SEVENTH GRADE READING LIST

BREADWINNER BY DEBORAH ELLIS

Eleven-year-old Parvana lives with her family in one room of a bombed-out apartment
building in Kabul, Afghanistan. As conditions for the family grow desperate, Parvana
must transform herself into a boy and become the breadwinner.

CRISPIN: CROSS OF LEAD BY AVI

Falsely accused of theft and murder, an orphaned peasant boy in
fourteenth-century England flees his village and meets a larger-than-life
juggler who holds a dangerous secret.

DARK PORTAL BY ROBIN JARVIS

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.

DR. FRANKLIN’S ISLAND BY ANN HALAM

When their plane crashes over the Pacific Ocean, three science students
are left stranded on a tropical island and then imprisoned by a doctor who
is performing horrifying experiments on humans involving the transfer of
animal genes.

EAGER BY HELEN FOX

Unlike Grumps, their old-fashioned robot, the Bell family's new robot,
Eager, is programmed to not merely obey but to question,reason, and
exercise free will.

FACE ON THE MILK CARTON BY CAROLINE B. COONEY

A photograph of a missing girl on a milk carton leads Janie on a search
for her real identity.

FIREGOLD BY DIA CALHOUN

Thirteen-year-old Jonathon, feared and hated by the brown-eyed Valley
people because of his blue eyes, tries to find answers to his true identity
in the Red Mountains, home of the Dalriada, a mountain people with
magnificent horses, mystical powers, and blue eyes like his.
FOLK KEEPER BY FRANNY BILLINGSLEY
Orphan Corinna disguises herself as a boy to pose as a Folk Keeper, one who keeps the Evil
Folk at bay, and discovers her heritage as a seal maiden when she is taken to live with a
wealthy family in their manor by the sea.

GADGET BY PAUL ZINDEL

In 1945, having joined his father at Los Alamos, where he and other scientists are working
on a secret project to end World War II, thirteen-year-old Stephen becomes caught in a web
of secrecy and intrigue.

GOLD UNICORN BY TANITH LEE

An evil empress wants to conquer from one sea to the next, and only Tanquil, the daughter of
a sorceress, may be able to stop her.

GOLDEN COMPASS BY PHILIP PULLMAN

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.

HEAVEN BY ANGELA JOHNSON

Fourteen-year-old Marley's seemingly perfect life in the small town of Heaven is disrupted
when she discovers that her father and mother are not her real parents.

HIDDEN TALENTS BY DAVID LUBAR

When thirteen-year-old Martin arrives at an alternative school for misfits and problem
students, he falls in with a group of boys with psychic powers and discovers something
surprising about himself.

HOLES BY LOUIS SACHAR

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.

HOPE’S CROSSING BY JOAN ELIZABETH GOODMAN

When kidnapped by English Loyalists during the Revolutionary War, thirteen-year-old Hope
draws on every ounce of courage within her to respond to the ordeal.

HOMELESS BIRD BY GLORIA WHELAN

When thirteen-year-old Koly enters into an ill-fated arranged marriage, she must either
suffer a destiny dictated by India's tradition or find the courage to oppose it.
KIRA-KIRA BY CYNTHIA KADOHATA
Chronicles the close friendship between two Japanese-American sisters growing up in rural
Georgia during the late 1950s and early 1960s, and the despair when one sister becomes
terminally ill.

LAST BOOK IN THE UNIVERSE BY RODMAN PHILBRICK

After an earthquake has destroyed much of the planet, epileptic teenager nicknamed Spaz
begins the heroic fight to bring human intelligence back to the Earth of a distant future.

LIZZIE BRIGHT AND THE BUCKMINSTER BOY BY GARY SCHMIDT

In 1911, Turner Buckminster hates his new home of Phippsburg, Maine, but things improve
when he meets Lizzie Bright Griffin, a girl from a poor, nearby island community founded
by former slaves that the town fathers--and Turner's--want to change into a tourist spot.

MOUSE RAP BY WALTER DEAN MYERS

During an eventful summer in Harlem, fourteen-year-old Mouse and his friends fall in and
out of love and search for a hidden treasure from the days of Al Capone.

PRAIRIE WHISPERS BY FRANCES ARRINGTON

Only twelve-year-old Colleen knows that her baby sister died just after she was born and that
Colleen put another baby in her place, until the baby's father shows up and makes trouble for
her and her family on the South Dakota prairie in the 1860s.

SO BE IT BY SARAH WEEKS
After spending her life with her mentally retarded mother and agoraphobic neighbor, twelve-
year-old Heidi sets out from Reno, Nevada, to New York to find out who she is.

SURVIVING THE APPLEWHITES BY STEPHANIE S. TOLAN

Jake, a budding juvenile delinquent, is sent for home schooling to the arty and eccentric
Applewhite family's Creative Academy where he discovers talents and interests he never
knew he had.

TANGERINE BY EDWARD BLOOR

Twelve-year-old Paul, who lives in the shadow of his football hero brother Erik, fights for
the right to play soccer despite his near blindness and slowly begins to remember the
incident that damaged his eyesight.

TRICKSTER’S CHOICE BY TAMORA PIERCE

Alianne must call forth her mother's courage and her father's wit in order to survive on the
Copper Isles in a royal court rife with political intrigue and murderous conspiracy.
TULIP TOUCH BY ANNE FINE
Natalie, who lives in the large hotel managed by her father, has a dangerous friendship with
Tulip, the wildly uncontrollable girl on a neighboring farm.

TURNABOUT BY MARGARET PETERSON HADDIX

"It isn't natural for you to be younger than your great-grandchildren. We messed around
with nature, and we shouldn't have. Melly and Anny Beth both lived normal
lives,throughout the 20th century. But in 2000, when they are old and ready to die, they are
selected to participate in Project Turnabout and are given an injection to make them grow
younger..."

WHEN ZACHARY BEAVER CAME TO TOWN BY KIMBERLY WILLIS HOLT

During the summer of 1971 in a small Texas town, thirteen-year-old Toby and his best
friend Cal meet the star of a sideshow act, 600-pound Zachary, the fattest boy in the world.

WILD MAN ISLAND BY GAIL CARSON LEVINE

When granted her wish to be the most popular girl in school, Wilma, an eighth grader,
forgets that she will graduate in three weeks and her popularity will vanish.

WITNESS BY KAREN HESSE

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.

WRECKERS BY IAIN LAWRENCE

Shipwrecked after a vicious storm, fourteen-year-old John Spencer attempts to save his
father and himself while also dealing with an evil secret about the English coastal town
where they are stranded.

ZACK BY WILLIAM BELL

The son of a Jewish father and black mother, high school senior Zack has never been
allowed to meet his mother’s family, but after doing a research project on a former slave, he
travels from his home in Canada to Natchez, Mississippi to find his grandfather.

OTHER AUTHORS TO LOOK FOR:

Avi
Caroline Cooney
Lois Duncan
Ronald Koertge
Sonia Levitin
Chris Lynch
Theresa Nelson
Richard Peck
Todd Strasser
Frances Temple
Paul Zindel