09-10+6th

=Suggested Summer Reading for Incoming Sixth Grade Students 2009/2010 school year =

In a small town in Georgia in 1976, Gabe King, who is white, and his friend Frita Wilson, who is African-American, take on a special project. Gabe is determined not to go to fifth grade in the fall, in the "big kids" wing of the school where he will be one of the smallest students and at the mercy of bullies Duke Evans and Frankie Carmen. Frita, however, has determined to use the summer to liberate her friend from his fears and make sure he moves up with her.
 * The Liberation of Gabriel King** by K.L. Going

The ordinary interactions and everyday routines of the Watsons, an African-American family living in Flint, Michigan, are drastically changed after they go to visit Grandma in Alabama in the summer of 1963
 * Watsons Go to Birmingham** by Christopher Paul Curtis*

Kirby Nickel, interested in every facet of basketball--except actually playing the game, takes a chance and tries out for the team in order to get the opportunity to meet Brett McGrew, an NBA star who might be his father.
 * Airball: My Life in Briefs** by Lisa Harkrader

Anne, an eleven-year-old orphan, is sent by mistake to live with a lonely, middle-aged brother and sister on a Prince Edward Island farm and proceeds to make an indelible impression on everyone around her.
 * Anne of Green Gables** by L. M. Montgomery

While her father works on the Manhattan Project, eleven-year-old gadget lover and outcast Dewey Kerrigan lives in Los Alamos Camp, and becomes friends with Suze, another young girl who is shunned by her peers.
 * Green Glass Sea** by Ellen Klages

On a summer visit to her grandmother's cottage by the ocean, twelve-year-old Martha gains perspective on the death of a classmate, on her relationship with her grandmother, on her feelings for an older boy, and on her plans to be a writer.
 * Olive’s Ocean** by Kevin Henkes

It’s a tradition at Hardy School to spend a week at the end of the school in the woods with classmates. Mark plans to use the trip as an opportunity to prove to his teacher, Mr. Maxwell, that he’s not a rich slacker just waiting for the school year to end. But on the first day away, Mr. Maxwell accuses Mark of a crime he didn’t commit, and Mark runs into the woods in anger and frustration. Will he survive, and will he be found?
 * A Week in the Woods** by Andrew Clements*

Ginny makes a to do list for her seventh grade year, which includes landing a role in the school play, trying to make friends, ignoring her horoscope, and going to see her grandpa Joe in Florida; but she always seems to come up short in accomplishing any of it.
 * Middle School is Worse than Meatloaf** by Jennifer Holm

Four fifth-grade students--a geek, a class clown, a teacher's pet, and a slacker--as well as their teacher and mothers, each relate events surrounding a computer programmed to complete homework assignments.
 * The Homework Machine** by Dan Gutman*

In an different, yet similar world Matt, a young cabin boy aboard an airship, and Kate, a wealthy young girl traveling with her chaperone, team up to search for the existence of mysterious winged creatures reportedly living hundreds of feet above the Earth's surface.
 * Airborn** by Kenneth Oppel*

Miri’s family lives on the slopes of Mount Eskel, where every child dreams of someday working in the quarry. Then word comes from the lowlands: the king’s priests have predicted that the next princess will come from Mount Eskel. Suddenly all the eligible young girls of Miri’s village are sent to a makeshift academy to prepare for life in the lowland--and Miri must go too.
 * Princess Academy** by Shannon Hale*

The orphan Bod, short for Nobody, is taken in by the inhabitants of a graveyard as a child of eighteen months and raised lovingly and carefully to the age of eighteen years by the community of ghosts and otherworldly creatures.
 * The Graveyard Book** by Neil Gaiman

About three hundred people a year are killed by the man-eating tigers of the Sundarbans Reserve. a swamp in Bengal. No where else do tigers live in a swamp, and no where else do tigers kill humans. Sy Montogmery, author of this exciting, true story, sets out to unravel the mystery of the Sundarbans tigers’ unusual behavior.
 * The Man-Eating Tigers of Sundarbans** by Sy Montogmery

"It's my sister's turn to eat," a hungry child tells her teacher. Quotations like this bring home what it was like to be young and poor in Depression America. This stirring photo-essay combines such unforgettable personal details with a clear historical overview of the period and black-and-white photos by Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, and many other famous photographers of the period.
 * Children of the Great Depression** by Russell Freedman

What unusual people the Wright brothers were! Despite a four-year difference in age, the two grew up to be as close as twins, a patient pair who methodically set out to prove the possibility of powered, controlled human flight. Just as methodically, they promoted their new flying machine, made lots of money, and overcame the U. S. government's stubborn lack of interest. Freedman takes readers back to that exciting time, using not only the Wrights' written descriptions and the accounts of awed observers, but also a large selection of the careful photographs that Wilbur and Orville took to document their experiments.
 * The Wright Brothers: How They Invented the Airplane** by Russell Freedman

In rural Whitwell, Tennessee, all 1,600 residents are alike, "white, Anglo-Saxon, and Protestant." When the community middle school decided to teach diversity by focusing on the Holocaust, the students did not believe that the Nazis had killed six million Jews and five million others. To help them grasp the numbers, they collected 11 million paper clips, which they placed in a memorial made from a German World War II railcar. A moving, true story.
 * Six Million Paper Clips : The Making of a Children’s Holocaust Memorial** by Peter W. Schroeder and Dagmar Schoeder-Hildebrand

On March 10, 1888, the weather on the eastern coast of the U.S. was so pleasant that families were picnicking. By Monday morning, however, a huge, destructive blizzard--actually two storms--stretched from Delaware north to Maine and as far west as the Mississippi River. New York City had 21 inches of drifting snow; Troy, New York, was blanketed under 55 inches. Supplies of fuel, food, and milk dwindled; power lines snapped; trains were trapped; nearly 200 ships were lost at sea; and an estimated 800 people died in New York City alone. No wonder some called the storm "The Great White Hurricane."
 * Blizzard** by Jim Murphy

Who was this man who could walk through brick walls and, with the snap of his fingers, vanish elephants? In this biography, Fleischman introduces readers to the amazing Houdini--magician, ghost chaser, daredevil, pioneer aviator, and king of escape artists. No jail cell or straitjacket could hold him!
 * Escape! The Story of the Great Houdini** by Sid Fleischman

In comic book-esq format, this book presents a memoir of what it was like to grow up in the 1950s. Includes true and “almost true stories” by American children's author Jon Scieszka.
 * Knucklehead** by Jon Scieszka

Describes rat behavior and survival skills and aspects of their relationship with humans, including disease, rats as food, rats as pests, and the training of rats as rescuers.
 * Oh, Rats! : the story of rats and people** by Albert Marrin


 * or another book by this author