Embedded Files
Hello, rising 8th graders!
Before summer begins, you will receive two summer reading books from PAUS. One book will be a community book that ALL students and staff will read (title to be announced at a later date!). The other book will be a choice book. Below are the book titles that were hand-selected by Ms. Bees and Ms. Escamilla for your summer reading book choices. Spend some time exploring each book before selecting the ones you are most interested in reading this summer. You will receive a copy of one of the books you most want to read.
We can't wait to see what you pick!
INTRODUCING...
Learn more about each book choice below!
Genre
Genre
Romance and Realistic Fiction
Click play to view a book talk with the author.
Click play to view a book talk with the author.
(Watch the first 3 minutes.)
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Available on Sora as an ebook and audiobook
Click here to listen to an audio excerpt of the book.
Book Preview:
After her journal goes missing, a high school senior is blackmailed into completing her most sensitive to-do list. By all appearances Quinn has everything—her family is rich, she is well liked at her private school, and next fall she’s headed to Columbia, her parents’ alma mater. But it’s an act: Quinn uses her journal as a place to alleviate some of the pressure around her secrets and fears so she doesn’t have to directly confront them. The biggest among them are that she was in fact rejected by Columbia and has been lying about it and that being one of only five Black students at a mostly White school is really hard. When Carter, a Black classmate she crushes on, mistakenly takes her journal and then loses it, the person who finds it starts anonymously threatening her. If Quinn doesn’t complete her “To Do Before I Graduate” list, the mystery person promises to reveal her secrets on social media. Because Carter lost the journal, he volunteers to help her discover the culprit (Kirkus Reviews, 2021)
Genre
Genre
Graphic Novel and Superhero
Click play to watch a book talk with the author and artist for this choice book.
Click play to watch a book talk with the author and artist for this choice book.
(Watch the first 5-6 minutes to get a general idea of this book.)
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Available on Sora as an ebook
Click here to meet the author and learn more about this book choice.
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Nubia has always been a little bit...different. As a baby she showcased Amazon-like strength by pushing over a tree to rescue her neighbor’s cat. But despite her having similar abilities, the world has no problem telling her that she’s no Wonder Woman. And even if she were, they wouldn’t want her. Every time she comes to the rescue, she’s reminded of how people see her: as a threat. Her moms do their best to keep her safe, but Nubia can’t deny the fire within her, even if she’s a little awkward about it sometimes. Even if it means people assume the worst. When Nubia’s best friend, Quisha, is threatened by a boy who thinks he owns the town, Nubia will risk it all-her safety, her home, and her crush on that cute kid in English class-to become the hero society tells her she isn’t. From the witty and powerful voice behind A Blade So Black, and with endearing and expressive art by Robyn Smith, comes a vital story for today about equality, identity, and kicking it with your squad.
(Publisher description retrieved from Google Books.)
Genre
Genre
Paranormal Fiction
Click play to view a book talk for this choice book.
Click play to view a book talk for this choice book.
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Available on Sora as an ebook and audiobook
Click here to listen to an audio excerpt of the book.
Click here to meet the author and listen to her read the first chapter of this book.
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After a tragic accident that left him and his brother orphaned, Alex Rufus sees visions of the future connected to items that he touches-from a mundane object being used over and over to the tragic preview of his best friend's death. Alex avoids physical contact as often as possible but knows that once he sees a vision it can't be changed no matter what he does. He has developed methods of coping, but when he sees the death of his younger brother, Isaiah, in a vision, he knows he must do something to try to break this curse of knowledge. As Alex gets to know his brother better in his last days, he learns that Isaiah also carries a curse: being able to relive the past of their ancestors. Passed down from father to son, over hundreds of years, this is their family's long-held secret. Alex and Isaiah must face who they are and what they fear most in order to break their curses. (School Library Journal, 2021)
Genre
Genre
Mystery/Thriller
Click play to watch the book trailer for this choice book.
Click play to watch the book trailer for this choice book.
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Available on Sora as an ebook
Click here to listen to an audio excerpt of the book.
Click here to meet the author and learn more about this book choice.
Book Preview:
In August, Princeton swimmer Mark Forrester hiked up to a dangerous lookout point with his girlfriend, 17-year-old high-schooler Tabitha Cousins. Early the next morning, Tabby staggered out of the woods alone, claiming that Mark had slipped and fallen to his death; a team of police divers later found his body in the creek below. But everyone loved Mark, and Tabby isn't the kind of girl people are inclined to believe. As the police start to investigate, they find holes in her story—holes that seem to indicate that, maybe, Mark was murdered—and suddenly everyone in town is talking. Short, furiously paced chapters rotate in perspective; everyone, it seems, gets a chance to speak, from people who are on Tabby's side (her sister, her best friend, her ex) to those who are against her (her school nemesis, Mark's best friend). Everyone, that is, except Tabby herself. Newspaper and social media clippings showcase the media frenzy surrounding the case and the eagerness with which so many people paint Mark as a golden boy (or "Princeton swimmer") while condemning Tabby as trash. Texts offer glimpses into Tabby and Mark's troubled romance, and the whirlwind back-and-forth will keep readers guessing at the truth—and second-guessing their own biases—until the very end. A frenzied psychological thriller, superbly paced. (Booklist, 2020)
Genre
Genre
Graphic Novel and Paranormal Fiction
Click play to watch the book trailer for this choice book.
Click play to watch the book trailer for this choice book.
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Available on Sora as an ebook
Click here to meet the author and learn more about this book choice.
Book Preview:
Alfonso Jones is a Black teenager shot and killed by an off-duty police officer working as a department store security guard in the opening pages of this graphic novel. Alfonso was shopping for his first suit when another customer reported him as behaving suspiciously. The cop said Alfonso had a gun. He didn’t: He was holding a hanger from a suit he was trying on. Alfonso’s story unfolds in chapters and scenes moving back and forth between the present— he is among ghosts on a subway car, looking in on the survivors of his own life—and the past. The past includes more of Alfonso’s life and family story. His dad was about to get out of prison, having just been exonerated with DNA evidence proving he did not rape and murder a woman years before. The other ghosts on the train are all other victims of police violence (based on real people). Their presence draws a direct line across decades: What happened to Alfonso has happened to so many others (notes in the back provide information about the “real” people who are ghosts on the train, including Henry Dumas, a black writer shot and killed by police in 1968 and for whom Alfonso’s school is named) in a work that also connects the activism of Black Lives Matter to the long history of Black resistance and protest. (Cooperative Children's Book Center, 2018)
Genre
Genre
Dystopian/Science Fiction
Click play to watch the book trailer for this choice book.
Click play to watch the book trailer for this choice book.
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Available on Sora as an ebook and audiobook
Click here to listen to an audio excerpt of the book.
Click here to meet the author and learn more about this book choice.
Book Preview:
This modern classic takes on an iron-fisted drug lord, clones bred for their organs, and what it means to be human. Winner of the National Book Award as well as Newbery and Printz Honors.
Matteo Alacrán was not born; he was harvested. His DNA came from El Patrón, lord of a country called Opium—a strip of poppy fields lying between the United States and what was once called Mexico. Matt’s first cell split and divided inside a petri dish. Then he was placed in the womb of a cow, where he continued the miraculous journey from embryo to fetus to baby. He is a boy now, but most consider him a monster—except for El Patrón. El Patrón loves Matt as he loves himself, because Matt is himself.
As Matt struggles to understand his existence, he is threatened by a sinister cast of characters, including El Patrón’s power-hungry family, and he is surrounded by a dangerous army of bodyguards. Escape is the only chance Matt has to survive. But escape from the Alacrán Estate is no guarantee of freedom, because Matt is marked by his difference in ways he doesn’t even suspect. (Simon & Schuster)
Genre
Genre
Realistic Fiction
Click play to watch the author give a book talk on this choice book.
Click play to watch the author give a book talk on this choice book.
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Available on Sora as an ebook and audiobook
Click here to listen to an audio excerpt of the book.
Book Preview:
First-generation American LatinX Liliana Cruz does what it takes to fit in at her new nearly all-white school. But when family secrets spill out and racism at school ramps up, she must decide what she believes in and take a stand.
Liliana Cruz is a hitting a wall—or rather, walls.
There’s the wall her mom has put up ever since Liliana’s dad left—again.
There’s the wall that delineates Liliana’s diverse inner-city Boston neighborhood from Westburg, the wealthy—and white—suburban high school she’s just been accepted into.
And there’s the wall Liliana creates within herself, because to survive at Westburg, she can’t just lighten up, she has to whiten up.
So what if she changes her name? So what if she changes the way she talks? So what if she’s seeing her neighborhood in a different way? But then light is shed on some hard truths: It isn’t that her father doesn’t want to come home—he can’t…and her whole family is in jeopardy. And when racial tensions at school reach a fever pitch, the walls that divide feel insurmountable.
But a wall isn’t always a barrier. It can be a foundation for something better. And Liliana must choose: Use this foundation as a platform to speak her truth, or risk crumbling under its weight. (Publisher description retrieved from Google Books.)
Genre
Genre
Fantasy
Click play to watch the book trailer for this choice book.
Click play to watch the book trailer for this choice book.
More Information
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Available on Sora as an ebook and audiobook
Click here to listen to an audio excerpt of the book.
Click here to meet the author and hear her read aloud a section of the book.
Book Preview:
Although they were once all close, Isabelle de la Paumé and her sister Tavi have been unkind, even cruel to their stepsister Ella in recent years, but life has not been kind to them, either. They are the “ugly” stepsisters whose interests— military history for Isabelle, math and science for Tavi—and bold, stubborn natures have seen them sorely criticized. Now Ella is off to a happily-ever-after life with the Prince. As for Isabelle? While her past is full of loss and regret, her future has already been determined by the three Fates, until Chance bets them he can change it for the better. As Chance and one of the Fates maneuver for control of Isabelle’s future, Isabelle, presumably white, has an encounter with the faerie queen Tanaqill (aka Ella’s fairy godmother), who gives her the means to change her life on her own by rediscovering what she truly loves. This sideways, feminist retelling of Cinderella follow’s Isabelle’s quest, which is as much emotional journey as rousing adventure involving her lost love for a horse, a young man, and her stepsister Ella, not to mention her passion and skill as a strategist and fighter. (Cooperative Children's Book Center, 2020)
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