8th Grade Novel Synopses

A Day No Pigs Would Die By Robert Newton Peck

To a thirteen-year-old Vermont farm boy whose father slaughters pigs for a living, maturity comes early as he learns "doing what's got to be done," especially regarding his pet pig who cannot produce a litter. A Lesson Before Dying By Ernest J. Gaines

A story of injustice and redemption set in rural Louisiana during the late 1940s. Grant Wiggins, a backwoods schoolmaster, is asked visit a young black prisoner on death row. Jefferson, the prisoner, was falsely accused and convicted of murder and is sentenced to hang, and Wiggins' job, once he realizes the impossibility of overturning the verdict, is to prepare the boy for death. Although, as a nonbeliever, Wiggins at first finds himself in competition with the minister for the boy's attention, he eventually comes to see that the cultivation of any instinct of love--human or religious--is the essence of salvation, both for Jefferson and himself.

A Separate PeaceBy John Knowles

Set among a group of boys at a New England boarding school during World War II, it shines a light into the highest heights of beauty and the most profound depths of evil that young men are capable of reaching. At once harrowing and luminous, brooding and bittersweet, A Separate Peace has captured as if in amber the experience of adolescence for millions of readers over four decades. It is John Knowles's crowning achievement, and an undisputed American classic. A Step From Heaven By An Na

The winner of the 2002 Michael L. Printz Award is now available in paperback. When her family moves to California from Korea, Young Ju Park grows from a child to adolescent in her new home--and finds a surprising new voice that's neither Korean nor American, but uniquely her own.

Across Five Aprils By Irene Hunt

The unforgettable story of young Jethro Creighton, who comes of age during the turbulent years of the Civil War, by the Newbery Award-winning author of "Up a Road Slowly." "An impressive book both as a historically authentic Civil War novel and as a beautifully written family story."

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

By Mark Twain

Join Tom Sawyer's wild adventures along the banks of the Mississippi River. Tom and his best friend, Huck Finn, share exciting make-believe escapades as treasure hunters, swashbuckling pirates, and soldiers in battle. They also unwittingly become real-life witnesses to a terrible crime.

Alicia, My Story By Alicia Appleman-Jurman

After losing her entire family to the Nazis at age 13, Alicia Appleman-Jurman went on to save the lives of thousands of Jews, offering them her own courage and hope in a time of upheaval and tragedy. Not since The Diary of Anne Frank has a young voice so vividly expressed the capacity for humanity and heroism in the face of Nazi brutality. Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

Anne Frank was 13 years old when she and her family went into hiding in a secret room in Amsterdam in order to escape the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. For two years they hid and Anne wrote her diary, providing us with a moving account of a Jewish life in hiding.

Armageddon Summer By Jane Yolen

The world will end on Thursday, July 27, 2000. At least, that's what Reverend Beelson has told his congregation. Marina's mom believes him. So does Jed's dad. That's why they drag Marina and Jed to join the reverend's flock at a mountain retreat. From the mountaintop they will all watch the Righteous Conflagration that will end this world--and then they will descend and begin the world anew. But this world has only just begun for Jed and Marina, two teenagers with more attitude than faith. Why should the world end now, when they've just fallen in love? Told in alternating chapters from both Jed's and Marina's points of view, this first-ever collaboration between two masters of children's literature is a story about faith and friendship, love and loss . . . and the things that matter most at the End of the World. The Arrow Over the Door By Joseph Bruchec

To fourteen-year-old Samuel Russell, called “coward” for his peace-loving Quaker beliefs, the summer of 1777 is a time of fear. The British and the Patriots will soon meet in battle near his home in Saratoga, New York. The Quakers are in danger from roaming Indians and raiders—yet to fight back is not the Friends’ way. To Stands Straight, a young Abenaki Indian on a scouting mission for the British, all Americans are enemies, for they killed his mother and brother. But in a Quaker Meetinghouse he will come upon Americans unlike any he has ever seen. What will the encounter bring? Based on a real historical incident, this fast-paced and moving story is a powerful reminder that “the way of peace…can be walked by all human beings.”

Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman by Earnest J. Gaines

This is a novel in the guise of the tape-recorded recollections of a black woman who has lived 110 years, who has been both a slave and a witness to the black militancy of the 1960's. In this woman Ernest Gaines has created a legendary figure, a woman equipped to stand beside William Faulkner's Dilsey in The Sound And The Fury." Miss Jane Pittman, like Dilsey, has 'endured,' has seen almost everything and foretold the rest. Gaines' novel brings to mind other great works The Odyssey for the way his heroine's travels manage to summarize the American history of her race, and Huckleberry Finn for the clarity of her voice, for her rare capacity to sort through the mess of years and things to find the one true story in it all.

Bless the Beasts and the Children By Glendon Swarthout

A concise introduction that gives readers important background information- A chronology of the author's life and career- A timeline of significant events that provide the book's historical context- An outline of key themes and plot points to help readers form their own interpretations- Detailed explanatory notes- Critical analysis, including contemporary and modern perspectives on the work- Discussion questions to promote lively classroom and book group interaction- A list of recommended related books and films to broaden the reader's experience- Consistently readable text

Cezanne Pinto By Mary Stolz

In his old age Cezanne Pinto recalls his youth as a slave on a Virginia plantation and his escape to a new life in the North

The Contender

By Robert Lipsyte

Alfred Brooks is scared. He's a high school dropout and his grocery store job is leading nowhere. His best friend is sinking further and further into drug addiction. Some street kids are after him for something he didn't even do. So Alfred begins going to Donatelli's Gym, a boxing club in Harlem that has trained champions. There he learns it's the effort, not the win, that makes the man -- that last desperate struggle to get back on your feet when you thought you were down for the count

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Cry the Beloved CountryBy Alan Paton

Cry, the Beloved Country is a beautifully told and profoundly compassionate story of the Zulu pastor Stephen Kumalo and his son Absalom, set in the troubled and changing South Africa of the 1940s.

The book is written with such keen empathy and understanding that to read it is to share fully in the gravity of the characters' situations. It both touches your heart deeply and inspires a renewed faith in the dignity of mankind. Cry, the Beloved Country is a classic tale, passionately African, timeless and universal, and beyond all, selfless.

Darkness Before Dawn

By Sharon Draper

In this final book of Draper's "Hazelwood High" trilogy, Keisha is still recovering from the suicide of her ex-boyfriend and seeks comfort in her friends. When the new track coach sweeps Keisha into an adult world, and attempts to rape her after a dinner at his apartment, Keisha struggles to put her world back into perspective, and realizes the power of friendships.

Fahrenheit 451

By Ray Bradbury

This is Bradbury's best-known novel. The science fiction tale concerns censorship and anti-intellectualism, carried on in an alternate society that conducts huge book burnings as part of the social agenda. It is a spooky and yet uplifting book.

Farewell to Manzanar

By Jeanne Houston

Jeanne Wakatsuki was seven years old in 1942 when her family was uprooted from their home and sent to live at Manzanar internment camp--with 10,000 other Japanese Americans. Along with searchlight towers and armed guards, Manzanar ludicrously featured cheerleaders, Boy Scouts, sock hops, baton twirling lessons and a dance band called the Jive Bombers who would play any popular song except the nation's #1 hit: "Don't Fence Me In."

Farewell to Manzanar is the true story of one spirited Japanese-American family's attempt to survive the indignities of forced detention . . . and of a native-born American child who discovered what it was like to grow up behind barbed wire in the United States.

The Fighting Ground

By Avi

April 3, 1778

He may be just thirteen, but Jonathan knows he's ready to go to the war against the British. He can handle a gun. He yearns to battle for glory, just like his brother and cousin.

So when Jonathan hears the tavern bell toll, calling men to fight, he runs to join them. He doesn't realize that in just twenty-four hours, his life will be forever altered -- by the war, by his fellow soldiers, and by the terrible choices he must make.

Haveli

By Suzanne Staples

The world of Newbery Honor book Shabanu is vividly re-created in this novel of a young Pakistani woman's heartbreaking struggle against the tyranny of custom and ancient law. Shabanu, now a mother at 18, faces daily challenges to her position in her husband's household, even as she plans for her young daughter's education and uncertain future. Then, during a visit to the haveli, their home in the city of Lahore, Shabanu falls in love with Omar, in spite of traditions that forbid their union.

Homecoming

By Cynthia Voight

That's the first thing James Tillerman says to his sister Dicey every morning. It's still true that their mother has abandoned the four Tillerman children somewhere in the middle of Connecticut. It's still true they have to find their way, somehow, to Great-aunt Cilla's house in Bridgeport, which may be their only hope of staying together as a family.

But when they get to Bridgeport, they learn that Great-aunt Cilla has died, and the home they find with her daughter, Eunice, isn't the permanent haven they've been searching for. So their journey continues to its unexpected conclusion -- and some surprising discoveries about their history, and their future

I Heard the Owl Call My Name

By Margaret Craven

Amid the grandeur of the remote Pacific Northwest stands Kingcome, a village so ancient that, according to Kwakiutl myth, it was founded by the two brothers left on earth after the great flood. The Native Americans who still live there call it Quee, a place of such incredible natural richness that hunting and fishing remain primary food sources. But the old culture of totems and potlatch is being replaces by a new culture of prefab housing and alcoholism. Kingcome's younger generation is disenchanted and alienated from its heritage. And now, coming upriver is a young vicar, Mark Brian, on a journey of discovery that can teach him -- and us -- about life, death, and the transforming power of love.

Hoops

By Walter Dean Myers

All eyes are on seventeen-year-old Lonnie Jackson while he practices with his team for a city-wide basketball Tournament of Champions. His coach, Cal, knows Lonnie has what it takes to be a pro-basketball player, but warns him about giving in to the pressure. Cal knows because he, too, once had the chance--but sold out.

As the Tournament nears, Lonnie learns that some heavy bettors want Cal to keep him on the bench so that the team will lose the championship. As the last seconds of the game tick away Lonnie and Cal must make a decision. Are they eilling to blow the chance of a lifetime?

Into the Wild

By Jon Krakauer

Admitting an interest that borders on obsession, Krakauer searches for the clues to the drives and desires that propelled 24-year-old Chris McCandless to leave civilization behind and head into the remote Alaskan wilderness. Four months later, McCandless's emaciated corpse was found at his campsite by a hunter. Mesmerizing and heartbreaking, Krakauer's powerful and luminous storytelling blaze through every page.

Into Thin Air

By Jon Krakauer

A bank of clouds was assembling on the not-so-distant horizon, but journalist-mountaineer Jon Krakauer, standing on the summit of Mt. Everest, saw nothing that "suggested that a murderous storm was bearing down." He was wrong. The storm, which claimed five lives and left countless more--including Krakauer's--in guilt-ridden disarray, would also provide the impetus for Into Thin Air, Krakauer's epic account of the May 1996 disaster.

Johnny Tremain

By Esther Forbes

Johnny Tremain, winner of the 1943 Newbery Medal, is one of the finest historical novels ever written for children. As compelling today as it was fifty years ago, to read this riveting novel is to live through the defining events leading up to the American Revolutionary War seen through the eyes of a boy who turns in his smithing tools to take up a rifle and fight for the liberty of America. Fourteen-year old Johnny Tremain, an apprentice silversmith with a bright future ahead of him, injures his hand in a tragic accident, forcing him to look for other work. In his new job as a horse-boy, riding for the patriotic newspaper, the Boston Observer, and as a messenger for the Sons of Liberty, he encounters John Hancock, Samuel Adams, and Dr. Joseph Warren. Soon Johnny is involved in the pivotal events shaping the American Revolution from the Boston Tea Party to the first shots fired at Lexington. Powerful illustrations by American artist Michael McCurdy, bring new life to Ether Forbes' quintessential novel of the American Revolution.

The Land

By Mildred Taylor

The son of a prosperous landowner and a former slave, Paul-Edward Logan is unlike any other boy he knows. His white father has acknowledged him and raised him openly--something unusual in post-Civil War Georgia. But as he grows into a man he learns that life for someone like him is not easy. Black people distrust him because he looks white. White people discriminate against him when they learn of his black heritage. Even within his own family he faces betrayal and degradation. So at the age of fourteen, he sets out toward the only dream he has ever had: to find land every bit as good as his father's, and make it his own. Once again inspired by her own history, Ms. Taylor brings truth and power to the newest addition to the award-winning Logan family stories.

Light in the Forest

By Conrad Richter

Though reared as a Lenni Lenape Indian, fifteen-year-old True Son, once called John Camera Butler, was ordered back to the white man. It was impossible for True Son to believe that his people were white and not Indian. He had learned to hate the white man. And now he learned to hate his new father, his new house, his new family. He hated the name John Butler. Where did he belong now--and where could he go?

Milkweed

By Jerry Spinelli

He's a boy called Jew. Gypsy. Stopthief. Runt. Happy. Fast. Filthy son of Abraham.He's a boy who lives in the streets of Warsaw. He's a boy who steals food for himself, and the other orphans. He's a boy who believes in bread, and mothers, and angels. He's a boy who wants to be a Nazi some day, with tall shiny jackboots and a gleaming Eagle hat of his own. Until the day that suddenly makes him change his mind. And when the trains come to empty the Jews from the ghetto of the damned, he's a boy who realizes it's safest of all to be nobody.Newbery Medalist Jerry Spinelli takes us to one of the most devastating settings imaginable — Nazi-occupied Warsaw of World War II — and tells a tale of heartbreak, hope, and survival through the bright eyes of a young orphan in search of a family.

My Brother Sam Is Dead

By James Lincoln Collier

Recounts the tragedy that strikes the Meeker family during the Revolution, when one son joins the rebel forces while the rest of the family tries to stay neutral in a Tory town.

145th Street: Short Stories

by Walter Dean Myers

A salty, wrenchingly honest collection of stories set on one block of 145th Street. We get to know the oldest resident; the cop on the beat; fine Peaches and her girl, Squeezie; Monkeyman; and Benny, a fighter on the way to a knockout. We meet Angela, who starts having prophetic dreams after her father is killed; Kitty, whose love for Mack pulls him back from the brink; and Big Joe, who wants a bang-up funeral while he’s still around to enjoy it. Some of these stories are private, and some are the stories behind the headlines. In each one, characters jump off the page and pull readers right into the mix on 1-4-5.

The Outsiders

By S.E. Hinton

Through the account of 14-year old Ponyboy, a tough and confused gang member who struggles with the burden of his "greaser" identity, she conveyes the hardships and turbulence of troubled youth. Hinton's story, while focusing on the relationships and inner workings of marginalized teens, challenges the labels we place on ourselves and others.

The Power of One

By Bryce Courtepay

Set in a world torn apart, where man enslaves his fellow man and freedom remains elusive, THE POWER OF ONE is the moving story of one young man's search for the love that binds friends, the passion that binds lovers, and the realization that it takes only one to change the world. A weak and friendless boy growing up in South Africa during World War II, Peekay turns to two older men, one black and one white, to show him how to find the courage to dream, to succeed, to triumph over a world when all seems lost, and to inspire him to summon up the most irrersistible force of all: the Power of One.

Reviving Ophelia

By Mary Pipher

When Reviving Ophelia was first published nearly a decade ago, the response was extraordinary–and Dr. Mary Pipher became one of the most sought-after speakers in the country. She posed the provocative question: Why are American adolescent girls falling prey to depression, eating disorders, and suicide attempts at an alarming rate? The answer hit a nerve. We live in a look-obsessed, sexist “girl-poisoning” culture. And despite the advances of feminism, girls continue to struggle to find their

true selves. Here are girls’ unmuted voices from the front lines of adolescence, personal and painfully honest. By laying bare their harsh day-to-day reality, Reviving Ophelia issues a call to arms and offers parents compassion, strength, and strategies with which to revive these Ophelias’ lost sense of self.

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry

By Mildred Taylor

Facing a year of night riders and burnings, Cassie and her family continue their struggle to keep their land and hold onto what rightfully belongs to them, despite the difficult battles they must continue to endure.

Romiette and Julio

By Sharon Draper

Romiette, an African-American girl, and Julio, a Hispanic boy, discover that they attend the same high school after falling in love on the Internet, but are harrassed by a gang whose members object to their interracial dating.

Roots

By Alex Haley

It begins with a birth in 1750, in an African village; it ends seven generations later at the Arkansas funeral of a black professor whose children are a teacher, a Navy architect, an assistant director of the U.S. Information Agency, and an author. The author is Alex Haley. This magnificent book is his.

Shakespeare:

Hamlet

Julius Caesar

MacBeth

Measure for Measure

Richard III

Romeo and Juliet

Taming of the Shrew

Tempest

Snow Falling on Cedars

By David Guterson

A young fisherman is found dead in the nets of his boat off an island in the Pacific Northwest. The novel tells of love and war and the ways men and women struggle for survival and redemption.

Soldier’s Heart

By Gary Paulsen

In June 1861, when the Civil War began, Charley Goddard enlisted in the First Minnesota Volunteers. He was 15. He didn't know what a "shooting war" meant or what he was fighting for. But he didn't want to miss out on a great adventure. The "shooting war" turned out to be the horror of combat and the wild luck of survival; how it feels to cross a field toward the enemy, waiting for fire. When he entered the service he was a boy. When he came back he was different; he was only 19, but he was a man with "soldier's heart," later known as "battle fatigue."

The Star Fisher by Laurence Yep

Streams to the River, River to the Sea by Scott O’Dell

In June 1861, when the Civil War began, Charley Goddard enlisted in the First Minnesota Volunteers. He was 15. He didn't know what a "shooting war" meant or what he was fighting for. But he didn't want to miss out on a great adventure. The "shooting war" turned out to be the horror of combat and the wild luck of survival; how it feels to cross a field toward the enemy, waiting for fire. When he entered the service he was a boy. When he came back he was different; he was only 19, but he was a man with "soldier's heart," later known as "battle fatigue."

That Was Then, This Is Now

By S.E. Hinton

Sixteen-year-old Mark and Bryon have been like brothers since childhood, but now, as their involvement with girls, gangs, and drugs increases, their relationship seems to gradually disintegrate.

Ties that Bind, Ties that Break

By Lensey Namioka

Ailin's life takes a different turn when she defies the traditions of upper class Chinese society by refusing to have her feet bound.

To Dance with the White Dog

By Terry Kay

Sam Peek's children are worried. Since that "saddest day" when Cora, his beloved wife of fifty-seven good years, died, no one knows how he will survive. How can this elderly man live alone on his farm? How can he keep driving his dilapidated truck down to the fields to care for his few rows of pecan trees? And when Sam begins telling his children about a dog as white as the pure driven snow -- that seems invisible to everyone but him -- his children think that grief and old age have finally taken their toll.

But whether the dog is real or not, Sam Peek -- "one of the smartest men in the South when it comes to trees" -- outsmarts them all. Sam and the White Dog will dance from the pages of this bittersweet novel and into your heart, as they share the mystery of life, and begin together a warm and moving final rite of passage.

To Kill A Mockingbird

By Harper Lee

The conscience of a town steeped in prejudice, violence, and hypocrisy is pricked by the stamina and quiet heroism of one man's struggle for justice, in this Pulitzer Prize-winning classic that has been translated into more than 40 languages. Available for the first time in a trade paperback edition.

Touching Spirit Bear

By Ben Mikaelsen

Whatever you do to the animals, you do to yourself. Remember that.

Ben Mikaelsen's provocative portrait of Cole, an angry teen who chooses banishment to a remote Alaskan island over detention as punishment for a brutal attack, has captivated reviewers and readers. A BookSense 76 pick in hardcover and a nominee for multiple state young reader awards, Touching Spirit Bear examines the alternative Native American Circle Justice against a backdrop of high action

Up a Road Slowly

By Irene Hunt

This coming-of-age story follows a young girl from the age of seven to 17, who recalls her many happy days at her Aunt Cordelia's, and the sad times that she faces while growing up.

The Wave

By Todd Strasser

The Wave is based on a true incident that occured in a high school history class in Palo Alto, California, in 1969.

The powerful forces of group pressure that pervaded many historic movements such as Nazism are recreated in the classroom when history teacher Burt Ross introduces a "new" system to his students. And before long "The Wave," with its rules of "strength through discipline, community, and action, " sweeps from the classroom through the entire school. And as most of the students join the movement, Laurie Saunders and David Collins recognize the frightening momentum of "The Wave" and realize they must stop it before it's too late.

What Girls Learn

By Karin Cook

Tilden and Elizabeth are sisters--one wise, one a daredevil--whose beautiful mother is constantly uprooting their lives. When she meets a man who decides they should all move from Atlanta to Long Island, the sisters enter the new and treacherous world of their own adolescence and their mother's illness.

When Legends Die

By Hal Borland

When his father killed another brave, Thomas Black Bull and his parents sought refuge in the wilderness. There they took up life as it had been in the old days, hunting and fishing, battling for survival. But an accident claimed the father's life and the grieving mother died shortly afterward. Left alone, the young Indian boy vowed never to return to the white man's world, to the alien laws that had condemned his father.

The Witch of Blackbird Pond

By Elizabeth Speare

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.

Witness

By Karen Hesse

Leanora Sutter. Esther Hirsh. Merlin Van Tornhout. Johnny Reeves . . .These characters are among the unforgettable cast inhabiting a small Vermont town in 1924. A town that turns against its own when the Ku Klux Klan moves in. No one is safe, especially the two youngest, twelve-year-old Leanora, an African-American girl, and six-year-old Esther, who is Jewish. In this story of a community on the brink of disaster, told through the haunting and impassioned voices of its inhabitants, Newbery Award winner Karen Hesse takes readers into the hearts and minds of those who bear witness.

Wolf by the Ears

By Ann Rinaldi

Harriet Hemings, rumored to be the daughter of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, one of his black slaves, struggles with the problems facing her--to escape from the velvet cage that is Monticello, or to stay, and thus remain a slave.