7th & 8th Grade Summer Reading Program

All the Blues in the Sky by Renée Watson (2025)

Sage was looking forward to her thirteenth birthday, a day to watch movies, share treats, and stay up late with her best friend. Instead, it was the day her best friend died. Without the person she had to hold her secrets and dream with, Sage is lost. In a counseling group with other girls who have lost someone close to them, she learns that not all losses are the same, and healing isn't predictable. There is sadness, loneliness, anxiety, guilt, pain, love. And even as Sage grieves, new, good things enter her life-and she just may find a way to know that she can feel it all. In accessible, engaging verse and prose, this is a story of a girl's journey to heal, grow, and forgive herself.

Black Star by Kwame Alexander (2024)

A Coretta Scott King Honor Book

This second book in the Door of No Return trilogy easily stands alone. Set during the segregation era and the beginning of The Great Migration, this is a story of struggle, determination, and a resilient American family. Black Star is a verse novel featuring Charley Cuffey, a 12-year-old girl who wants to be a professional pitcher during the time of the Negro Leagues, living in the Jim Crow South. She can beat just about anyone, but at what cost?

The Bletchley Riddle by by Ruta Sepetys & Steve Sheinkin (2024)

A Coretta Scott King Honor Book

A stunning collaboration between award-winning and bestselling authors Ruta Sepetys and Steve Sheinkin, this middle grade historical adventure follows two siblings at Bletchley Park, the home of WWII codebreakers, as they try to unravel a mystery surrounding their mother’s disappearance. The two authors take on the voices of two siblings as they introduce and carefully explain a variety of decoding methodologies, inspiring readers to attempt their own. Actual historical figures appear in the book, and the authors list the real-life bases for many fictional characters as well. Interspersed photos and images bring to life the narrative’s time period.

El Niño by Pam Muñoz Ryan (2025)

Kai Sosa is so passionate about swimming he is practically a fish. This summer, he's determined to become the athlete he once was on an elite swim team, but something holds him back. Dreams of his sister Cali haunt him. After Kai discovers a library book Cali had checked out multiple times about an underwater realm, details from the story begin to appear in his own life. As myth and reality collide, El Niño unleashes its fury, and Kai is swept up in a storm of events that will change his understanding of love, death, and grief. 

The Enigma Girls by Candace Fleming (2024)

Sibert Honor 

The true story of 10 young women who left their homes during WWII to work in secret at Bletchley Park, intercepting German communications, breaking their codes, and helping end the war. This top-secret work was first revealed in the 1970s; Fleming’s book adds depth to readers’ understanding by sharing the stories of 10 young women in the context of changing societal gender roles. Their work helped the Allies defeat the Italian navy in 1941, launch the D-Day invasion of 1944, and bring the Pacific front to a close in 1945. This is a gripping narrative celebrating teen girls’ underrecognized contributions to Allied war efforts includes photographs, author’s note, bibliography, and source notes.

Everything We Never Had by Randy Ribay (2024)

Winner of the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature

Set from 1930 to 2000, this emotionally charged, moving novel is a saga covering four generations of Filipino-American boys who are grappling with identity, masculinity, and fraught father-son relationships. Told in multiple perspectives, Everything We Never Had unfolds and builds as each new generation forges his own path amid heavy family and societal expectations. Flaws, values, and virtues move on to the next generation, until it’s up to Enzo to see how he can take integrate these strands of intergenerational patterns, celebrate his family's culture, and be his own best self.

It's All or Nothing, Vale by  Andrea Beatriz Arango (2025)

Puerto Rican seventh grader Valentina Marí Camacho can’t wait to fence again. After she and Papi were in a serious motorbike accident, anticipating fencing again was the only way Vale endured doctors, surgeries, and “the complete rearranging / of [her] life.” But her return four months later is far from triumphant. Unpredictable flares of pain make previously effortless moves challenging, and even worse, Cuban American newcomer Myrka Marerro, who’s cued lesbian, has taken her place as top fencer. But, Vale explains, fencing is “what keeps me me.” If Vale’s not the best, who is she? This verse novel from the Newbery Honor-winning author of Iveliz Explains It All is the story of a girl who finds her way back to her life’s passion and discovers that the sum of a person's achievements doesn’t amount to the whole of them.

Max in the House of Spies: A Tale of World War II* by Adam Gidwitz (2024)

Max Bretzfeld doesn’t want to move to London. Leaving home is hard, and Max is alone for the first time in his life. But not for long. Max is surprised to discover that he’s been joined by two unexpected traveling companions, one on each shoulder, a kobold and a dybbuk named Berg and Stein. Germany is becoming more and more dangerous for Jewish families, but Max is determined to find a way back home, and back to his parents. He has a plan to return to Berlin. It merely involves accomplishing the impossible: becoming a British spy. The first book in a duology, Max in the House of Spies is a thought-provoking World War II story —fast-paced and hilarious, with a dash of magic.

*Students who read this book will have the option to visit the Jewish History Museum on September 12th.

Rebellion 1776 by Laurie Halse Anderson (2025)

This is an historical fiction adventure novel about a girl struggling to survive amid a smallpox epidemic during the American Revolutionary War. In the spring of 1776, 13-year-old Elsbeth Culpepper wakes to the sound of cannons. It’s the Siege of Boston, the Patriots’ massive drive to push the Loyalists out that turns the city into a chaotic war zone. Elsbeth’s father—her only living relative—has gone missing, leaving her alone and adrift in a broken town while desperately seeking employment to avoid the orphanage. Just when things couldn’t feel worse, the smallpox epidemic sweeps across Boston. While a treatment is being frantically fine-tuned, thousands of people rush in from the countryside begging for inoculation. At the same time, others refuse protection, for the treatment is crude at best and at times more dangerous than the disease itself. Elsbeth, who had smallpox as a small child and is now immune, finds work taking care of a large, wealthy family. As the epidemic and the revolution rage on, will she find her father?

Snowglobe by Soyoung Park, translated by Joungmin Lee Comfort (2024)

In a world of constant winter, only the citizens of the climate-controlled city of Snowglobe can escape the bitter cold—but this perfect society is hiding dark and dangerous secrets within its frozen heart. Enclosed under a vast dome, Snowglobe is the last place on Earth that’s warm. Outside Snowglobe is a frozen wasteland, and every day, citizens face the icy world to get to their jobs at the power plant, where they produce the energy Snowglobe needs. Their only solace comes in the form of 24-hour television programming streamed directly from the domed city. The residents of Snowglobe have everything: fame, fortune, and above all, safety from the desolation outside their walls. In exchange, their lives are broadcast to the less fortunate outside, who watch eagerly, hoping for the chance to one day become actors themselves. But life inside Snowglobe is nothing like what you see on television. Reality is a lie, and truth seems to be forever out of reach. Translated into English from the original Korean, Snowglobe is a dystopian novel touching on c limate change, societal inequity, and the ethics of escaping from our own lives by watching others'.

Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins (2025)

This fifth book in the Hunger Games series of dytopian novels can stand alone. When you’ve been set up to lose everything you love, what is there left to fight for? As the day dawns on the fiftieth annual Hunger Games, fear grips the districts of Panem. This year, in honor of the Quarter Quell, twice as many tributes will be taken from their homes. Back in District 12, Haymitch Abernathy is trying not to think too hard about his chances. All he cares about is making it through the day and being with the girl he loves. When Haymitch’s name is called, he can feel all his dreams break. He’s torn from his family and his love, shuttled to the Capitol with the three other District 12 tributes: a young friend who’s nearly a sister to him, a compulsive oddsmaker, and the most stuck-up girl in town. As the Games begin, Haymitch understands he’s been set up to fail. But there’s something in him that wants to fight . . . and have that fight reverberate far beyond the deadly arena.

Tear This Down by Barbara Dee (2025)

For as long as Freya can remember, she has loved living in her cozy hometown of Wellstone. Not only is the town itself named for local and historical hero Benjamin Wellstone but everything in it: schools, beaches, and stores. There’s even a giant statue of him to remind everyone of the good things he did. But while doing research for a big school project, Freya discovers that Benjamin isn’t the big hero everyone has been taught to believe. He had some redeeming qualities, but he also held problematic views towards women, believing they shouldn’t have the right to vote—or even to exist outside of the home. Disappointed by her revelation, Freya wonders if she can figure out a way to not only show what the hometown hero was really like but also to replace his statue with one of an unsung hero: local suffragette Octavia Padgett. Though Freya knows not everyone will agree with her, she is shocked when her efforts cause even bigger issues than she could have imagined. Even her own parents seem uneasy with Freya’s cause. With the help of her beloved Nan, friends new and old, and the local librarian, can Freya stand firm and tear down outdated views?

When Forests Burn: The Story of Wildfire in America by Albert Marrin (2024)

A fascinating look at the most destructive wildfires in American history, the impact of climate change, and what we're doing right and wrong to manage forest fire. This nonfiction book tells how huge swaths of North American forest were left vulnerable to massive, uncontrollable firestorms, first by loggers who swept in and then by preservationists and conservationists, led by John Muir and Gifford Pinchot, who misguidedly decided that all forest fires were bad. Along with saluting the work of modern wildland firefighters, Marrin covers eye-opening topics ranging from how the U.S. military studied natural firestorms in order to create artificial ones in enemy cities in World War II to the toxic environmental effects of modern fire-retardant chemicals dropped on forests. The book's photos add memorable contemporary and historical images of fires and their aftermaths.