PTMS Summer Reading
2018
The Girl Who Drank the Moon
Barnhill, Kelly Regan. The Girl Who Drank the Moon. Algonquin Young Readers, 2016.
Every year, the people of the Protectorate leave a baby as an offering to the witch who lives in the forest. They hope this sacrifice will keep her from terrorizing their town. But the witch in the forest, Xan, is kind. She shares her home with a wise Swamp Monster and a Perfectly Tiny Dragon. Xan rescues the children and delivers them to welcoming families on the other side of the forest, nourishing the babies with starlight on the journey. One year, Xan accidentally feeds a baby moonlight instead of starlight, filling the ordinary child with extraordinary magic. Xan decides she must raise this girl, whom she calls Luna, as her own. As Luna's thirteenth birthday approaches, her magic begins to emerge--with dangerous consequences. Meanwhile, a young man from the Protectorate is determined to free his people by killing the witch.
Newbery Medal Winner 2017
AR Info: B.L. 4.8; Points 12
Last Day on Mars
Emerson, Kevin. Last Day on Mars. Walden Pond Press, 2017.
It is Earth year 2213--but, of course, there is no Earth anymore. Not since it was burned to a cinder by the sun, which has mysteriously begun the process of going supernova. The human race has fled to Mars, but this was only a temporary solution while the people prepared for a second trip: a one-hundred-fifty-year journey to a distant star where they might find a new home. Liam Saunders-Chang is one of the last humans left on Mars. He is the son of two scientists who have been racing against time to create technology vital to humanity's survival. Liam, along with his friend Phoebe, will be on the last starliner to depart before Mars, like Earth before it, is destroyed. Or so he thinks. Because before this day is over, Liam and Phoebe will make a series of profound discoveries about the nature of time and space and find out that the human race is just one of many in our universe locked in a dangerous struggle for survival.
AR Info: B.L. 5.2; Points 10
Children of Exile
Haddix, Margaret Peterson. Children of Exile. Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2016.
For the past twelve years, adults called "Freds" have raised Rosi, her younger brother Bobo, and the other children of their town, saying it is too dangerous for them to stay with their parents, but now they are all being sent back. Since Rosi is the oldest, all the younger kids are looking to her with questions she doesn't have the answers to. She'd always trusted the Freds completely, but now she's not so sure. And their home is nothing like she'd expected, like nothing the Freds had prepared them for.
AR Info: B.L. 4.9; Points 9
Edgeland
Halpern, Jake. Edgeland. G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2017.
Thousands of miles south of the island of Bliss, day and night last for 72 hours. The Drain is one of the natural wonders of this world: a whirlpool thirty miles wide and a hundred miles around. Anything sucked into its frothing, turbulent waters is never seen again. Wren has spent most of her life on Edgeland, a nearby island where people bring their dead to be blessed and prepared for the afterlife. There the dead are loaded into boats with treasure and sent over the cliff, and into the Drain. Orphaned and alone, Wren dreams of escaping Edgeland, and her chance finally comes when furriers from the Polar north arrive. With the help of her friend Alec, Wren plans to loot one of the boats before it enters the Drain. But the boat--with Alec and Wren onboard--is sucked into the whirlpool. What they discover beyond the abyss is beyond what anyone could have imagined.
AR Info: B.L. 5.2; Points 9
33 Minutes
Hasak-Lowy, Todd. 33 Minutes. Illustrated by Bethany Barton, Aladdin Max, 2017.
Sam Lewis is going to get his butt kicked in exactly thirty-three minutes. He knows this because yesterday his former best friend Morgan Sturtz told him, to his face and with three witnesses nearby, “I am totally going to kick your butt tomorrow at recess.” All that’s standing between Sam and this unfortunate butt-kicking is the last few minutes of social studies and his lunch period.
AR Info: B.L. 5.8; Points 5
All Heart: My Dedication and Determination to Become One of Soccer's Best
Lloyd, Carli. All Heart: My Dedication and Determination to Become One of Soccer’s Best. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016.
There was a time when Carli Lloyd almost quit soccer. Then she met James Galanis, a trainer who believed in her and saw her as a player with rare talent and skill who needed to work on her weaknesses. He offered to help her, but only if she made soccer her number one priority. Carli said yes. In her own words, Carli Lloyd, the two-time recipient of the FIFA World Player of the Year award, tells her inspirational story of going from near defeat to the ultimate goal. All Heart is for players, fans, coaches, dreamers, and anyone who has ever thought about giving up.
AR Info: B.L. 6.2; Points 10
The Girl in the Well is Me
Rivers, Karen. The Girl in the Well is Me. Algonquin Young Readers, 2016.
Longing to be one of the popular girls in her new town, Kammie Summers has fallen into a well during a (fake) initiation into their club. Now Kammie's trapped in the dark, counting the hours, waiting to be rescued. (The girls have gone for help, haven't they?) As hours pass, Kammie's real-life predicament mixes with memories of the best and worst moments of her life so far, including the awful reasons her family moved to this new town in the first place.
AR Info: B.L. 4.7; Points 6
Love, Ish
River, Karen. Love, Ish. Algonquin Young Readers, 2017.
"My name is Mischa "Ish" Love, and I am twelve years old. I know quite a lot about Mars. Mars is where I belong. Do you know how sometimes you just know a thing? My mom says that falling in love is like that, that the first time she saw Dad, she just knew. That's how I feel about Mars: I just know."
Twelve-year-old Ish Love's longtime dream has been to someday live on Mars, but when she collapses on the first day of seventh grade, Ish receives a diagnosis which threatens her future plans.
AR Info: B.L. 4.2; Points 8
Death on the River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Amazon Adventure
Seiple, Samantha. Death on the River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Amazon Adventure. Scholastic Press, 2017.
In October 1913, Theodore Roosevelt arrived in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on a tour of South America. The thrill-seeking adventurer had no idea that he would soon receive an offer he couldn't refuse: the chance to lead an expedition deep into the Amazon jungle to chart an unmapped river with his son Kermit and renowned Brazilian explorer Candido Mariano da Silva Rondon. Go along on the thrilling journey that unfolds as Roosevelt, Rondon, Kermit, and their companions navigate an unpredictable river through an unforgiving jungle. With new threats at every turn, from bloodthirsty piranhas and raging rapids to starvation, disease, and a traitor in their own ranks, it seems that not everyone will make it out alive.
AR Info: B.L. 7.3; Points 5
Beyond the Bright Sea
Crow has lived her entire life on a tiny piece of the starkly beautiful Elizabeth Islands off the coast of Massachusetts. Her only companions are Osh, the man who rescued her from a tiny skiff as an infant and raised her, and Miss Maggie, their neighbor across the sandbar. But it isn't until the night when a mysterious fire appears across the water that an unspoken question of her own history forms in her heart and an unstoppable chain of events is triggered. Using her bravery and perseverance, Crow must follow clues that not only lead to a personal treasure, but to uncovering her lost identity and, ultimately, understanding what it means to be a family.
AR Info: B.L. 4.8; Points 9
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