Books I recommend to my favorite students
Discover the top books I recommend to my favorite students—curated list of must-reads for learning, growth, and inspiration. Find your next great read here!
Book
Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key
by Jack Gantos
Joey Pigza can't sit still. He can't pay attention, he can't follow the rules, and he can't help it -- especially when his meds aren't working. Joey's had problems ever since he was born, problems just like his dad and grandma have. And whether he's wreaking havoc on a class trip or swallowing his house key, Joey's problems are getting worse. In fact, his behavior is so off the wall that his teachers are threatening to send him to the special-ed center downtown. Joey knows he's really a good kid, but no matter how hard he tries to do the right thing, something always seems to go wrong. Will he ever get anything right?
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Book
Stargirl
by Jerry Spinelli
ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE’S 100 BEST YA BOOKS OF ALL TIME • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A modern-day classic from Newbery Medalist Jerry Spinelli, this beloved celebration of individuality is now an original movie on Disney+! And don't miss the author's highly anticipated new novel, Dead Wednesday! Stargirl. From the day she arrives at quiet Mica High in a burst of color and sound, the hallways hum with the murmur of “Stargirl, Stargirl.” She captures Leo Borlock’ s heart with just one smile. She sparks a school-spirit revolution with just one cheer. The students of Mica High are enchanted. At first. Then they turn on her. Stargirl is suddenly shunned for everything that makes her different, and Leo, panicked and desperate with love, urges her to become the very thing that can destroy her: normal. In this celebration of nonconformity, Newbery Medalist Jerry Spinelli weaves a tense, emotional tale about the perils of popularity and the thrill and inspiration of first love. Don’t miss the sequel, Love, Stargirl, as well as The Warden’s Daughter, a novel about another girl who can't help but stand out. “Spinelli is a poet of the prepubescent. . . . No writer guides his young characters, and his readers, past these pitfalls and challenges and toward their futures with more compassion.” —The New York Times
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Book
Coraline
by Neil Gaiman
In Coraline's family's new flat there's a locked door. On the other side is a brick wall—until Coraline unlocks the door . . . and finds a passage to another flat in another house just like her own. Only different. The food is better there. Books have pictures that writhe and crawl and shimmer. And there's another mother and father there who want Coraline to be their little girl. They want to change her and keep her with them. . . . Forever. Coraline is an extraordinary fairy tale/nightmare from the uniquely skewed imagination of #1 New York Times bestselling author Neil Gaiman.
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Book
Hatchet
by Gary Paulsen
This award-winning contemporary classic is the survival story with which all others are compared—and a page-turning, heart-stopping adventure, recipient of the Newbery Honor. Hatchet has also been nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read. Thirteen-year-old Brian Robeson, haunted by his secret knowledge of his mother’s infidelity, is traveling by single-engine plane to visit his father for the first time since the divorce. When the plane crashes, killing the pilot, the sole survivor is Brian. He is alone in the Canadian wilderness with nothing but his clothing, a tattered windbreaker, and the hatchet his mother had given him as a present. At first consumed by despair and self-pity, Brian slowly learns survival skills—how to make a shelter for himself, how to hunt and fish and forage for food, how to make a fire—and even finds the courage to start over from scratch when a tornado ravages his campsite. When Brian is finally rescued after fifty-four days in the wild, he emerges from his ordeal with new patience and maturity, and a greater understanding of himself and his parents.
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Book
Walk Two Moons
by Sharon Creech
"How about a story? Spin us a yarn." Instantly, Phoebe Winterbottom came to mind. "I could tell you an extensively strange story," I warned. "Oh, good!" Gram said. "Delicious!" And that is how I happened to tell them about Phoebe, her disappearing mother, and the lunatic. As Sal entertains her grandparents with Phoebe's outrageous story, her own story begins to unfold--the story of a thirteen-year-old girl whose only wish is to be reunited with her missing mother. In her own award-winning style, Sharon Creech intricately weaves together two tales, one funny, one bittersweet, to create a heartwarming, compelling, and utterly moving story of love, loss, and the complexity of human emotion.
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Love That Dog
by Sharon Creech
Jack Room 105 -- Miss Stretchberry September 13 /center I don't want to because boys don't write poetry. Girls do. Meet Jack, who tells his story with a little help from some paper, a pencil, his teacher, and a dog named Sky.
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Ruby Holler
by Sharon Creech
"You are now entering Ruby Holler, the one and only Ruby Holler! Your lives are never going to be the same—" "Trouble twins" Dallas and Florida are orphans who have given up believing there is such a thing as a loving home. Tiller and Sairy are an eccentric older couple who live in the beautiful, mysterious Ruby Holler, but they’re restless for one more big adventure. When they invite the twins to join them on their journeys, they first must all stay together in the Holler, and the magic of the place takes over. Two pairs of lives grow closer and are changed forever.
Book
The Witch of Blackbird Pond
by Elizabeth George Speare
A young girl's rebellion against bigotry culminates in a terrifying witch hunt and trial.
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The Giver
by Lois Lowry
In a future society, young Jonas is given his lifetime assignment at the Ceremony of Twelve, and discovers the terrible truth about the society in which he lives.
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Number the Stars
by Lois Lowry
In 1943, during the German occupation of Denmark, ten-year-old Annemarie learns how to be courageous and resourceful as she helps shelter her Jewish friend from the Nazis. Reprint. Newbery Medal Winner. AB. SLJ. K. H.
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Out of the Dust
by Karen Hesse
In a series of poems, fifteen-year-old Billie Jo relates the hardships of living on her family's wheat farm in Oklahoma during the dust bowl years of the Depression.
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Book
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
by E.L. Konigsburg
A Time Best YA Book of All Time (2021) Run away to the Metropolitan Museum of Art with E. L. Konigsburg’s beloved classic and Newbery Medal–winning novel From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler! When Claudia decided to run away, she planned very carefully. She would be gone just long enough to teach her parents a lesson in Claudia appreciation. And she would go in comfort-she would live at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She saved her money, and she invited her brother Jamie to go, mostly because be was a miser and would have money. Claudia was a good organizer and Jamie bad some ideas, too; so the two took up residence at the museum right on schedule. But once the fun of settling in was over, Claudia had two unexpected problems: She felt just the same, and she wanted to feel different; and she found a statue at the Museum so beautiful she could not go home until she bad discovered its maker, a question that baffled the experts, too. The former owner of the statue was Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. Without her—well, without her, Claudia might never have found a way to go home.
