapped and put to work in a plastic mine while three mutant detectives use their special powers to search for
them.
Frank, Anne. THE DIARY OF A YOUNG GIRL. Doubleday, 1967. Anne Frank recorded her thoughts and daily doings
when she and her family were hidden in the attic of friends in Holland during WWII.
Freedman, Russell. THE WRIGHT BROTHERS: HOW THEY INVENTED THE AIRPLANE. Holiday, 1991. Follows the
events leading up to the first airplane flight, and includes original photographs by Wilbur and Orville Wright.
Harrison, Barbara. A TWILIGHT STRUGGLE: THE LIFE OF JOHN FITZGERALD KENNEDY. Lothrop, 1992. This
insightful biography of one of our most charismatic presidents takes into account his weaknesses as well as his strengths.
Hesse, Karen. OUT OF THE DUST. Scholastic, 1997. In a series of poems, fifteen-year-old Billie Jo relates the hardships of
living on her family's wheat farm in Oklahoma during the dust bowl years of the Depression.
Hinton, S. E. THAT WAS THEN, THIS IS NOW. Viking, 1971. A sequel to THE OUTSIDERS, this first-person narrative
relates the hopes, desires and frustrations of teens struggling to find their place in a changing world.
Hurwitz, Davida Wills. A TIME FOR DANCING. Little, 1995. Seventeen-year-old best friends Samantha and Juliana tell
their stories in alternating chapters after Juliana is diagnosed with cancer.
Johnson, Angela. TONING THE SWEEP. Orchard, 1993. On a visit to her grandmother Ola, who is dying of cancer in her
house in the desert, fourteen-year-old Emmie hears many stories about the past and her family history and comes to a better
understanding of relatives both dead and living.
Kerr, M. E. GENTLEHANDS. Harper, 1978. A teenage boy falls in love with an "upper-class" girl and gets to know his
estranged grandfather in one heartbreaking summer which climaxes in a shattering search for Nazi war criminals.
Kindl, Patrice. OWL IN LOVE. Houghton, 1993. A fourteen-year-old girl, who can transform into an owl, has a crush on her
science teacher which leads her into interesting new relationships with both humans and owls.
Klause, Annette Curtis. THE SILVER KISS. Delacorte, 1990. A mysterious teenage boy harboring a dark secret helps Zoe
come to terms with her mother's terminal illness.
LeGuin, Ursula K. A WIZARD OF EARTHSEA. Parnassus, 1968. A boy grows to manhood while attempting to subdue the
evil he unleashed on the world as an apprentice to the Master Wizard.
Lipsyte, Robert. THE CONTENDER. Harper, 1967. * A young boy turns to a boxing center to relieve the tensions of a
hostile Harlem environment.
Lowry, Lois. THE GIVER. Houghton, 1993. Given his lifetime assignment at the Ceremony of Twelve, Jonas becomes the
receiver of memories shared by only one other in his community and discovers the terrible truth about the society in which he
lives.
Lynch, Chris. SLOT MACHINE. HarperCollins, 1995. When overweight thirteen-year-old Elvin Bishop is sent to camp at St.
Paul's Seminary Retreat Center, he and his two best friends are forced to try out various sports in order to find out where they
belong.
Myers, Walter Dean. FALLEN ANGELS. Scholastic, 1988. A tour of duty in Vietnam, sometimes boring and sometimes
terrifying, leaves Richie wondering what it all means.
Napoli, Donna Jo. ZEL. Dutton, 1996. Based on the fairy tale Rapunzel, the story is told in alternating chapters from the point
of view of Zel, her mother, and the nobleman who pursues her, and delves into the psychological motivations of each of the
characters.
Naylor, Phyllis Reynolds. THE YEAR OF THE GOPHER. Atheneum, 1987. A warm, funny and moving story about the
summer after high school graduation, and the perils and pitfalls of entering the adult world.
Nelson, Theresa. EARTHSHINE. Orchard, 1994. Slim watches over her father, a disarmingly charismatic man, as his struggle
with AIDS reaches its climax.
Nye, Naomi Shihab. HABIBI. S&S, 1997. When fourteen-year-old Liyanne Abboud, her younger brother, and her parents
move from St. Louis to a new home between Jerusalem and the Palestinian village where her father was born, they face many
changes and must deal with the tensions between Jews and Palestinians.
Nye, Naomi Shihab. THIS SAME SKY. Four Winds, 1992. A poetry anthology in which 120 poems from sixty-two different
countries celebrate the natural world and its human and animal inhabitants.
Paterson, Katherine. JACOB HAVE I LOVED. Crowell, 1980. In this story of sibling rivalry between twins, Louise resents
her pretty sister and struggles to find her own identity.
Paulsen, Gary. WOODSONG. Bradbury, 1990. For a rugged outdoor man and his family, life in northern Minnesota is a wild
experience involving wolves, deer, and the sled dogs that make their way of life possible. Includes an account of the author's
first Iditarod, a dogsled race across Alaska.
Peck, Richard. ARE YOU IN THE HOUSE ALONE? Viking, 1976. After a girl is raped while babysitting, her feelings are
trivialized by the authorities.
Pope, Elizabeth M. THE PERILOUS GARD. Houghton, 1974. In 1558 while imprisoned in a remote castle, a young girl
becomes involved with the last practitioners of druidic magic.
Pullman, Philip. THE GOLDEN COMPASS. Knopf, 1996. * Accompanied by her daemon, Lyra Belacqua sets out to
prevent her best friend and other kidnapped children from becoming the subject of gruesome experiments in the Far North.
Pullman, Philip. THE RUBY IN THE SMOKE. Knopf, 1987. * In nineteenth-century London, sixteen-year-old Sally, a recent
orphan, becomes involved in a deadly search for a mysterious ruby.
Reaver, Chap. BILL. Delacorte, 1994. With the help of her faithful dog Bill and the officer responsible for putting her father in
jail, thirteen-year-old Jessica faces changes in her life when she realizes that her father will not stop drinking and making
moonshine.
Sleator, William. HOUSE OF STAIRS. Dutton, 1974. Five orphaned sixteen-year-olds find themselves in a nightmarish
Pavlovian experiment.
Spinelli, Jerry. SPACE STATION SEVENTH GRADE. Little, 1982. Seventh grader Jason narrates the events of his year,
from school, hair, and pimples, to mothers, little brothers and a girl.
Staples, Suzanne Fisher. SHABANU: DAUGHTER OF THE WIND. Knopf, 1989. When eleven-year-old Shabanu, the
daughter of a nomad in the Cholistan Desert of present-day Pakistan, is pledged in marriage to an older man whose money will
bring prestige to the family, she must either accept the decision, as is the custom, or risk the consequences of defying her
father's wishes.
Taylor, William. AGNES THE SHEEP. Scholastic, 1991. An eccentric old lady leaves her large and nasty sheep, Agnes, to
Belinda and Joe, setting off a wild and woolly sheep chase.
Tolkien, J. R. R. LORD OF THE RINGS. (THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING, THE TWO TOWERS and THE
RETURN OF THE KING) Houghton, 1965. This trilogy tells of the adventures of Frodo Baggins and his companions as they
journey through Middle Earth to defeat the forces of evil. A fantasy masterpiece.
Voigt, Cynthia. HOMECOMING. Atheneum, 1981. * When their mentally ill mother abandons them in a shopping center,
Dicey and her brothers and sister set out on foot to find a relative who will take them in.
Wolff, Virginia Euwer. MAKE LEMONADE. Holt, 1993. In order to earn money for college, fourteen-year-old LaVaughn
babysits for a teenage mother.
These are just a few of the many fine books that seventh and eighth graders enjoy. Ask your local librarian for further
suggestions.
Compiled in 1996 by Betty Ellis, Scott Lovelette, Ruth McCullough, Ro Ratti and Grace W. Greene for the Vermont
Department of Libraries, Montpelier, VT 05609. Updated in 1998 by Grace Greene, Children's Services Consultant for the
Vermont Department of Libraries and Leda Schubert, School Library Media Consultant for the Vermont Department of
Education.
*indicates a book which is part of a series
Grace W. Greene Children's Services Consultant Vermont Dept. of Libraries 109 State St. Montpelier, VT 05609
802-828-3261 ggreene@dol.state.vt.us
