Summer+Reading+Recommendations

=Carl Sandburg Middle School = =Summer Reading =

Recommended Books
**[|Newbery Awards]** **[|Printz Award]** **[|Coretta Scott King Award]** **[|Alex Awards]** **[|YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults]**

[|Buck County Reading Olympics 2013]

Mrs. Maurer's Picks:
__The Hunger Games__ (1st in Trilogy) by Suzanne Collins Katniss is a 16 year old girl forced to battle to the death while being televised. Extraordinarily suspenseful this book will not let you put it down. There's also some romance thrown in between all the action. Lesson: You can keep most of the people down most of the time but you can't keep all of the people down all of the time. An unjust society is doomed to fail.

__Skellig__ by David Almond Unhappy about his baby sister's illness and the chaos of moving into a dilapidated old house, Michael retreats to the garage and finds a mysterious stranger who is something like a bird and something like an angel. What is this strange creature who loves Chinese food? That's just one of the questions that keeps you reading in this gripping book. Lesson: Love is a tremendous healing force.

__Freak the Mighty__ by Rodman Philbrick At the beginning of eighth grade, learning disabled Max and his new friend Freak, whose birth defect has affected his body but not his brilliant mind, find that when they combine forces they make a powerful team. Lesson: A true friends brings out the best in ourselves.