Middle School Fantasy-Science Fiction Suggestions

DEMCO LABEL

Here's a list of books I am suggesting to a language arts teacher for a student who just finished 6th grade.  Was told he enjoyed reading and liked Harry Potter and The Hunger Games.  The family wanted more books in the student's favorite genre, Science Fiction and Fantasy.

Part of the list is courtesy of Kellee Moye (@kelleemoye) of Teach Mentor Texts and Cindy Schnell (@cindyschnell1) who are both teachers as well as avid readers! Thanks, ladies!


Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes by Auxier
11th Plague by Hirsch
The Limit by Landon
Divergent by Roth
Legend by Lu
City of Ember by DuPrau
Uglies by Westerfeld
Leviathan by Westerfeld
100 Cupboards by ND Wilson
The Unwanteds by McMann
House of the Scorpion by Farmer
Mortal Engines by Reeve
Ender's Game by Card

GAYLORD LABEL

The Roar by Clayton
Dark Life by Fall
Amulet of Samarkand by Stroud
Skullduggery Pleasant by Landry
Trash by Mulligan (not fantasy or scifi but actiony and suspenseful and good)
Tankborn by Sandler
Epic by Kostick
Knife of Never Letting Go by Ness
Dragon Castle by Bruchac
A Tale Dark and Grimm by Gidwitz
Breadcrumbs by Ursu
The Cheshire Cheese Cat by Deedy

Both Cindy and Kellee listed books I did not include so please check out their twitter streams for more ideas! This list is also limited to my having read the books (or currently reading: Dragon Castle) and not knowing who the student is.

Keeping in mind that this is male tween, what would you add or subtract from the list??

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Middle Grade Monday - Serpent's Shadow by Rick Riordan

Riordan, Rick. Serpent's Shadow, The. Hyperion Books for Children, 2012. 416p. $16.99. 978-1423140573.


Genre: MG Fantasy
Rating: 4/5




This is the final book in The Kane Chronicles trilogy. Sadie and Carter Kane need to save the world again.  This time from the God of Chaos, Apophis.  Apophis is determined to eat the Sun God, Ra and plunge Earth back into it's primordial days.  He's going to wait until the equinox to do that though.  Meanwhile, he's been destroying a particular scroll that the Kanes believe hold the secret to his destruction.

For most of the book, The Kanes are split up. Sadie travels with Walt as they try to figure out where the dwarf God, Bes', shadow is so they can reunite the two. Carter and Zia, on the other hand, are following Setne around so they can get the Book of Thoth to help them do an execration. This provides a great opportunity for L-O-V-E.

Now, in Throne of Fire (TofF), 12-year-old Sadie was obsessed Anubis and Walt Stone. So much so, that I found it unrealistic. She is this strong-willed, purple-haired, combat boot wearing destruction magician who becomes consumed by her attraction to a  5,000 year old god. It didn't fit the girl we met in The Red Pyramid. It actually made me not like TofF as much as I would have without the love triangle. It's one of the reasons I only gave this one four stars. Now we have 13-year-old Sadie obsessed with Anubis and Walt Stone. In a way that adds nothing to the story. Sadie's overbearing personality never lets up so you can't see either boy making any headway. You don't get to see a relationship being built between Sadie and the boys either. It appears to be more of a plot device that I leads to something I can't speak of here. This plot device will probably show up in a spin-off series involving those two and Setne.

Carter and Zia also found love in TofF. At least Carter did. Zia was pretty much entombed or a shabti. Now that she's a "real girl" she's busy taking care of Ra. Traveling with Carter gives her an opportunity to get to know him as they spend time talking. It's not a lot of time, as we are on a doomsday schedule, but the conversations seem heartfelt. I can't shake the feeling that Zia is much too mature for Carter though. She seems more like she's in her early twenties compared to Carter's 15 years.

I had a small beef with how EASY many of the challenges were. This book felt more like a setup than a final book. This pretty much was more of what we read in Red Pyramid and Throne of Fire. The series has been a nice introduction to Egyptian mythology, though. It reads slower than The Percy Jackson and The Olympian series but I found that enjoyable. I thought Riordan gave us more mythology than questing in these books, possibly because Egyptian mythology just hasn't been explored as much in children's books. Overall, I recommend this one to students who like mythology. Pair it with the Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel series which I'll be talking about in two weeks.

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I Challenge Thee, er, Me 2012

from art.com

It's that time of year. Challenge time.  How will I grow as reader and a reviewer? Each year, I attempt something new and usually abandon it about 1/4 of the way through.  Not.This.Year. I am going to do this. I have two official sign-up challenges and then some personal challenges I will be tackling this year.

The Classic Double Challenge
This challenge intrigues me because you pair contemporary fiction with classic fiction. Something that I think could lead more students into choosing and reading classics outside of the classroom. I'm going for the LARGE level - 3 pairs of books

The 2012 YA/MG Fantasy Challenge
I enjoy reading Fantasy and Science Fiction. I'm not sure what attracts me to these titles and I want to find out. This particular challenge will pair nicely with my own personal Cybils challenge listed below.  For the YA/MG Fantasy challenge, you need to read 10 YA/MG Fantasy books released in 2012.

Cybils 2011 YA/MG Nominated Fantasy/Science Fiction Challenge
This challenge definitely needs a shorter name! There were too many books on the Cybils F/SF nominations list that I had NOT read.  So, I am going to remedy that by trying to read 15 books off the YA list and 15 books off the MG list.  Some of these will be decided when they release the finalist list on January 1!

My Printz of the Past Challenge
I became interested in the ALA Printz award back in 2006 when I became a middle school librarian.  I've been into it pretty much nonstop. In 2010 I formed the Goodreads Mock Printz group. This started as a part of a book group I was hosting at work and has grown from there.  I've been trying to at least read the winners of the award but decided this year to challenge myself to read all the Printz Award/Honor books for the past 11 years.

2012 MG/YA/A Genre Challenge
Donalyn Miller, The Book Whisperer, has a book requirement in her classes.  She challenges the students to read 40 books in a variety of genres, to stretch themselves, to become better readers.  I take up her challenge with #bookaday and want to participate in this one too. Although her exact numbers to read in each genre may change with her students, I'm going with the original one published in The Book Whisperer.

I also want to read a variety of adult books so, I'm adding a component for genre books written for adults. Hence, the "A" in the challenge title.

2012 Battle of the Kid's Book Reading Challenge
Every year School Library Journal hosts a Battle of the Kids' Books to find the best book of the previous year. They get celebrity judges, authors all, to read two  of 16 books and determine which will move on until only 1 is left. I discovered the challenge in 2010 and read 11 of the 16 books.  Last year I read 15.  My goal for 2012 is to read all 16 and try to pick the winner!

I'm creating a challenge page that will list a combination of books I want to read or have read for challenge.

Are you up to the challenge?  What are your reading goals for 2012?

UPDATE: Adding a Newbery Awards challenge that will cover three to four years! Check out Watch.Connect.Read for details! Totally "stress-free" #nerdbery challenge! Yay, Mr. Schu and Mr. Sharp!
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