Grade: 8

Shannon Lanier was in the first grade when he stood up in class and announced that Thomas Jefferson was his ancestor. No one believed him because he was black. In 1998, when Lanier was 19, DNA evidence proved he truly was a descendant of Jefferson’s. This is his story and his family’s story as told through interviews, photographs, and family trees. The various voices provide fascinating details and tie together nine generations of Jeffersons.

This episodic story, set in 1764, explores the tragedies and triumphs that befall Kaya, a Nez Perce girl. Kaya’s hero is a brave and strong woman named Swan Circling. When Swan Circling dies suddenly while performing a selfless act, her people give away her belongings to guide her spirit to rest. Before this, Swan Circling had requested that if she died, Kaya was to be granted her Native American name — the greatest gift one could receive. Kaya realizes that this sacred gift is a sign of honor and trust and that she must earn the right to use it.

Wilborn Hampton was only a cub reporter at United Press International in Dallas when he answered the phone and heard these fateful words: “Three shots fired at the motorcade!” This is his account of how reporters collected the facts for the news story about Kennedy’s assassination. Black-and-white photos and Wilborn’s voice bring to life the shock and grief felt by Americans that day.

Here’s a unique combination of alphabet book and poetry introduction. Harley provides readers with 26 poems and illustrations about tiny creatures, from ants to zebra butterflies. Each poem illustrates a different poetic form or technique, from alliteration to zejel, with forms defined at the bottom of each page. Additional poetic forms can be found in Harley’s companion book, Fly With Poetry (Boyds Mills, 2000).

Written as a series of free-verse poetic journal entries, this book features an encouraging teacher, a child’s blossoming love of poetry, and the loss of a dear pet. At first, Jack is reluctant to write poetry, “because boys don’t write poetry. Girls do.” As his teacher introduces works by various poets, including William Carlos Williams, Robert Frost, and Walter Dean Myers, Jack wonders about what the poems mean. Why does so much depend upon a red wheelbarrow and some white chickens? If the guy is in the snowy wood, why doesn’t he just keep going if he has so many miles to go before he sleeps? (The seven poems Jack mentions in his journals are printed in the back of the book.) But as Jack emulates the styles of these famous poets, he soon finds his own voice and a growing appreciation of poetry.

At the start of this novel, set in the 1840s, Lyddie Worthen’s father abandons the family in search of work. Fourteen-year-old Lyddie cares for her family until her mother gives her away as a servant in order to settle a debt. The kindness of her Quaker neighbors, a friend’s loan of five silver dollars, and a generously repaid debt from a runaway slave, help Lyddie to cling to her dream of saving her family’s farm. After years of toiling in a sewing mill in Lowell, Massachusetts, Lyddie earns enough to save the farm, but uses the money to save her siblings from a fate similar to her own. Just as the mill’s machinery passes thread from one loom to the next, the characters in the story pass gifts — tangible and intangible — to one another. This empowering novel about hardship, determination, giving, and love shows readers that the most beautiful aspect of humans is the humanity that lies within us.

As the math education crisis in this country continues to make headlines, research continues to prove that it is in middle school when math scores begin to drop-especially for girls-in large part due to the relentless social conditioning that tells girls they “can’t do” math, and that math is “uncool.” Young girls today need strong female role models to embrace the idea that it’s okay to be smart-in fact, it’s sexy to be smart!

It’s Danica McKellar’s mission to be this role model, and demonstrate on a large scale that math doesn’t suck. In this fun and accessible guide, McKellar-dubbed a “math superstar” by The New York Times-gives girls and their parents the tools they need to master the math concepts that confuse middle-schoolers most, including fractions, percentages, pre-algebra, and more. The book features hip, real-world examples, step-by-step instruction, and engaging stories of Danica’s own childhood struggles in math (and stardom). In addition, borrowing from the style of today’s teen magazines, it even includes a Math Horoscope section, Math Personality Quizzes, and Real-Life Testimonials-ultimately revealing why math is easier and cooler than readers think.

There’s one last chance to save the world in MAXIMUM RIDE: SAVING THE WORLD AND OTHER EXTREME SPORTS, the closing chapter of James Patterson’s thrilling trilogy. The time has arrived for Max and her winged “flock” to face their ultimate enemy and discover their original purpose: to defeat the takeover of “Re-evolution”–a sinister experiment to re-engineer a select population into a scientifically superior master race…and to terminate the rest. Max, Fang, Iggy, Nudge, Gasman, and Angel have always worked together to defeat the forces working against them–but can they save the world when they are torn apart, living in hiding and captivity, halfway across the globe from one another?