Reading alouds for 7th and 8th

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Home : 2001 : July : 16

Reading alouds for 7th and 8th
By Amy Lee

Trish

I found students enjoy novels about characters similar to them with real life issues. Also, I try to use novels which have been turned into videos. It is a good way to illustrate how a movie is based on a story.
Most students tell me the book was better than the movie. Some good read aloud novels for seventh and eighth graders are:
Someone Is Hiding on Alcatraz Island
by Eve Bunting
Synopsis:

When Danny saves an old woman from a mugger's attack, he doesn't expect to tangle with the toughest gang in school. He didn't know the mugger is the gangleader's brother. Desperation overcomes

his fear when he heads to Alcatraz Island to escape the gang's revenge--and terror turns to action when he realizes they've followed him.

I especially like this novel because it not long and kept my eighth graders' interest.

THE OUTSIDERS by S. E. Hinton I read aloud and use audio cassettes so students would not get bored hearing my voice.

JACOB'S RESCUE by Malka Drucker

At her family's traditional Passover seder in Israel, eight-year-old Marissa hears the story of her father Jacob and her Uncle David's experiences as children in Warsaw during the Holocaust. Alex and Mela hide the boys on their home. After the war, the authorities insist that Jacob and David must leave the people they now regard as their parents, and it is sixteen years before the boys locate them again. This is a heartening novel, based on a true story, of great courage in the midst of the madness of war. -- Copyright © 1993 The Horn Book, Inc. All rights reserved.

MONKEY ISLAND by Paula Fox

A story about a boy who becomes homeless and must learn to survive on the street. Also an excellent lesson about treatment of others who are different.

FREAK THE MIGHTY by W.R. Philbrick

Whether he's called Mad Max, that "retard," or the son of Killer Kane, Maxwell Kane has never been free of his father's reputation. If that's not bad enough, he's also inherited his father's looks and build. For an eighth-grader, Max is big, which makes him feel even worse--enormous as well as dumb and tainted.
Things begin to change for Max, however, when Kevin, born with a birth defect that's stunted his growth, moves in down the street. The boys become friends. With Kevin, who's brilliant, providing the brains and imagination and Max providing the locomotion, the boys unite to become "Freak the Mighty" and venture out on "quests" around the neighborhood. It's on one of these outings that they meet Loretta and the menacing Iggy, who knows Max's father. What happens next is a shock: the poignant story about friendship and identity turns chilling and then horrifying when Killer Kane comes back and kidnaps his son.
It's only after the suspense dies down that we think about the implausibility of what's gone on, and by that time, Philbrick's already moved on to Kevin's inevitable death and Max's breakdown. Yet, if events don't always ring true, there's honest affection in the boys' friendship--Kevin is clever, brave, and a good teacher for Max, who gains from the friendship an identity apart from his father for the very first time. Told by Max in retrospect, the story is both riveting and poignant, with solid characters, brisk pacing, and even a little humor to carry us along. Stephanie Zvirin --This text refers to the School & Library Binding edition.

WHERE THE RED FERN GROWS by Wilson Rawls It is a requirement for my seventh graders and it quite long. It was a great read aloud.

THE WHIPPING BOY by Sid Fleischman

A bratty prince and his whipping boy change places after becoming involved with dangerous outlaws. In medieval times, it was a crime to whip the prince as discipline so a "whipping boy" was used when the prince needed to be disciplined.

My seventh graders enjoyed listening to myths, tall tales, and Aesop's Fables. Again it is a requirement for literature. Who would guess 7 ADD or ADHD and emotionally disturbed boys would enjoy stories about morals and lessons.

My students enjoy short stories such as the ones found in THE CHICKEN SOUP BOOK SERIES FOR TEENAGERS.

Amy Lee