Book ideas?

I run the middle school book club at my school and this year I'd like to try and do something a bit different

I'm looking for books that connect for each month-

September is "Amazing Animals" and I have Flora & Ulysses and Flowers for Algernon.

October is "Dystopia" and we're doing Uglies, The Maze Runner, and The Hunger Games.

November is all Rick Riordan- The Red Pyramid, The Lost Olympians and his new Magnus Chase book.

I'm looking for books I could connect to the following;

Counting by 7s: the book is about an adopted genius who loses her parents and is taken in by an eclectic group of people.

The Crossover: is a verse novel (written as a novel but uses poetry)-it also appeals to the boys because its about sports. I'm trying to think of another novel written in poetry, but I can only think of the holocaust book t4 which I already teach.

Any ideas?

Message edited 8/17/2015 1:47:36 PM.

Re: Book ideas?

For Counting by 7's, here are some ideas:

Absolute Value of Mike
Fourteen-year-old Mike, whose father is a brilliant mathematician but who has no math aptitude himself, spends the summer in rural Pennsylvania with his elderly and eccentric relatives Moo and Poppy, helping the townspeople raise money to adopt a Romanian orphan.

My Name is Mina (Prequel to Skellig which is also excellent).
Creative, intelligent, nine-year-old Mina keeps a journal in her own disorderly way that reveals how her mind is growing into something extraordinary, especially after she begins homeschooling under the direction of her widowed mother.

Out of My Mind
Possessing a photographic memory in spite of an inability to walk or speak, Melody is mistaken as mentally challenged by those who cannot see beyond her cerebral palsy, impelling her to discover a way to communicate. By the two-time Coretta Scott King-winning author of Copper Sun.

Navigating Early
Abruptly placed in a boy's boarding school in Maine after his mother's death at the end of World War II, Kansas youth Jack Baker befriends Early Auden, an unusual boy with whom Jack embarks on a quest along the Appalachian Trail in search of a legendary great black bear. By the Newbery Medal-winning author of Moon Over Manifest.

There are lots of novels in verse. Here are a few that might appeal to both guys and girls.

All the Broken Pieces
Two years after being airlifted out of Vietnam in 1975, Matt Pin is haunted by the terrible secret he left behind and, now, in a loving adoptive home in the United States, a series of profound events forces him to confront his past.

Audition: A Verse Novel
When sixteen-year-old Sara, from a small Vermont town, wins a scholarship to study ballet in New Jersey, her ambivalence about her future increases even as her dancing improves.

Ghosting
A novel in verse describes how an alcohol-fueled prank gone wrong changes the lives of eight teenagers in a small Midwestern town.

Heaven Looks A Lot Like the Mall
When high school junior Tessa Reynolds falls into a coma after getting hit in the head during gym class, she experiences heaven as the mall where her parents work, and she revisits key events from her life, causing her to reevaluate herself and how she wants to live.


Shakespeare Bats Cleanup
When a fourteen-year-old baseball player catches mononucleosis, he discovers that keeping a journal and experimenting with poetry not only helps fill the time, it also helps him deal with life, love, and loss.

Shark Girl
After a shark attack causes the amputation of her right arm, fifteen-year-old Jane, an aspiring artist, struggles to come to terms with her loss and the changes it imposes on her day-to-day life and her plans for the future.