Middle school fiction recommended to me: (With blurb that I DID NOT WRITE but extracted from http://www.englishjournal.colostate.edu/Extensions/BoldBooksExtEJ954.pdf.) I chose these books as they deal with empowerment, bullying, and finding an identity in adversity. I'm presently working my way through them but the recommendations were compelling and I'm sure the young people in our lives would enjoy/learn/finish. Most the times I'm shooting for students finishing a book but the other stuff is good too.
A story of a young woman's empowerment: (this is on my nightstand right now)
Bloody Jack: Being an Account of the Curious Adventures
of Mary “Jacky” Faber, Ship’s Boy by L. A. Meyer
(New York: Harcourt, 2002). Another strong female
character, Jacky tackles the obstacles that life hands her
with great aplomb in grand adventures that speak to
the power in every grrrrrl.
An older more sophisticated Harry Potter:
The Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathan Stroud (New
York: Miramax, 2003). With more complex and satisfying
world building and more sophisticated heroes
and villains than those of the ever-popular Harry Potter
titles, this first book of the Bartimaeus Trilogy offers
nail-biting scenes certain to please fantasy fans of
both genders. (LB) Stroud is the best YA fantasy writer
of the early twenty-first century. Danger, action, mystery,
evil, and humor (and occasionally a lot of rain)
make these books fantastic fantasy. But the eloquent
vocabulary, vivid and melodic descriptions, significant
themes, and Orwellian overtones make Stroud’s trilogy
A great story that has a moral of "how we treat each other matters"
The Misfits by James Howe (New York: Atheneum,
2001). Middle schoolers will empathize with
four “misfits” who show that words can hurt more than
sticks and stones.
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