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All 7th grade students were informed about the Summer Reading Project by Mrs. Gajda during their 6th grade year. Informational packets were then sent home with the students. Below is the information that they received:

Lake Zurich Middle School North

Summer Reading Project

Students Entering Grade 7

2008-2009 School Year

Dear Students and Parents, April 4, 2008

For the upcoming 2008-2009 school year, it is an expectation that all 6^th grade students read at least one book from the attached list during the summer prior to entering 7^th grade. We have chosen the Rebecca Caudill Young Readers’ Book Award 2009 Nominees as our book list for this summer.

The Summer Reading Project will be evaluated during the first two weeks of school through a variety of different methods. All students must have their books read prior to the first day of school and it is suggested students take notes and save information on the novel to help them remember what they have read. This early assessment provides a model of expectations for the student and a method for the teachers to share expectations for the year. Similarly, these novels provide a common literary experience when discussing classroom novels, they enrich background knowledge, and they generate points of comparison and analysis throughout the year.

Students may purchase most books through the MSN Library. The attached form and cash or check must be turned into Mrs. Chaffee or Mrs. Malone by Wednesday, May 7^th. Purchased books will be distributed to students before the last day of 6^th grade. All listed books can be found at bookstores and the public library.

We hope to make this an enjoyable experience for all. Thank you for supporting us through this integral program.

Sincerely,

The 7^th grade Literature teachers

(Mrs. Shirli Gajda, Mrs. Jennifer Lippert, Mrs. Stacey Noisey, Mrs. Alba Pollack, Ms. Jennifer Bachman ,

*April 4, 2008--all 6^th grade students received this pack in their report card envelope

*By April 17, 2008--all 6^th grade students should have returned the bottom portion of this sheet to their Literature Teacher showing they discussed the project with their parents

*By May 7--any 6^th grade student wishing to purchase a book through the MSN Library should have the attached form and cash or check to Mrs. Chaffee or Mrs. Malone

*By August 26—all incoming 7^th grade students will have read one of the Rebecca Caudill novels

Cut here and return bottom portion to Literature teacher by Friday, April 17^th.

I have discussed the Summer Reading Project with my child and we both understand that he/she will need to read ONE of the Caudill books from the attached list during the summer of 2008. Upon returning to school in August, my child will be assessed on the novel of his/her choice. Thank you.

Eleven-year-old Cornelia is the daughter of two world-famous pianists—a legacy that should feel fabulous, but instead feels just plain lonely. She surrounds herself with dictionaries and other books to isolate herself from the outside world. But when a glamorous neighbor named Virginia Somerset moves next door with her servant Patel and a mischievous French bulldog named Mister Kinyatta, Cornelia discovers that the world is a much more exciting place than she had originally thought.

Annemarie (affectionately nicknamed Shug) is twelve years old. Just as she is about to start middle school, she realizes that she is in love with her longtime best friend Mark. She wants to tell him, yet she doesn't. This is the first of many torn moments for Shug, because, as pre-teens, teens and adults all know, middle school is full of them.
She looks up to her sister, who at sixteen seems wonderfully grown-up and self-assured. Celia is older, prettier, more feminine and more popular than Annemarie. She is also shorter, which means the still-growing Shug can't literally look up to her any longer. The sisters are named after characters in The Color Purple by Alice Walker, but Annemarie feels as if their names ought to be reversed.
At times, Annemarie is anxious to grow up; other times, she wishes things - and people - would always stay the same. As Shug grows closer to some friends, she drifts away from others. In addition to the classic friend-turned-crush scenario, she has to deal with plenty of other realizations and revelations: that "best friends forever" might be a myth; that no one, not even her sister, is perfect; that no two families are alike; and that parents are people too. All of this leads up to the school dance, which is equally anticipated and feared.

It’s1953 and 11-year-old Penny dreams of a summer of butter pecan ice cream, swimming, and baseball. But nothing’s that easy in Penny’s family. For starters, she can’t go swimming because her mother’s afraid she’ll catch polio at the pool. To make matters worse, her favorite uncle is living in a car. Her Nonny cries every time her father’s name is mentioned. And the two sides of her family aren’t speaking to each other!

For as long as ten-year-old Moon can remember, he has lived out in the forest in a shelter with his father. They keep to themselves, their only contact with other human beings an occasional trip to the nearest general store. When Moon's father dies, Moon follows his father's last instructions: to travel to Alaska to find others like themselves. But Moon is soon caught and entangled in a world he doesn't know or understand, apparent property of the government he has been avoiding all his life. As the spirited and resourceful Moon encounters constables, jails, institutions, lawyers, true friends, and true enemies, he adapts his wilderness survival skills and learns to survive in the outside world, and even, perhaps, make his home there. In this compelling, action-packed book, Watt Key gives us the thrilling coming-of-age story of the unique and extremely appealing Moon.

From the award-winning author of "Stealing Freedom." When 12-year-old Samuel Collier boards a ship bound for the New World, he can't believe his good fortune. Collier learns he can be whomever he wants in the New World settlement of Jamestown.

It is 1943, and 11-year-old Dewey Kerrigan is traveling west on a train to live with her scientist father—but no one, not her father nor the military guardians who accompany her, will tell her exactly where he is. When she reaches Los Alamos, New Mexico, she learns why: he's working on a top secret government program. Over the next few years, Dewey gets to know eminent scientists, starts tinkering with her own mechanical projects, becomes friends with a budding artist who is as much of a misfit as she is—and, all the while, has no idea how the Manhattan Project is about to change the world. This book's fresh prose and fascinating subject are like nothing you've read before.

Alone in the world, teen-aged Hattie is driven to prove up on her uncle's homesteading claim.
For years, sixteen-year-old Hattie's been shuttled between relatives. Tired of being Hattie Here-and-There, she courageously leaves Iowa to prove up on her late uncle's homestead claim near Vida, Montana. With a stubborn stick-to-itiveness, Hattie faces frost, drought and blizzards. Despite many hardships, Hattie forges ahead, sharing her adventures with her friends--especially Charlie, fighting in France--through letters and articles for her hometown paper.

Like everyone in town, Ruben Hart has heard about the Black Duck. It’s 1929. Prohibition is in full swing. The outlaw rum-running boat is half phantom, known up and down the Rhode Island coast for her daring exploits, yet rarely glimpsed by ordinary folk. Her skipper is too smart and her crew too skilled. Then Ruben catches the speedster landing an illegal load of liquor late one night on an abandoned dock. Soon after, a dead body in an evening suit washes up on the beach. Ruben and his friend Jeddy are drawn into a dark world of subterfuge. It’s a place where conventional rules of right and wrong no longer apply, as loyalty turns into betrayal, and betrayal becomes a way of upholding the law.

Twelve-year-old Catherine just wants a normal life. Which is near impossible when you have a brother with autism and a family that revolves around his disability. She's spent years trying to teach David the rules-from "a peach is not a funny-looking apple" to "keep your pants on in public"-in order to stop his embarrassing behaviors. But the summer Catherine meets Jason, a paraplegic boy, and Kristi, the next-door friend she's always wished for, it's her own shocking behavior that turns everything upside down and forces her to ask: What is normal?

Littlest One is a tiny creature slowly learning her job of giving dreams to humans. Each night she and her teacher, Thin Elderly, visit an old woman’s home where she softly touches beloved objects, gathering happy memories, and drops of old scents and sounds. Littlest One pieces these bits together and presents them to her sleeping human in the form of pleasant dreams. But the dreaded Sinisteeds, dark fearsome creatures that plague their victims with nightmares, are always at work against the dreamgivers. When the old woman takes in John, an angry foster child with a troubled past, the Sinisteeds go after him with their horrifying nightmares. Can Littlest One, and her touch light as gossamer, protect John’s heart and soul from the nightmare of his dark past?

Michael Arroyo grows up in the shadows of hallowed Yankee Stadium, a boy forever on the outside looking in. His only chance to see his field of dreams? Pitch his Bronx all-star team to the district finals and a shot at the Little League World Series.
But there is a problem. Michael is good–too good. Rival coaches and players can’t believe a boy could be this good and be only twelve years old. And Michael has no way to prove it–no mother, no father, and a birth certificate that is stuck home in his native Cuba. If the people from social services find out his secret, he will have an even worse problem: being separated from the only family he knows, his older brother Carlos. Baseball can be a game of heroes, of champions who refuse to lose. Or it can be a field of crushed dreams. For one boy, the game is about to turn serious.

Able to claw straight up a brick wall, squeeze through a pipe the width of a quarter, and gnaw through iron and concrete, rats are also revealed in this fascinating book to be incredibly intelligent and capable of great compassion. Weaving science, history, culture, and folklore, awardwinning writer Albert Marrin offers a look at rats that goes from curious to repulsive, horrifying to comic, fearsome to inspiring. Arresting blackand- white scratchboard illustrations with bold red accents add visual punch to this study of a creature that has annoyed, disgusted, nourished, and intrigued its human neighbors throughout the centuries.

Julia Song and her friend Patrick want to team up to win a blue ribbon at the state fair, but they can't agree on the perfect project. Then Julia's mother suggests they raise silkworms as she did years ago in Korea. The optimistic twosome quickly realizes that raising silkworms is a lot tougher than they thought. And Julia never suspected that she'd be discussing the fate of her and Patrick's project with Ms. Park, the author of this book!

Orphan, clock keeper, and thief, Hugo lives in the walls of a busy Paris train station where his survival depends on secrets and anonymity. But when his world suddenly interlocks with an eccentric, bookish girl and a bitter old man who runs a toy booth in the station, Hugo's undercover life, and his most precious secret, are put in jeopardy.

Six thousand years ago. Evil stalks the land. Only twelve-year-old Torak and his wolf-cub companion can defeat it. Their journey together takes them through deep forests, across giant glaciers, and into dangers they never imagined. In this page-turning, original, and spectacularly told adventure story, Torak and Wolf are joined by an incredible cast of characters as they battle to save their world, in this first book in the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness.

Miranda’s disbelief turns to fear in a split second when a meteor knocks the moon closer to the earth. How should her family prepare for the future when worldwide tsunamis wipe out the coasts, earthquakes rock the continents, and volcanic ash blocks out the sun? As summer turns to Arctic winter, Miranda, her two brothers, and their mother retreat to the unexpected safe haven of their sunroom, where they subsist on stockpiled food and limited water in the warmth of a wood-burning stove.
Told in journal entries, this is the heart-pounding story of Miranda’s struggle to hold on to the most important resource of all--hope--in an increasingly desperate and unfamiliar world.

What if the gods of Olympus were alive in the 21^st Century? What if they still fell in love with mortals and had children who might become great heroes -- like Theseus, Jason and Hercules? What if you were one of those children? Such is the discovery that launches twelve-year-old Percy Jackson on the most dangerous quest of his life. With the help of a satyr and a daughter of Athena, Percy must journey across the United States to catch a thief who has stolen the original weapon of mass destruction – Zeus’ master bolt. Along the way, he must face a host of mythological enemies determined to stop him. Most of all, he must come to terms with a father he has never known, and an Oracle that has warned him of betrayal by a friend.

This tale is suspenseful and unexpected. Maud is swept from a decrepit orphanage with a cold, overbearing headmistress, to a charlatanic household with a charismatic, calculating con woman, to a seaside town with a kind, forlorn mother whose daughter is dead. Through it all, Maud never loses her spunk and eventually figures out what she wants and deserves in the world.

It's 1969 and America is deeply divided over the war in Vietnam. Yet when thirteen-year-old Mark donates his dog, Wolfie, to the Army's scout program, he feels sure he's doing the right thing. After all, his dad is a WWII veteran, and his older brother Danny is serving in Vietnam. But although Wolfie's handler sends letters detailing Wolfie's progress, the Army won't say when, or if, Wolfie and the other dogs will be returned to their owners. As Danny's letters home become increasingly grim, Mark grows more and more unsure of his decision to send Wolfie and of his feelings about the war. He'll need to do something drastic to get Wolfie back, but how can he raise his voice in protest without betraying his country? Inspired by real events, this is a gripping story about loyalty, dissent, patriotism, and the heartbreaking contradictions of war.

In 1860, the Westcott family had joined a wagon train in the hopes of making it to California where they could start a new life, but the other people on the wagon train do not want anything to do with a mixed-race family. When twelve-year-old Colton is accidentally shot by his white father, the man runs away, leaving wounded Colton to take care of his African American mother and his two sisters. They are forced to leave the wagon train and make their way to a town in Nevada. Colton struggles to keep the family alive and together. Even though he is underaged, he manages to get a job as a Pony Express rider to earn some money. What was already his life of hardship becomes a life of incredible challenges and harrowing brushes with death. Colton can trust nobody. Even his sister turns against him, because she thinks he is abandoning the family. He rides across the treacherous snow-covered Sierra Nevada Mountains to Sacramento, California. The journey is more than an attempt to save one family; it becomes instrumental in the entire course of the Civil War.

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Webmaster: Jeff Platt
Author: Shirli Gajda
Created: 27 October 2004
Updated: 10/06/2008