7th & 8th Grade Reads

The ship we built / Lexie Bean

A fifth-grader whose best friends walked away, whose mother is detached, and whose father does unspeakable things, copes with the help of friend Sofie and anonymous letters tied to balloons and released.

Healer and witch / Nancy Werlin

Sylvie, her mother, and grandmother are beloved, trusted healers in their medieval French village, though some whisper that Sylvie and her grand-máere deal in more than herbs and medicines. After her grandmother dies, and an attempt to use magic to heal her mother's grief ends in tragedy, Sylvie leaves her village in search of a teacher.

Dry / Neal Shusterman and Jarrod Shusterman

A lengthy California drought escalates to catastrophic proportions, turning Alyssa's quiet suburban street into a warzone, and she is forced to make impossible choices if she and her brother are to survive.

Dear student / Elly Swartz

A girl with social anxiety becomes the secret voice of the advice column in her middle school newspaper.

Barakah Beats / Maleeha Siddiqui

Desperate to fit in at her public school, Nimra Sharif accepts an unlikely invitation to join Barakah Beats, the popular eighth grade boy band. The only problem is, Nimra was taught that music isn't allowed in Islam, and she knows her parents would be disappointed in her. As she grows to care about her bandmates, Nimra has to decide whether to betray her new friends or herself.

The thing about leftovers / C.C. Payne

Fizzy struggles to find her place in her blended family after her parents' divorce, hoping her entry in the Southern Living Cook-Off will show them she is more than just a leftover kid.

No fixed address / Susin Nielsen

Twelve-year-old Felix's appearance on a television game show reveals that he and his mother have been homeless for a while, but also restores some of his faith in other people.

Everything sad is untrue : (a true story) / Daniel Nayeri

At the front of a middle school classroom in Oklahoma, a boy named Khosrou (whom everyone calls "Daniel") stands, trying to tell a story. His story. But no one believes a word he says. To them he is a dark-skinned, hairy-armed boy who makes things up. Khosrou's stories of his heritage stretch back years, decades, and centuries from the moment his family fled Iran in the middle of the night to the Jasmine-scented city of Isfahan.

Up for air / Laurie Morrison

Learning disabilities make school painful for Annabelle, thirteen, but a summer of swimming with the high school team is fantastic until a prank goes wrong, spoiling everything.

The ruins of Gorlan / John Flanagan

When fifteen-year-old Will is rejected by battleschool, he becomes the reluctant apprentice to the mysterious Ranger Halt, and winds up protecting the kingdom from danger.

A thousand questions / Saadia Faruqi

Told in two voices, eleven-year-olds Mimi, who is visiting her wealthy grandparents in Karachi, Pakistan, for the first time and Sakina, daughter of the grandparents' cook, form an unexpected friendship.

The thing about jellyfish / Ali Benjamin

Twelve-year-old Suzy Swanson wades through her intense grief over the loss of her best friend by investigating the rare jellyfish she is convinced was responsible for her friend's death.

The line tender / Kate Allen

Following a tragedy that further alters the course of her life, twelve-year-old Lucy Everhart decides to continue the shark research her marine biologist mother left unfinished when she died years earlier.

Worser / Jennifer Ziegler

William Wyatt Orser's life is turned upside down after his mother has a stroke, but the socially awkward, word-loving twelve-year-old finds glimmers of hope when he discovers friends who share his love of wordplay and books.

Bad best friend / Rachel Vail

Eighth-grader Niki's best friend, Ava, dumps her just as life at home is becoming more complicated by her brother Danny's behavior and her mother's refusal to admit Danny is on the autism spectrum.

Turtle boy / M. Evan Wolkenstein

Seventh-grader Will's Bar Mitzvah community service project, visiting an incurably ill older boy in the hospital, leads to a friendship that is life-changing for both them and those around them.

Awkward / Svetlana Chmakova

After shunning the school nerd, Jaime, on her first day at a new middle school, Penelope Torres tries to blend in with her new friends in the art club... until the art club goes to war with the science club, of which Jaime is a member!

Sunny side up / Jennifer L. Holm & Matthew Holm ; with color by Lark Pien

Sunny Lewin is sent to live with her grandfather for the summer in Florida, where she befriends Buzz, a boy completely obsessed with comic books, and faces the secret behind why she is in Florida in the first place.

Invisible Emmie / Terri Libenson

This is the story of two totally different girls--quiet, shy, artistic Emmie and popular, outgoing, athletic Katie--and how their lives unexpectedly intersect one day, when an embarrassing note falls into the wrong hands.

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Book List: 7th & 8th Grade Reads

Sachem Public Library