After viewing the current selection of novels available in the library, I found that the majority of them were either below level or above level for middle school students. My students prefer reading novels that they can connect with on a personal level.  My goal for this assignment was to select five new books that are interesting, easy to read, and appropriate for middle school students.

 

 

 

First Selection:

 

 

 

 

Selection Criteria:

 

Appropriate for recommended levels—Grade Level 8

 

Acceptable in literary style and technical quality

 

Recent copyright date as appropriate to the subject

 

Cost effective in terms of use

 

 

Literary Elements:

 

-         analyzing the effects of elements such as plot, theme, characterization, style, mood, and tone.

- discussing the effects of such literary devices as figurative language, dialogue, flashback, allusion, irony, and symbolism.

- analyzing and evaluating themes and central ideas in literature and other texts in relation to personal and society.

 

 

This novel is appropriate for ages 12-17.  After reading this novel, students will have a sense of right or wrong choices in making decisions in school, at home, or anywhere in the community that will have an impact on their future for the rest of their lives.

 

Tigers don't cry, or do they? After the death of his longtime friend and fellow Hazelwood Tiger, Andy, the driver of the car, blames himself and cannot get past his guilt and pain. While his other friends have managed to work through their grief and move on, Andy allows death to become the focus of his life. In the months that follow the accident, the lives of Andy and his friends are traced through a series of letters, articles, homework assignments, and dialogues, and it becomes clear that Tigers do indeed need to cry.

 

Tears of A Tiger

ISBN 0-940-97548-3

Simon & Schuster Publishers

Copyright 1994 by Sharon Draper

Used By Permission

 

 

 

Second Selection:

 

The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

 

 

 

Selection Criteria:

 

Appropriate for recommended levels—Grade Level 7-9

 

Acceptable in literary style and technical quality

 

Recent copyright date as appropriate to the subject

 

Cost effective in terms of use

 

 

Literary Elements:

 

 

 

 

 

This selection is appropriate for middle and high school students. After reading this novel, students will be familiar with the background information on the Holocaust, World War II, and the concentration camps.

 

Review:

When Anne Frank sat down with her diary, she could never have imagined the impact her words would have on generations of readers. By the end of the 1980s, sixteen million copies of her diary had been sold worldwide, and it remains the most often read primary account of the Holocaust. On July 15, 1944, Frank writes, ‘‘I feel the suffering of millions.'' She had no idea that her story would become the unlikely testament of those millions.

A self-described clown, Frank had no close friends with whom she could be completely open, so she invented one in the persona of "Kitty," to whom her diary entries are addressed. Although Frank's diary contains nothing of her experience at Bergen-Belsen, the concentration camp where she and her sister died, it does provide an altogether human portrait of the Jewish suffering during the Holocaust.

 

 

 

 

Third Selection:

Up from Slavery by Booker T. Washington

Selection Criteria:

 

Appropriate for recommended levels—Grade Level 7-12

 

Acceptable in literary style and technical quality

 

Recent copyright date as appropriate to the subject

 

Cost effective in terms of use

Literary Elements:

 

-setting, plot, theme, characterization, first person narrative

 

 

This autobiography is for ages 13-17. After reading this novel, students will identify work ethics, racial bias, self-discipline characteristics, and bylaws of slavery. Students will have a sense of understanding of hard work and determination to succeed.

 

Review:

 

Booker T. Washington's first autobiography, The Story of My Life and Work, was published in 1900 for a largely African American audience. Meanwhile, during the years 1900-1901, Washington began publishing Up from Slavery, a serialized account of his life in the popular magazine Outlook, which reached a more diverse audience. This account was then published as a book and in both forms it gained Washington significant White support. In Up from Slavery, Washington traces his journey from slave to educator. The early sections document his childhood as a slave and his efforts to get an education, and he directly credits his education with his later success as a man of action in his community and the nation. Washington details his transition from student to teacher, and outlines his own development as an educator and founder of the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. He tells the story of Tuskegee's growth, from classes held in a shantytown to a campus with many new buildings. In the final chapters of Up From Slavery, Washington describes his career as a public speaker and civil rights activist. Washington includes the address he gave at the Atlanta Cotton States and International Exposition in 1895, which made him a national figure. He concludes his autobiography with an account of several recognitions he has received for his work, including an honorary degree from Harvard, and two significant visits to Tuskegee, one by President McKinley and another by General Samuel C. Armstrong.

 

 

Fourth Selection:

 

Romiette and Julio by Sharon Draper

 

 

 

Selection Criteria:

 

Appropriate for recommended levels—Grade Level 7-10

 

Acceptable in literary style and technical quality

 

Recent copyright date as appropriate to the subject

 

Cost effective in terms of use

 

Literary Elements:

 

 Describe the author’s use of literary elements:

• theme (moral, lesson, meaning, message, view or comment on life),

• point of view (e.g., first vs. third, limited vs. omniscient),

• characterization (qualities, motives, actions, thoughts, dialogue, development, interactions),

• setting (time of day or year, historical period, place, situation), and

 

This novel is appropriate for ages 12-17.   After reading this novel, compare and contrast works within a literary genre that deal with similar themes using the original novel, Romeo and Juliet. Compare interactions among major characters and minor characters in literary text with emphasis upon how the plot is revealed through action of the dialogue.

 

Review:

 

When Romiette Cappelle meets Julio Montague, she feels as though she has met the soul mate who can rescue her from her recurring nightmare about fire and water. But like the Shakespearean characters whose names echo theirs, Romiete and Julio discover that not everyone approves of their budding romance. In their case, it is because Romiette is African-American and Julio is Hispanic, and the Devildogs, a dangerous local gang, violently oppose their interracial relationship

When the Devildogs threaten to teach them a lesson, Romiette and Julio come up with a risky plan to escape from the gang’s fearsome shadow. But things go terribly awry, and the two find themselves caught up in a deadly reality more frightening than Romiette’s nightmare - and in a desperate struggle to avoid the tragic fate of Shakespear’s famous

 

 

 

 

Fifth Selection:

 

The Watson’s Go To Birmingham by Christopher Paul Curtis

 

 

 

Selection Criteria:

 

Appropriate for recommended levels—Grade Level 7-9

 

Acceptable in literary style and technical quality

 

Recent copyright date as appropriate to the subject

 

Cost effective in terms of use

Literary Elements:

 

Review story elements with the class such as plot, conflict, and resolution.  Point out    that during the story, characters try to solve a problem, causing a series of series of related events to occur.  The reader tries to anticipate how the problem will be solved.  Finally, at the most exciting point, the climax, the central problem is usually resolved.  Have students identify the central problem of the story.  Help them distinguish between conflicts that are minor in the story and the main factors that relate to the central problem.  Students can then identify the climax of the story and talk about how the central problem is solved.

 

 

 

This novel is appropriate for ages 12-15. This book deals with serious issues, yet keeps it light with lots of humor.  I think that kids would get a lot from this book because the seriousness is kept to a minimum; kids would be able to handle the issues, because they are few and far between.  Kenny is written as a great character because he shows true feelings of a child.  Christopher Paul Curtis did excellent job writing from a child's point of view, and I think that any child (white or black) could relate to this book.

 

Review:

 

The Watsons Go To Birmingham--1963 is an interesting historical fiction novel about a family that lives in Michigan during the time of the Civil Rights Movement.  The main character, Kenny, lives with his parents, older brother, and younger sister in a neighborhood (and state for that matter) that hasn't felt the repercussions of being a black family in the 60's.

Kenny's brother, Byron, has been getting into lots of trouble, and so his parents decide to leave Byron with their grandmother in Birmingham, Alabama, thus spurring the family trip.  Once in Birmingham, the Watson’s encounter events that made history and taught them about what it was like to be black and living in a southern state.