Summer Reading List 2002
|
Author |
Title |
Annotation |
|
Adams, Douglas |
The hitchhiker's guide to
the galaxy |
Seconds before Earth is
demolished to make room for a galactic freeway, an earthman is saved by
his friend. Together they journey through the galaxy. |
|
Auch, Mary Jane |
Ashes of roses |
Sixteen-year-old Rose
Nolan arrives on Ellis Island in 1911 in the hopes of starting a new life,
but after most of her family is sent back to Ireland, she must find her
own way in a new country and fend for herself and her younger sister. |
|
Avi |
Don't you know there's a
war on? |
In wartime Brooklyn in
1943, eleven-year-old Howie Crispers mounts a campaign to save his
favorite teacher from being fired. |
|
Bang, Molly |
Tiger's fall |
After eleven-year-old Lupe
is partially paralyzed in an accident in her Mexican village, other
handicapped people help her realize that her life can still have purpose. |
|
Baskin, Nora Raleigh |
What every girl (except
me) knows Publishers Weekly
starred |
Twelve-year-old Gabby
feels that she needs a mother to help her grow into a woman, so when
things between her father and his latest girlfriend do not work out, Gabby
set off for the last place she remembers seeing her own mother. |
|
Bedard, M. |
Stained glass Horn Book starred |
Charles Endicott hides out
at St. Bart's Church to avoid his piano lesson, but his life is turned
upside down when a homeless girl is trapped by a falling stained glass
window and he is blamed for the accident. |
|
Bell, Hilari |
A matter of profit |
Sick of the horrors of
conquering beings on other planets, Ahvrem will end his service as a
soldier and save his sister from an unhappy marriage if he can discover
who is behind a rumored plot to assassinate the Emperor. |
|
Bennett, Cherie |
Searching for David's
heart |
When Darcy's older brother
David is killed in a terrible accident, Darcy's parents decide to donate
his heart for transplant, and Darcy becomes obsessed with finding the
person who received his heart, believing that if she can find his heart,
she will find her brother. |
|
Bird, Sarah |
The Yokota Officers Club Publishers Weekly
starred |
Air Force brat Bernadette
"Bernie" Root embarks on a tour of Japanese military bases in
1968 in search of answers about the source of the problems that are
tearing her parents' marriage apart and destroying the rest of her family. |
|
Cann, Kate |
Ready? |
Intrigued by a gorgeous
boy she sees at the swimming pool, sixteen-year-old Coll begins a
relationship with him and is dismayed to find him both more experienced
and more forceful than she is. |
|
Cappo, N. |
Cheating lessons Horn Book starred |
When her team is announced
as finalists in the state Classics Bowl contest, Bernadette suspects that
cheating may have been involved. |
|
Clement-Davies, David |
The sight Booklist starred |
Morgra, a lone wolf that
possesses a mysterious and terrifying power known as the Sight, sets off a
battle that involves all of nature when she attempts to find a pup, born
into a brave and loving pack, that holds the key to a power that could
control the world. |
|
Clements, Andrew |
Things not seen |
When fifteen-year-old
Bobby wakes up and finds himself invisible, he and his parents and his new
blind friend Alicia try to find out what caused his condition and how to
reverse it. |
|
Colfer, Eoin |
Artemis Fowl Selected by MS
students for Mustangs on Books 2002-2003 |
When a twelve-year-old
evil genius tries to restore his family fortune by capturing a fairy and
demanding a ransom in gold, the fairies fight back with magic, technology,
and a particularly nasty troll. |
|
Cooper, Susan |
The green boy |
Twelve-year-old Trey and
his seven-year-old brother Lou, who does not speak, cross the barrier
between two worlds, that of their island in the Bahamas, and a land called
Pangaia, and play a mysterious role in restoring the natural environment
in both places. |
|
Cormier, Robert |
The rag and bone shop |
Trent, an ace interrogator
from Vermont, works to procure a confession from an introverted
twelve-year-old accused of murdering his seven-year-old friend in
Monument, Massachusetts. |
|
Creech, Sharon |
Love that dog |
A young student, who comes
to love poetry through a personal understanding of what different famous
poems mean to him, surprises himself by writing his own inspired poem. |
|
Creech, Sharon |
Ruby Holler |
Thirteen-year-old
fraternal twins Dallas and Florida have grown up in a terrible orphanage
but their lives change forever when an eccentric but sweet older couple
invites them each on an adventure, beginning in an almost magical place
called Ruby Holler. |
|
Dean, C. |
Comfort |
Fourteen-year-old Kenny
Roy Willson fantasizes about escape from his hometown of Comfort, Texas,
following his alcoholic father's release from prison. |
|
Deans, Sis |
Racing the past |
After the death of his
abusive father, eleven-year-old Ricky tries to help his younger brother
deal with his residual fears and discovers that running helps him deal
with his own anger and the taunts of a bullying classmate. |
|
Dickinson, Peter |
The ropemaker |
When the magic that
protects their Valley starts to fail, Tilja and her companions journey
into the evil Empire to find the ancient magician Faheel, who originally
cast those spells. |
|
Elliott, L. M. |
Under a war-torn sky |
After his plane is shot
down by Hitler's Luftwaffe, nineteen-year-old Henry Forester of Richmond,
Virginia, strives to walk across occupied France, with the help of the
French Resistance, in hopes of rejoining his unit. |
|
Flake, Sharon |
Money Hungry |
All thirteen-year-old
Raspberry can think of is making money so that she and her mother never
have to worry about living on the streets again. |
|
Fletcher, Susan |
Walk across the sea Booklist starred |
In late nineteenth-century
California, when Chinese immigrants are being driven out or even killed
for fear they will take jobs from whites, fifteen-year-old Eliza Jane
McCully defies the townspeople and her lighthouse-keeper father to help a
Chinese boy who has been kind to her. |
|
Gavin, Jamila |
Coram boy Publishers Weekly
starred |
In the mid-eighteenth
century, an unsavory character and his simpleton son become involved in
the lives of a wealthy English family when that family's eldest son is
disinherited because of his love of music. |
|
Griffin, Adele |
Amandine |
Her first week at a new
school, shy, plain Delia befriends Amandine, not anticipating the
dangerous turns their friendship would take. |
|
Hesse, Karen |
Witness |
A series of poems express
the views of various people in a small Vermont town, including a young
black girl and a young Jewish girl, during the early 1920s when the Ku
Klux Klan is trying to infiltrate the town. |
|
Hill, David |
Time out |
Alienated at school and
troubled by his parents' separation, Kit loses himself in running, until
one day an accident on the road catapults him into what seems to be a
parallel universe. |
|
Hite, Sid |
A hole in the world |
Fifteen-year-old Paul
Shackleford experiences an eye-opening and transformative summer living
and working on the central Virginia farm of his distant relatives all of
whom seem to be haunted by the death of a much-loved and admired farmhand
the year before. |
|
Hoeye, M. |
Time stops for no mouse Booklist starred |
When Linka Perflinger, a
jaunty mouse, brings a watch into his shop to be repaired and then
disappears, Hermux Tantamoq is caught up in a dangerous search for eternal
youth as he tries to find out what happened to her. |
|
Hoobler, Dorothy |
The demon in the teahouse |
In eighteenth-century
Japan, fourteen-year-old Seikei, a merchant's son in training to be a
samurai, helps his patron investigate a series of murders and arson in the
capital city of Edo, each of which is associated in some way with a
popular geisha. |
|
Horowitz, Anthony |
Point Blank |
Fourteen-year-old Alex
continues his work as a spy for the British MI6, investigating an
exclusive school for boys in the French Alps. |
|
Hughes, Dean |
Soldier boys |
Two boys, one German and
one American, are eager to join their respective armies during World War
II, and their paths cross at the Battle of the Bulge. |
|
Ives, David |
Monsieur Eek |
When a chimpanzee arrives
in Mac Oongafoondsen he is put on trial for being a thief and a French
spy, resulting in some changes to the tiny town that delight Emmaline
Perth, his thirteen-year-old defender. |
|
Jarvis, Robin |
The dark portal |
While on a rescue mission,
a few daring mice journey below to the sewers to an evil world populated
by rats who peel mice before eating them and worship the Dark Lord. |
|
Jarvis, Robin |
The crystal prison |
The Deptford Mice have
arrived in the countryside after being forced to flee the city's
rat-infested sewers by the Starwife, an ancient squirrel with unfathomable
wisdom and power. |
|
Jennings, Richard |
The great whale of Kansas |
While digging a hole in
his back yard, an eleven-year-old Kansas boy finds the fossilized remains
of a gigantic prehistoric animal, a discovery that brings both fame and
controversy. |
|
Kerr, M.E. |
Slap your sides |
Life in their Pennsylvania
hometown changes for Jubal Shoemaker and his family when his older brother
witnesses to his Quaker beliefs by becoming a conscientious objector
during World War II. |
|
Kimmel, Eric |
Website of the cracked
cookies |
Jess and her friend Matt
are sucked into a cyber world filled with characters from familiar fairy
tales, all controlled by the evil Granny Goose. |
|
Korman, Gordon |
No more dead dogs |
Eighth-grade football hero
Wallace is sentenced to detention attending rehearsals of the school play
where, in spite of himself, he becomes wrapped up in the production and
begins to suggest changes that improve not only the play but his life as
well. |
|
Lachtman, Ofelia Dumas |
The summer of El Pintor |
When sixteen-year-old
Monica and her widowed father go back to Los Angeles, reluctantly moving
from a wealthy neighborhood to the barrio house her mother grew up in,
Monica tries to locate a missing neighbor, and in the process learns about
her mother's past. |
|
Lawrence, Iain |
Lord of the Nutcracker
Men |
An English boy during
World War I comes to believe that the battles he enacts with his toy
soldiers control the war his father is fighting on the front. |
|
Levine, Gail Carson |
The two princesses of
Bamarre |
With her adventurous
sister, Meryl, suffering from the Grey death, meek and timid Princess
Addie sets out to find a cure. |
|
Mazer, Norma Fox |
Girlhearts |
Thirteen-year-old Sarabeth
Silver's life is turned upside-down when her mother dies suddenly, leaving
her orphaned, confused, and at the mercy of everyone who seems to know
what is best for her. |
|
Metz, Melinda |
Gifted touch |
A teenage girl named Rae,
whose mother suffered from mental instability, fears that she is going
insane when she begins to hear voices--yet, there may be another
explanation entirely, and her life may be in danger. |
|
Mosher, Richard |
Zazoo |
Amid old secrets revealed
and rifts healed, a thirteen-year-old Vietnamese orphan raised in rural
France by her aging "Grand-Pierre" learns about life, death, and
love. |
|
Murphy, Claire |
Free radical |
In Fairbanks, Alaska, in
the middle of the summer Little League baseball season, fifteen-year-old
Luke is stunned when his mother confesses that she is wanted by the FBI
for her role in the death of a student during an anti-Vietnam War protest
thirty years ago. |
|
Naidoo, Beverley |
The other side of truth |
Smuggled out of Nigeria
after their mother's murder, Sade and her younger brother are abandoned in
London when their uncle fails to meet them at the airport and they are
fearful of their new surroundings and of what may have happened to their
journalist father back in Nigeria. |
|
Napoli, Donna |
Daughter of Venice |
Frustrated with the
restrictions her gender imposes on her life, fourteen-year-old Donata,
disguised as a boy, sneaks out of her noble family's house to roam the
streets of late sixteenth-century Venice and then must confront the
repercussions of her actions. |
|
Nolan, Han |
Born Blue |
Janie was four years old
when she nearly drowned due to her mother's neglect. Through an unhappy foster home experience, and years of
feeling that she is unwanted, she keeps alive her dream of someday being a
famous singer. |
|
Park, Linda |
When my name was Keoko |
With national pride and
occasional fear, a brother and sister face the increasingly oppressive
occupation of Korea by Japan during World War II, which threatens to
suppress Korean culture entirely. |
|
Peck, Richard |
Fair weather, a novel |
In 1893, thirteen-year-old
Rosie and members of her family travel from their Illinois farm to Chicago
to visit Aunt Euterpe and attend the World's Columbian Exposition which,
along with an encounter with Buffalo Bill and Lillian Russell, turns out
to be a life-changing experience for everyone. |
|
Petersen, P.J. |
Rising water |
Tracy, her brother, and
the new animal care volunteer at the Jefferson Science Center travel by
boat to feed a dog stranded by flooding, and end up having a full day of
dangerous adventures, which give them new perspectives about themselves
and about each other. |
|
Pierce, Tamora |
Squire Notable/Best Books (A.L.A.) |
Fourteen-year-old Kel of
Mindelan, a squire in training for knighthood, begins four years of
preparation for her final test, the Ordeal--a psychological challenge that
is breaking more squires in the land of Tortall than ever before. |
|
Pierce, Tamora |
Praise for Meredith Ann
Pierce |
Hannah, a healer with
unusual powers, leaves the wizard she has always served and, along with
her animal companions, begins a journey which uncovers the truth about her
real nature. |
|
Pullman, Philip |
The golden compass |
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. (Originally published as: Northern lights.) |
|
Rallison, Janette |
Playing the field |
Thirteen-year-old McKay
tries to keep up his algebra grade to stay on the baseball team, while
dealing with his attraction to a girl named Serena. |
|
Roos, Stephen |
Recycling George |
When twelve-year-old
George's sister and brother-in-law move out of their trailer park while
George is at school, leaving him behind, he moves in with a richs
choolmate and his family, and then finds out that wealth is not the only
thing that matters. |
|
Russo, M. |
House of sports Kirkus starred |
Through a series of
triumphs and tragedies at home, at school, and on the basketball court,
plus time reluctantly spent with his elderly grandmother, twelve-year-old
Jim Malone learns that there is a lot more to life than basketball. |
|
Sachar, Louis |
Holes |
As further evidence of his
family's bad fortune which they attribute to a curse on a distant
relative, Stanley Yelnats is sent to a hellish correctional camp in the
Texas desert where he finds his first real friend, a treasure, and a new
sense of himself. |
|
Salisbury, Graham |
Lord of the deep |
Working for his stepfather
on a charter fishing boat in Hawaii teaches thirteen-year-old Mikey about
fishing, and about taking risks, making sacrifices, and facing some of
life's difficult choices. |
|
Salisbury, Graham |
Island boyz: short
stories |
Ten short stories by
award-winning |
|
Savage, Deborah |
Kotuku |
Still having difficulty
facing the death of her best friend, Wim must deal with a difficult
great-aunt and Maori visitors from New Zealand who uncover a dark family
secret. |
|
Schmidt, Gary |
Straw into gold |
Pursued by greedy
villains, two boys on a quest to save innocent lives meet the banished
queen whose son was stolen by Rumpelstiltskin eleven years earlier, and
she provides much more than the answer they seek. |
|
Seidler, Tor |
Brothers below zero |
Having lived for years in
the shadow of his younger, more talented brother, middle schooler Tim
takes painting lessons from his beloved Great Aunt Winifred and discovers
that he is a gifted artist. |
|
Smith, Cynthia Leitich |
Rain is not my Indian
name |
Tired of staying in
seclusion since the death of her best friend, a fourteen-year-old Native
American girl takes on a photographic assignment with her local newspaper
to cover events at the Native American summer youth camp. |
|
Tashjian, Janet |
The gospel according to
Larry |
Seventeen-year-old Josh, a
loner-philosopher who wants to make a difference in the world, tries to
maintain his secret identity as the author of a web site that is receiving
national attention. |
|
Taylor, Mildred |
The land |
Paul-Edward, the son of a
part-Indian, part-African slave mother and a White plantation owner
father, finds himself caught between the two worlds of his parents as he
pursues his dream of owning land in the aftermath of the Civil War. |
|
Van Draanen, Wendelin |
Flipped |
In alternating chapters,
two teenagers describe how their feelings about themselves, each other,
and their families have changed over the years. |
|
Vance, Susanna |
Sights |
Despite years of abuse at
the hands of her drunken father, Baby Girl has always believed that she
was special, partly because of her "gift" of seeing the future,
until she and her mother set out to begin a new life on their own. |
|
Werlin, Nancy |
Black Mirror |
Convinced her brother's
death was murder rather than suicide, sixteen-year-old Frances begins her
own investigation into suspicious student activities at her boarding
school. |
|
Williams, C. |
A mother to embarrass me |
Twelve-year-old Laura can
hardly believe how embarrassing her mother has become, especially now that
she is pregnant. |
|
Withrow, Sarah |
Box girl |
Gwen, confident her mother
who ran away five years earlier is going to return soon and take her to
live in France, decides not to make any friends, but her plans fall
through when Clara, a new eighth-grader, insists on being friends, and
together the two sort out their place with friends, school, and family. |
|
Wittlinger, Ellen |
Razzle |
When his retired parents
buy a group of tourist cabins on Cape Cod, fifteen-year-old Kenyon Baker's
days are filled with repair work until he becomes friends with an
eccentric girl and makes her the subject of a series of photographs. |
|
Wittlinger, Ellen |
The long night of Leo and
Bree |
On the anniversary of his
sister's murder, Leo, tormented by his mother's insane accusations and his
own waking nightmares, kidnaps a wealthy girl intending to kill her, but
instead their long night together helps them both face their futures. |
|
Woolridge, F. |
Strike three! Take your
base |
The special relationship
shared by brothers Bob and Rex becomes strained when their father dies
suddenly while umpiring a softball game, but a game against a cross-town
baseball rival teaches them a valuable lesson. |
|
Wyeth, Sharon Dennis |
A piece of heaven |
Thirteen-year-old Haley
holds her life together with the help of good people after her mother
suffers a nervous breakdown and her brother is arrested. |
|
Zindel, Paul |
Night of the bat |
Teenage Jake joins his
father on an expedition to study bats in the Brazilian rain forest and
finds the project menaced by a giant brain-eating bat. |
MS Virtual Library
Last updated
12/17/09