8th Grade
Fiction
F BRA Going Bovine. By Libba Bray.
Cameron Smith, a disaffected sixteen‐year‐old diagnosed with mad cow disease, sets off on a road trip with a death‐obsessed, video‐gaming dwarf he meets in the hospital in an attempt to find a cure.
F LAR Liar. By Justine Larbalestier.
Compulsive liar Micah promises to tell the truth after revealing that her boyfriend has been murdered.
F AND Speak. By Laurie Halse Anderson.
A traumatic event near the end of the summer has a devastating effect on Melinda's freshman year in high school.
F RAP Punkzilla. By Adam Rapp.
A runaway teenager, having overcome his addiction to meth, travels across the country from Portland to Memphis in order to reconnect with his dying brother and meets a colorful cast of characters along the way.
F THO Creature of the Night. By Kate Thompson.
Bobby recklessly smokes, drinks, and steals cars in Dublin, and when his mother relocates the family to a small cottage in the countryside, Bobby believes a certain spookiness lurks in the corners of the new home.
F WES Leviathan. By Scott Westerfeld.
In an alternate 1914 Europe, fifteen‐year‐old Austrian Prince Alek, on the run from the Clanker Powers who are attempting to take over the globe using mechanical machinery, forms an uneasy alliance with Deryn who, disguised as a boy to join the British Air Service, is learning to fly genetically‐engineered beasts.
F COL The Hunger Games. By Suzanne Collins.
Sixteen‐year‐old Katniss Everdeen accidentally becomes a contender in the annual Hunger Games, a grave competition hosted by the Capitol where young boys and girls are pitted against one another in a televised fight to the death.
F CAS Fire. By Kristin Cashore.
In a kingdom called the Dells, Fire is the last human‐shaped monster, with unimaginable beauty and the ability to control the minds of those around her, but even with these gifts she cannot escape the strife that overcomes her world.
F FOR If I Stay. By Gayle Forman.
While in a coma following an automobile accident that killed her parents and younger brother, seventeen‐year‐old Mia, a gifted cellist, weights whether to live with her grief or join her family in death.
F STO Dracula. By Bram Stoker
The classic macabre tale of a vampire, Count Dracula of Transylvania, and the small group of people who vowed to rid the world of him.
F HES Demian. By Hermann Hesse
Young, docile Emil Sinclair heads down the road to destruction when he rebels against convention, gets involved in the world of petty crime, and discovers his new powers for good and evil.
F HAR The Lost Conspiracy. By Frances Hardinge.
When a lie is exposed and their tribe turns against them, Hathin must find a way to save her sister Arilou‐‐once considered the tribe's oracle‐‐and herself.
F AND Wintergirls. By Laurie Halse Anderson.
Eighteen‐year‐old Lia comes to terms with her best friend's death from anorexia as she struggles with the same disorder.
F CRU Whale Talk. By Chris Crutcher.
Intellectually and athletically gifted, TJ, a multiracial, adopted teenager, shuns organized sports and the gung‐ho athletes at his high school until he agrees to form a swimming team and recruits some of the school's less popular students.
F PIC My Sister’s Keeper. By Judi Picoult
Conceived to provide a bone marrow match for her leukemia‐stricken sister, teenage Anna begins to question her moral obligations in light of countless medical procedures and decides to fight for the right to make decisions about her own body.
F MOR The Year of Secret Assignments. By Jaclyn Moriarty.
Three female students from Ashbury High write to three male students from rival Brookfield High as part of a pen pal program, leading to romance, humiliation, revenge plots, and war between the schools.
F QUA A Door Near Here. By Heather Quarles.
Four siblings struggle to maintain a semi‐normal home life when their single mother's alcoholism becomes debilitating.
F AVI Wolfrider: A Tale in Terror. By Avi
After receiving an apparent crank call from a man claiming to have committed murder, fifteen‐year‐old Andy finds his close relationship with his father crumbling as he struggles to make everyone believe him.
F ALP The Perfect Shot. By Elaine Marie Alphin.
Brian uses basketball to block out memories of his girlfriend and her family who were murdered; however, the upcoming trial and a high school history assignment forces him to face the past.
F HOF A Stir of Bones. By Nina Kiriki Hoffman.
After discovering the secrets that lie in an abandoned house, fourteen‐year‐old Susan Backstrom, with the help of some new friends, has the ability to make a safe, new life for herself.
F AND Prom. By Laurie Halse Anderson
Eighteen‐year‐old Ash wants nothing to do with senior prom, but when disaster strikes and her desperate friend, Nat, needs her help to get it back on track, Ash's involvement transforms her life.
F ATW Midnight Predator. By Amelia Atwater‐Rhodes
Turquoise Draka, a mercenary trained to fight vampires, witches, and shape‐shifters, infiltrates a vampire stronghold, but ghosts from her past and new possibilities for her future threaten to distract her from the work at hand.
F YAN The Monstrumologist. By William James Henry.
In 1888, twelve‐year‐old Will Henry chronicles his apprenticeship with Dr. Warthrop, a scientist who hunts and studies real‐life monsters, as they discover and attempt to destroy a pod of Anthropophagi.
F DEL The Blue Girl. By Charles de Lint
Seventeen‐year‐old Imogene decides to reinvent herself after moving to a new town with her family, hoping to leave behind her tough, rebellious nature, befriending the high school outcast and trying her best to avoid trouble, but when she gets on the wrong side of a gang of malicious fairies, Imogene finds herself in more trouble than ever before.
F JOH The First Part Last. By Angela Johnson
Bobby's carefree teenage life changes forever when he becomes a father and must care for his adored baby daughter.
PB HIN (YA) A Kestrel for a Knave. By Barry Hines
Life is tough for Billy Casper, a disillusioned teenager growing up in a small Yorkshire mining town. Yet he is determined to be a survivor and when he finds Kes, a kestrel hawk he discovers a passion in life.
F DUM Rebecca. By Daphne Du Maurier
For months after her death, the memory of Rebecca de Winter continues to dominate everyone at her former home, Manderley, one of the most famous English country houses.
F BRO The Moves Make the Man. By Bruce Brooks
As Jerome, a black athlete, shares his skills and interest in basketball with Bix, a white baseball player, their friendship grows and the game becomes a reflection of both their lives.
F PUL The Golden Compass. By Philip Pullman
Accompanied by her daemon, Lyra Belacqua sets out to prevent her best friend and other kidnapped children from becoming the subject of gruesome experiments in the Far North.
F LAW Crow Lake. By Mary Lawson
Kate Morrison, orphaned at the age of seven, grows up seeing her brilliant older brother Matt's failure to further his education as a tragedy, and feeling somewhat guilty about her own accomplishments, and it is not until years later that she finally sees the damage her faulty thinking has caused.
F COE The Alchemist. By Paulo Coelho
Tells the story of an Andalusian shepherd boy who follows his dream and meets an alchemist.
F ADA The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. By Douglas Adams
The hilarious journey of Arthur Dent and his friend Ford Prefect, a space hitchhiker, who escape from earth seconds before it is demolished. They travel to a variety of galactic civilizations while gathering information for a hitchhiker’s guidebook.
F PIE Trickster's Choice. By Tamora Pierce
Alianne must call forth her mother's courage and her father's wit in order to survive on the Copper Isles in a royal court rife with political intrigue and murderous conspiracy.
F WEL Divine Secrets of the Ya‐Ya Sisterhood. By Rebecca Wells.
Siddalee Walker, a successful theater director, is thrown into a void of uncertainty when she has a falling out with her mother, Vivi, over a New York Times article in which Vivi is characterized as an abusive parent, and the Ya‐Yas, Vivi's gang of lifelong girlfriends, conspire to restore the mother‐daughter relationship.
F BRA The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. By Ann Brashares.
Carmen decides to discard an old pair of jeans, but Tibby, Lena, and Bridget think they are great and decide that whoever the pants fit best will get them. When the jeans fit everyone perfectly, a sisterhood and a memorable summer begin.
F WES Peeps. By Scott Westerfeld
Cal Thompson is a carrier of a parasite that causes vampirism, and must hunt down all of the girlfriends he has unknowingly infected.
F KOJ Buddha Boy. By Kathe Koja
Justin spends time with Jinsen, the unusual and artistic new student whom the school bullies torment and call Buddha Boy, and ends up making choices that impact Jinsen, himself, and the entire school.
Nonfiction
940.53 SPI Maus: A Survivor's Tale. By Art Spiegelman.
An autobiographical and biographical cartoon in which the author explores his strained relationship with his father, an Auschwitz survivor, while also relating the story of his parent's experiences as Jews in wartime Poland, as told to him by his dad during a series of conversations they had years later in New York and Vermont.
921 ARM It's Not About the Bike. By Lance Armstrong
Champion cyclist Lance Armstrong describes his triumph over cancer.
796.33 BIS Friday Night Lights. By H.G. Bissinger
Follows the 1988 season of the Permian Panthers, a high school football team in Odessa, Texas, exploring the lives of the players and the impact of the championship team on the small town.
919.404 BRY In a Sunburned Country. By Bill Bryson
Travel writer Bill Bryson chronicles the experiences he had and profiles the people and wildlife he encountered while traveling through Australia.
741.5 SMA Stitches: a Memoir. by David Small.
A graphic novel that chronicles the life of American author and illustrator David Small, detailing his sickly childhood and teenage years, relationship with his parents, his cancer, and more.
796.5 KRA Into Thin Air. By Jon Krakauer
The author relates his experience of climbing Mount Everest during its deadliest season and examines what it is about the mountain that makes people willingly subject themselves to such risk, hardship, and expense.
943.086 BAR Hitler Youth. By Susan Campbell Bartlett
A photo‐illustrated look at the youth organizations Adolf Hitler founded and used to meet his socio‐political and military ends; includes profiles of individual Hitler Youth members as well as young people who opposed the Nazis, such as Hans and Sophie Scholl.
364.15 CRO Getting Away With Murder. By Chris Crowe
Presents a true account of the lynching murder of fourteen‐year‐old, Emmett Till, in Mississippi, in 1955.
921 FRA The Dairy of a Young Girl. By Anne Frank
A thirteen‐year‐old Dutch‐Jewish girl records her impressions of the two years she and seven others spent hiding from the Nazis before they were discovered and taken to concentration camps.
951.05 JIA Red Scarf Girl: A Memoir of the Cultural Revolution. By Ji‐Li Jiang Provides the story of Ji‐li Jiang, a twelve‐year‐old girl growing up in China in 1966, the year that Chairman Mao launched the Cultural Revolution, and the changes it brought to her and her family.
921 HIT The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler. By James Giblin Chronicles the life of Adolf Hitler and describes the consequences his quest for German dominance and his hatred of the Jews brought upon the entire world.
