Our Five Favorites,

Mrs. Austin,  Mr. Nasutowicz,  Mrs. Leers, Mrs. Crego,  Mrs. Hobbs

New York State Summer Reading Program

Bilbo Baggins, a respectable, well-to-do hobbit, lives comfortably in his hobbit-hole until the day the wandering wizard Gandalf chooses him to take part in an adventure from which he may never return. Fantasy.

After the Civil War sweeps away the genteel life to which she has been accustomed, Scarlett O'Hara sets about to salvage her plantation home.

Historical fiction.

A ten-year-old orphan comes to live in a lonely house on the Yorkshire moors where she discovers an invalid cousin and the mysteries of a locked garden.

With nowhere else to turn, a field mouse asks the clever escaped lab rats living under the rosebush to help save her son, who lies in the path of the farmer's tractor, too ill to be moved. Fantasy.

A photograph of a missing girl on a milk carton leads Janie on a search for her real identity. Realistic Fiction.

Mr. Nasutowicz's Five Favorites

Bilbo Baggins, a respectable, well-to-do hobbit, lives comfortably in his hobbit-hole until the day the wandering wizard Gandalf chooses him to take part in an adventure from which he may never return. Fantasy.

Rivalry between rich and poor gangs in 1960s Oklahoma leads to the deaths of three teenagers and intense soul-searching for one of the kids involved, a sensitive fourteen-year-old writer named Ponyboy. Realistic fiction.

Daniel, whose family suffers as the Nazis rise to power in Germany, describes his imprisonment in a concentration camp and his eventual liberation. Historical fiction.

Terrible events follow the discovery of a magnificent pearl by a poor Mexican fisherman.

Relates the adventures of a scientist who invents a machine that transports him into the future. Classic.

Young Francie Nolan experiences the problems of growing up in a Brooklyn, New York slum. Fiction.

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

Autobiography covering the childhood of a woman who has been a professional dancer, actress, poet, journalist, and television producer. Autobiography.

Thirteen-year-old Aremis Slake, hounded by his fears and misfortunes, flees them into New York City's subway tunnels, never again--he believes--to emerge. Fiction.

Left alone on a beautiful but isolated island off the coast of California, a young Indian girl spends eighteen years, not only merely surviving through her enormous courage and self-reliance, but also finding a measure of happiness in her solitary life. Survival Fiction.

After being mentally retarded for all of his thirty-two years, Charlie Gordon undergoes an operation designed to change his life. Fiction.

Eight-year-old "Scout" Finch tells of life in a small Alabama town where her father is a lawyer. Historical fiction.

The saga of a family in 1939 that struggles through the Great Depression by laboring as Dust Bowl migrants. Historical fiction.

Rivalry between rich and poor gangs in 1960s Oklahoma leads to the deaths of three teenagers and intense soul-searching for one of the kids involved, a sensitive fourteen-year-old writer named Ponyboy. Realistic fiction.

Four English schoolchildren find their way through the back of a wardrobe into the magic land of Narnia and assist its ruler, the golden lion Aslan, to triumph over the White Witch, who has cursed the land with eternal winter. Fantasy.

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. Fantasy/science fiction.

Philip, an adolescent white boy who is blinded in a torpedo attack at sea during World War II, acquires a new type of vision, courage, and love when he is stranded on a tiny Caribbean island with Timothy, a kind, elderly black man.

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. Autobiography.

Newbery Medal, 1994 Given his lifetime assignment at the Ceremony of Twelve, Jonas becomes the receiver of memories shared by only one other in his community and discovers the terrible truth about the society in which he lives. Science Fiction.

Rivalry between rich and poor gangs in 1960s Oklahoma leads to the deaths of three teenagers and intense soul-searching for one of the kids involved, a sensitive fourteen-year-old writer named Ponyboy. Realistic fiction.

In 1687 in Connecticut, Kit Tyler, feeling out of place in the Puritan household of her aunt, befriends an old woman considered a witch by the community and suddenly finds herself standing trial for witchcraft. Historical Fiction.

Other Good Reads

Four students, with their own individual stories, develop a special bond and attract the attention of their teacher, a paraplegic, who chooses them to represent their sixth-grade class in the Academic Bowl competition. Realistic Fiction.

Sequel to My Side of the Mountain. More of Sam Gribley’s survival skills in the Catskill Mountains.

Sequel: Let the circle be unbroken.;Newbery Medal, 1977. An African-American family living in Mississippi during the Depression of the 1930s is faced with prejudice and discrimination which its children do not understand. Multicultural Fiction.

When he finds a lost beagle in the hills behind his West Virginia home, Marty tries to hide it from his family and the dog's real owner, a mean-spirited man known to shoot deer out of season and to mistreat his dogs. Animal Fiction.

The ordinary interactions and everyday routines of the Watsons, an African-American family living in Flint, Michigan, are drastically changed after they go to visit Grandma in Alabama in the summer of 1963. Mulitcultural Fiction.

The life of a ten-year-old boy in rural Virginia expands when he becomes friends with a newcomer who subsequently meets an untimely death trying to reach their hideaway, Terabithia, during a storm. Realistic Fiction.

An overweight fourteen-year-old boy experiences a turning-point summer in which he learns to stand up for himself. Realistic Fiction.

Buck, a dog that has been forced into the harsh life of a sled dog, befriends a man seeking his fortune in the Klondike gold fields, and must ultimately decide whether to stay with his master or obey his instinct to join the wolves. Animal fiction.

Three extraterrestrial beings take Meg and her friends to another world. Science Fiction.

In a series of poems, fifteen-year-old Billie Jo relates the hardships of living on her family's wheat farm in Oklahoma during the dust bowl years of the Depression. Historical fiction.

An account of the attempt, through a hair-raising twenty-four hours on a remote jungle island, to avert a global emergency--a crisis triggered by today's rush to commercialize genetic engineering. Science fiction. Older readers.

Finding a skull on a camping trip in the canyons outside El Paso, Texas, Brennan becomes involved with the fate of a young Apache Indian who lived in the late 1800s.

Thirteen-year-old Charlotte Doyle, the only passenger on a voyage from England to America in 1832, must take serious matters into her own hands when she learns that the captain is murderous. Historical fiction.

Sequel to: The chocolate war. Dark deeds continue at Trinity High School, climaxing in a public demonstration of one student's homemade guillotine. Realistic fiction. Older readers.

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. Mystery.

Victorian England is the setting, and the clues to the mystery of the missing jewel from Lady Caroline’s hair clip pile up. Mystery.

Sent to live with his uncle after a violent confrontation with his stepfather, sixteen-year-old Travis, an aspiring writer, finds life in a small Oklahoma town confining until he meets an eighteen-year-old horse trainer named Casey. Realistic and Animal fiction.

Impoverished Vermont farm girl Lyddie Worthen is determined to gain her independence by becoming a factory worker in Lowell, Massachusetts, in the 1840s. Historical fiction.

During World War II, a little boy is sent to live with his grandma, a cook in a camp for workers building a road through the wilderness. Historical fiction.

Shipwrecked after a vicious storm, fourteen-year-old John Spencer attempts to save his father and himself while also dealing with an evil secret about the Cornish coastal town where they are stranded. Adventure.

In eighteenth-century England, after his father buys a schooner called the Dragon, sixteen-year-old John sets out to sail it from Kent to London and becomes involved in a dangerous smuggling scheme. Adventure and historical fiction. Companion book to The Wreckers.

Sequel to: Joey Pigza swallowed the key. Joey, who is still taking medication to keep him from getting too wired, goes to spend the summer with the hard-drinking father he has never known and tries to help the baseball team he coaches win the championship.

Realistic fiction.

As further evidence of his family's bad fortune which they attribute to a curse on a distant relative, Stanley Yelnats is sent to a hellish correctional camp in the Texas desert where he finds his first real friend, a treasure, and a new sense of himself.

Sequel to: A long way from Chicago. During the recession of 1937, fifteen-year-old Mary Alice is sent to live with her feisty, larger-than-life grandmother in rural Illinois and comes to a better understanding of this fearsome woman. Historical fiction.

In 1793 Philadelphia, sixteen-year-old Matilda Cook, separated from her sick mother, learns about perseverance and self-reliance when she is forced to cope with the horrors of a yellow fever epidemic. Historical fiction.

Esperanza and her mother are forced to leave their life of wealth and privilege in Mexico to go work in the labor camps of Southern California, where they must adapt to the harsh circumstances facing Mexican farm workers on the eve of the Great Depression. Muticultural and historical fiction.

While in London as part of an all-boy acting company preparing to perform in a replica of the famous Globe Theatre, Nat Field suddenly finds himself transported back to 1599 and performing in the original theater under the tutelage of Shakespeare himself.

After a plane crash strands them on a tropical island while the rest of the world is ravaged by war, a group of British schoolboys attempts to form a civilized society but descends into brutal anarchy.

Chronicles the adventures of a group of rabbits searching for a safe place to establish a new warren where they can live in peace. Fantasy.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling

Sequel: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Rescued from the outrageous neglect of his aunt and uncle, a young boy with a great destiny proves his worth while attending Hogwarts School for Wizards and Witches. Fantasy.

Jessie and the other rebellious teenage members of a wilderness survival school team abandon their adult leader and try to run the dangerous white water of the Grand Canyon.

Fiction.

Left alone on a beautiful but isolated island off the coast of California, a young Indian girl spends eighteen years, not only merely surviving through her enormous courage and self-reliance, but also finding a measure of happiness in her solitary life.

Fiction, Newberry Medal winner 1961.

Filled with resentment over the attention showered upon her twin sister, and awaiting the day she can leave her town behind, young Louise meets a wise old sea captain and begins learning how to let go of her anger.

Fiction, Newberry Medal winner 1981.

Because of his success surviving alone in the wilderness for fifty-four days, fifteen-year-old Brian, profoundly changed by his time in the wild, is asked to undergo a similar experience to help scientists learn more about the psychology of survival.

Sequel to "Hatchet." Fiction.

After injuring his hand, a silversmith's apprentice in Boston becomes a messenger for the Sons of Liberty in the days before the American Revolution. Historical Fiction. Newbery Medal winner 1944.

Paul Fisher, a stellar soccer player despite being legally blind, finally comes into his own when his family moves to the strange town of Tangerine, Florida.

Lame and suddenly orphaned, Kira is mysteriously removed from her squalid village to live in the palatial Council Edifice, where she is expected to use her gifts as a weaver to do the bidding of the all-powerful Guardians. Science Fiction.

Thirteen-year-old Sophie and her cousin Cody record their transatlantic crossing aboard the Wanderer, a forty-five foot sailboat, which, along with uncles and another cousin, is en route to visit their grandfather in England. Newbery Honor book. Fiction.

Among the Hidden by Margaret Peterson Haddix

In a future where the Population Police enforce the law limiting a family to only two children, Luke has lived all his twelve years in isolation and fear on his family's farm, until another "third" convinces him that the government is wrong. Science Fiction.

A photograph of a missing girl on a milk carton leads Janie on a search for her real identity. Fiction.

Relates the adventures of a scientist who invents a machine that transports him into the future. Science Fiction.

After her mother leaves home suddenly, thirteen-year-old Sal and her grandparents take a car trip retracing her mother's route. Along the way, Sal recounts the story of her friend Phoebe, whose mother also left. Newbery Medal winner 1995. Fiction.

Caroline B. Cooney, Sharon Creech, Karen Cushman, Will Hobbs, Russell Freedman, Gary Paulsen, Philip Pullman, Lemony Snicket and many others!