8th Grade Summer Reading List

Part St. Bernard, part Scotch shepherd, Buck is a sturdy, crossbreed canine accustomed to a comfortable life as a family dog -- until he's seized from his pampered surroundings and shipped to Alaska to be a sled dog. There, the forbidding landscape is as harsh as life itself during the gold rush of the 1890s. Forced to function in a climate where every day is a savage struggle for survival, Buck adapts quickly. Traces of his earlier existence are obliterated, and he reverts to his dormant primeval instincts, encountering danger and adventure as he becomes the leader of a wolf pack and undertakes a journey of nearly mythical proportions. Superb details, taken from Jack London's firsthand knowledge of Alaskan frontier life, make this classic tale of endurance as gripping today as it was over a century ago.

Rusty-James is the number one tough guy among the junior high kids who hang out and shoot pool at Benny's. He's proud of his reputation, but what he wants most of all is to be just like his older brother, the Motorcycle Boy. Whenever Rusty-James gets in over his head, the Motorcycle Boy has always been there to bail him out. Then one day Rusty-James' world comes apart, and the Motorcycle boy isn't around to pick up the pieces. What now?

In a futuristic world, teenaged Nailer scavenges copper wiring from grounded oil tankers for a living, but when he finds a beached clipper ship with a girl in the wreckage, he has to decide if he wants to strip the ship for its wealth or rescue the girl.

When a mysterious fire starts near a Florida wildlife preserve and an unpopular teacher goes missing, Nick and his friend Marta decide to investigate. Bunny Starch, a STEM biology instructor, hasn’t been seen since she was paddling around Black Vine Swamp on a recent field trip. While most of the students don’t seem too upset by this, and there is a vague, unsigned note about a family emergency, our young sleuths aren’t buying it.

A varsity letter jacket: it's exclusive, nearly unattainable, revered... and everything that's screwed up about Cutter High, as far as T.J. Jones is concerned. That's why T.J. is determined to have the Cutter All Night Mermen—the unlikeliest swim team a high school have ever seen—earn letter jackets of their own. It won't be easy. For one thing, they don't even have a pool. They will fight for their dignity, they will fight with each other, and sometimes they will just fight, and then they will realize that a single moment can bring lifelong heartache or lifetime friendship. For T.J. and his crew of misfits, the quest may be far more valuable than the reward.

This first book in the series is told from separate viewpoints. Teens Scam, Crash, Flicker, Anonymous, Bellwether, and Kelsie, all born in the year 2000 and living in Cambria, California, have superhuman abilities that give them interesting, but not heroic, lives until they must work as a community to respond to a high-stakes crisis. Calling themselves Zeroes, they band together, after months apart, to save one of their own, Scam.

When Billie Jo is just fourteen, she must endure heart-wrenching ordeals that no child should have to face. The quiet strength she displays while dealing with unspeakable loss is as surprising as it is inspiring. Written in free verse, this award-winning story is set during the heart of the Great Depression. It chronicles Oklahoma's staggering dust storms and the environmental and emotional turmoil they leave in their path.

Have you ever had someone older who understood you when you were young and searching, who helped you see the world as a more profound place, and gave you advice to help you make your way through it? For Mitch Albom, that person was Morrie Schwartz, his college professor from nearly twenty years before. Mitch has a second chance to let Morrie know how helpful he was when Mitch needed guidance. Now, knowing he is dying, Mitch visits with Morrie in his study every Tuesday, just as they used to back in college.

Alexander Hamilton was one of the most influential figures in United States history—he fought in the Revolutionary War, helped develop the Constitution, and as the first Secretary of the Treasury, established landmark economic policy that we still use today. Cut down by a bullet from political rival Aaron Burr, Hamilton has since been immortalized alongside other Founding Fathers such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson—his likeness even appears on the ten-dollar bill. In this fully illustrated and impeccably researched graphic novel-style history, author Jonathan Hennessey and comic book illustrator Justin Greenwood bring Alexander Hamilton’s world to life, telling the story of this improbable hero who helped shape the United States of America.