School Improve

Reading is often a forgotten art among Middle School boys and girls. Even children who developed advanced reading skills in their elementary school years too often turn their backs on the wonderful world of literature as they are suddenly exposed to new contraptions such as cell phones and an increasingly harsh social gauntlet. Middle school is a unique time in a child’s life, a time in which regular reading should help to shape his or her development. The following titles will help to not only impart invaluable lessons, but expand their mind to new depths:6^th Grade Sixth grade toes the line between kids and teens, a time in which the imagination is at its most ripe for development. Fantasy novels like these listed below will continue to nurture the child within, as longer page counts and more complex storylines provide an appropriately challenging endeavor.

• Redwall Series by Brian Jacques
• The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
• The Giver by Lois Lowry

7^th GradeSeventh grade is a year in which students begin to get a feel for their own personality and how they fit into the larger world around them whether in the lunch cafeteria or at home. As a result, it’s a time for exploration in both an inward and outward sense. Each of these coming of age stories center around making peace with the unfamiliar, adapting one’s self to become more accepting of other individuals or foreign surroundings.

• Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stephenson
• Alan and Naomi by Myron Levy
• Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech

8^th Grade As students prepare to enter high school, the 8^th grade should help to round out their classic literature foundation and expose them to the more time-tested literary devices and themes. New lines of thinking, mature thematic suggestions and an expanded vocabulary should help to set the stage for a student’s continuing education.

• Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
• Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemmingway
• Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Author Conan Doyle