Best Books for 8th Graders to Read
"It's hard to be what you can't see," says centre-course author Jason Reynolds. He knows. He didn't start reading until he was nearly an adult. Teachers kept giving him what they considered classics, but those middle schoolhouse books had nothing to do with who he was and what he saw each day. So, he never touched them.
Middle school students today are coming of age in a time when they have more access to information than ever before! But, merely considering they have more access doesn't mean they understand how to build their identity. Giving them the tools to build a reading identity first will give them what they need to abound into whom they really desire to be.
We suggest changing things up a little too. Not every volume has to exist read silently or independently. Read some aloud to your students, give them audiobooks to heed to, or allow them read ane affiliate at a fourth dimension to each other.
Every one of these books offers a path to identity. Only remember: yous know each pupil all-time. Be sure to read the books first.
(Only a heads up, WeAreTeachers may receive a small commission when you buy through our links, at no price to you lot. All books are selected by our editorial team and teachers like you lot!)
i. Wringer by Jerry Spinelli
When boys in Palmer's boondocks turn 10, they are expected to become "wringers," ending the lives of pigeons wounded in a town event. At the far edge of age nine, Palmer not simply abhors the tradition, but he is also hiding a pigeon in his room, causing a moral dilemma.
two. The Benefits of Being an Octopus by Ann Braden
Explore the cultural divides effectually class and the gun contend through the eyes of 7th-grader Zoey, who lives on the edges of society and tries to observe her fashion frontward.
3. Monster by Walter Dean Myers
The recipient of multiple awards, this novel follows Steve, an amateur filmmaker. As a manner of coping with the horrific events that entangle him, he decides to transcribe his trial into a script, just like in the movies.
4. The Remarkable Journeying of Coyote Sunrise past Dan Gemeinhart
With connections to Mutual Core standards, this book follows Coyote—a young adult female who travels the county with her dad in an sometime school passenger vehicle. Over the grade of thousands of miles, she will learn that going home tin can sometimes be the hardest journeying of all.
v. Ghost Boys past Jewell Parker Rhodes
Twelve-year-onetime Jerome is shot by a constabulary officeholder who mistakes his toy gun for a real one. Now a ghost, Jerome watches the destruction unleashed on his family and community in the wake of what they run into every bit an unjust and vicious killing. Soon, Jerome meets another ghost: Emmett Till, a male child from a very different time but similar circumstances.
6. Piecing Me Together by Renee Watson
The recipient of multiple awards and one of our favorite middle schoolhouse books, this novel is a powerful story near a girl striving for success in a globe that also often seems like it'due south trying to break her.
vii. Out of My Mind by Sharon M. Draper
Another one of our fave eye school books! Follow eleven-year-sometime Melody, who is not like near people. She can't walk. She can't talk. She can't write. All because she has cerebral palsy. But she besides has a photographic memory; she can remember every particular of everything she has ever experienced. She's the smartest kid in her whole schoolhouse, but NO ONE knows information technology.
8. Return to Sender past Julia Alvarez
A timely story for middle schoolers. Afterwards Tyler's father is injured in a tractor blow, his family unit is forced to rent migrant Mexican workers to aid salvage their Vermont farm from foreclosure. Tyler isn't sure what to brand of them.
ix. The Skin I'm In past Sharon G. Flake
Maleeka suffers every mean solar day from the taunts of the other kids in her class—about her homemade dress, her practiced grades, or her night, black pare. A new teacher starts at their school. Her face is blotched with a startling white patch, but she loves her skin. Can Maleeka learn to do the aforementioned?
10. The 57 Bus by Dashka Slater
Taken from the national news headlines, this volume follows two teenagers and a heinous hate law-breaking that crosses gender and racial lines.
xi. A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Parker
A tale of two stories, told in alternating sections, about two xi-twelvemonth-olds in Sudan–a girl in 2008 and a boy in 1985.
12. Wanting Mor by Rukhsana Khan
Jameela lives with her mother and father in Afghanistan. Despite the fact that there is no school in their poor, war-torn village, and Jameela lives with a nascency defect that has left her with a crevice lip, she feels relatively secure, sustained by her faith and the strength of her honey mother, Mor. And then Mor passes away.
13. When Stars Are Shattered by Victoria Jamieson
A graphic novel about growing up in a refugee camp, as told past a quondam Somali refugee.
14. Clean Getaway by Nic Stone
Prepare against the properties of the segregation history of the American South, take a trip with an eleven-year-old boy who is about to discover that the world hasn't always been a welcoming place for kids like him, and things aren't always what they seem–his G'ma included.
xv. Hatchet by Gary Paulsen
Thirteen-twelvemonth-old Brian Robeson is traveling by single-engine plane to visit his father, when the aeroplane crashes and kills the pilot. Brian is lone in the Canadian wilderness with naught merely his article of clothing, a tattered windbreaker, and the hatchet his female parent had given him every bit a present.
16. The Volume Thief by Markus Zusak
It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The state is holding its breath. Death has never been busier, and volition become busier still. Liesel Meminger is a foster daughter living exterior of Munich, who scratches out a meager existence for herself past stealing when she encounters something she tin can't resist–books.
17. George past Alex Gino
George knows she's a girl, simply everyone else sees her every bit a boy. Gino does a masterful job of taking united states of america into what it feels like to be assigned the wrong gender.
18. Counting by 7s by Holly Goldberg Sloan
Genius Willow Chance loses both parents in a motorcar crash, just she is able to both change her life and touch those around her.
19. Wonder by R.J. Palacio
Born with extraordinary concrete deformities, Auggie finally braves going to an actual school. He is stared at and tormented, but he also finds friendship. Middle schoolers will cheer for him and cry for him.
xx. The Midweek Wars past Gary Schmidt
Holling Hoodhood is attending seventh course in the late 1960s. While the Vietnam State of war consumes his male parent's attention, Holling is locked into Wednesday lessons with a teacher who insists he read the plays of Shakespeare.
21. Ghost by Jason Reynolds
Castle Crenshaw, known as Ghost, has been running ever since his father threatened him and his mother with a gun. It's not until he starts running for the heart schoolhouse track team that he begins to see what running can do for him.
22. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
Native American teenager Arnold Spirit leaves the reservation to attend an all-white schoolhouse, learning about his own strength and resilience in the process.
23. Paperboy by Vince Vawter
Little Man is an amazing ball player, but he can barely say a word—not even his own proper noun—without stuttering. So when he takes over his best friend's newspaper road for the calendar month of July, Little Homo'due south non exactly looking forward to interacting with the customers.
24. The Giver/Quartet by Lois Lowry
Jonas lives in a society in which the government controls everything: childbearing, careers, marriages. His utopia has sacrificed emotions and uniqueness in favor of a safe and predictable life. When Jonas learns that life could exist different, he can never plow back to the life he's always known.
25. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
Ponyboy and his brothers, Darry and Sodapop have a tough life. They know they can count on their friends—true friends who will do annihilation for them. Unfortunately, the Socs, a cruel gang of rich kids, brand them prove their loyalties after a night of fighting goes too far.
26. Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech
On a trip to visit her mother's grave, Sal learns about herself and her family unit.
27. Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt
Is eternal life really that wonderful? Ten-twelvemonth-old Winnie Foster discovers that, for the immortal Constrict family, the reply is more complicated than you might expect.
28. Bud Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis
Bud Caldwell, is a ten year old orphan who has grown upwards in Flint, Michigan. It's 1936, 4 years subsequently Bud'due south mother's death and Bud has merely been placed with the Amoses, his 3rd foster family. This book follows Bud's dauntless path to observe his father.
29. The Crossover past Kwame Alexander
Basketball-loving twins Josh and Jordan find their style through isolation and conflict in this novel in verse by master poet, Kwame Alexander.
thirty. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
Melinda Sordino can't tell everyone why she called the police to pause upward a party the summertime before ninth class. In fact, after the trauma she suffered, she can't speak at all.
31. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
In a dystopian time to come, Katniss Everdeen volunteers to take her sis's place in the Hunger Games, in which children fight to the death for the entertainment of the corrupt Majuscule.
32. The Breadwinner series by Deborah Ellis
Parvana is eleven when the Taliban comes to ability in Afghanistan. Her father is arrested, and women are not allowed to get out the house without a male person escort. Parvana must disguise herself and find work to save her family.
33. Revolution Is Not a Dinner Party by Ying Chang Compestine
Ling Chang must find a way to survive after her male parent is taken away during China's Cultural Revolution.
34. Stella by Starlight by Sharon Draper
Stella and her brother aren't supposed to leave the business firm at night, but see much bigger issues when they stumble on a Ku Klux Klan rally. She fights racism inside her customs and learns about compassion in the process.
35. Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson
Woodson's verse memoir tells the story of coming of age during the Civil Rights Movement.
36. Await Till Helen Comes by Mary Downing Hahn
Molly has concerns when her family moves into a church with a graveyard adjacent door, simply when her already-odd stepsister makes a sinister new friend, things go downright dangerous.
37. Refugee by Alan Gratz
Gratz weaves together stories of child refugees in 3 different eras: Nazi Germany, 1990s Cuba, and nowadays-day Syria.
38. The Shadow Children serial past Margaret Peterson Haddix
Luke Garner'south existence is illegal. A third child in a globe where only two children are allowed per family unit, he's been in hiding since he was born. When he finally gains the backbone to venture out, he finds himself faced with an incommunicable selection.
39. Scorpions by Walter Dean Myers
Twelve-year-old Jamal already has to be the man of the business firm now that his older brother is in jail. Volition he likewise take his blood brother'southward identify as leader of a gang?
40. Orbiting Jupiter by Gary Schmidt
Jack Hurd gets a foster brother, Joseph, an eighth grader whose merely dream is to be with his daughter.
41. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Weep by Mildred D. Taylor
Nine-year-erstwhile Cassie Logan faces racial bigotry and financial hardship during the Slap-up Depression.
42. The Lightning Thief past Rick Riordan
Sixth grader Percy Jackson finds out he's really the son of the Greek god Poseidon. A slap-up introduction to Greek mythology!
43. Uglies by Scott Westerfield
Tally Youngblood lives in a dystopia in which all sixteen-twelvemonth-olds have cosmetic surgery to make them pretty.
44. Nosotros Should Hang Out Old by Josh Sundquist
Youtuber Josh Sundquist tells the true story—with graphs!—of his failures in dating.
45. Feed by Yard. T. Anderson
The Feed scrolls constantly through Titus's brain, providing him with entertainment, advertising, and social networking. On a leap break trip to the Moon, he meets a daughter who sees life differently.
46. Freak the Mighty by Rodman Philbrick
Max is large and dangerous, just similar his male parent. He never had a encephalon, or so he says, until Freak came along. With a brain that more than makes upward for his physical disabilities, Freak teaches Max how to call back for himself.
47. Stargirl past Jerry Spinelli
Leo's a normal kid in a normal boondocks. When Stargirl shows up with her rat, her ukelele, and her crazy ideas, nobody knows quite what to make of her.
48. Esperanza Rising by Pam Muñoz Ryan
Spoiled princess Esperanza moves from her family'due south ranch in Mexico to a migrant army camp during the Peachy Depression. She learns to rely on her inner strength and the support of her family.
49. Bridge to Terebithia past Katherine Paterson
Jesse Aarons knows all almost difficult piece of work, only his new friend Leslie teaches him about the ability of his imagination. Proceed a box of tissues handy.
50. The Pearl by John Steinbeck
Kino is a poor diver, gathering pearls from the gulf beds that once brought nifty wealth to the Kings of Spain and now provide Kino, Juana, and their babe son with meager subsistence. Then, on a day like whatever other, Kino emerges from the sea with a pearl every bit large as a sea dupe's egg, as "perfect equally the moon." Volition the pearl bring him the security and wealth as Kino hopes?
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Source: https://www.weareteachers.com/best-middle-school-books/