8th grade reading list please

[LilyK]

Hi guys,

Please help me compose an eighth grade reading list. DC is a pretty average reader. We like books that build character and that are useful for teaching a Christian worldview.

Thanks,

Lily:auto:

[Laura in OH]

I always refer to this when I'm looking for something for dd to read:

http://www.classical-homeschooling.org/celoop/1000.html

[Peek a Boo]

Some on our list this year:

Kidnapped
Treasure Island
Captain’s Courageous
The Prince and the Pauper
Little Women
Little Men
The Cay [there's a chapter by chapter online quiz for this somewhere....]
Wizard of Oz
The Voyage of the Kon Tiki
Utopia
Beowulf [by Raffel]
Romans Chapter 6
Psalm 139

these all have pretty accessible study guides online.
I have my ds keep a notebook and jot down new characters, change of setting, or any quips that strike him one way or another.

I also have a basic worksheet he fills out for each book [he HATES writing] that includes [among other things] "Biblical truths" that are either explicitly practiced in the story as a Biblical truth, in common w/ a Biblical truth, or denotes the absence of Biblical truths.

If he hasn't read them, i would also suggest the following for your ds:
Where the Red Fern grows
Narnia Books
Tolkien
jack London's Call of the Wild/White Fang

I have a voracious reader, so we're also reading a lot of other books too. But these are the *assigned* ones, lol.


good luck!

[Lori D.]

CHRISTIAN themes and/or authors

Fantasy
- Aurelia's Colors (Overstreet)
- The Hobbit (Tolkien)
- The Lord of the Rings trilogy (Tolkien)
- Smith of Wooten Major; Farmer Giles of Ham; Leaf by Niggle (Tolkien) short stories
- Golden Key, Light Princess, Wise Woman (MacDonald) -- short stories
- The Princess and the Goblins; The Princess and Curdie (MacDonald)
- The Tombs of Atuan (Le Guin)
- Flatland (Abbott)

Adventure
- The Great and Terrible Quest (Lovett)

Historical Fiction
- Ben Hur (Wallace) -- Ancient Rome/Israel
- The Bronze Bow (Speare) -- Ancient Rome/Israel
- Ides of April; Beyond the Desert Gate (Ray) -- Ancient Rome
- Otto of the Silver Hand (Pyle) -- medieval Europe

Historical Fiction for gr. 5-8
- God King (Williamson) -- Ancient Egypt/Israel
- Hittite Warrior (Williamson) -- Ancient Israel/Hittite
- The Story of Rolf and the Viking Bow (French) -- Viking


Detective/Mystery
- Father Brown short stories (Chesterton)
- Lord Peter Wimsey short stories (Sayers)

Biography
- The Hiding Place (Ten Boom) -- Corrie Ten Boom, WW2 survivor
- Bruchko (Olson) -- Bruce Olson, 20th century missionary to S. America
- God's Smuggler (Sherrill) -- Brother Andrew, Bible smuggler to communist Europe



GOOD CHARACTER

Real Life
- Where the Red Fern Grows (Rawls)
- To Kill a Mockingbird (Lee)
- Maniac McGee (Spinelli)
- A Day No Pigs Would Die (Peck)
- Diary of an Early American Boy (Sloane)

Historical Fiction
- Adam of the Road () -- medieval England
- The King's Fifth (O'Dell) -- Spanish Conquistadors
- The Journeyman (Yates) -- colonial US
- Johnny Tremain (Forbes) -- Revolutionary War
- Carry On, Mr. Bowditch (Latham) colonial US
- Across Five Aprils (Hunt) -- Civil War

Classics
- Beowulf
- Count of Monte Cristo (Dumas)
- Silas Marner (Elliot)
- Call of the Wild (London)
- Cyrano de Bergerac (Rostand)
- A Christmas Carol (Dickens)
- Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
- David Copperfield (Dickens)
- Ivanhoe (Scott)




CLASSICS that help you think through WORLDVIEW

- Picture of Dorian Gray (Wilde)
- Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Stevenson) -- attempt to separate out internal sin nature
- Time Machine; War of the Worlds (Wells) -- sci-fi;
- Watership Down (Adams) -- fantasy
- Animal Farm (Orwell) -- allegorical/political commentary on socialism
- Below the Root (Snyder) -- fantasy; communal social/political
- Till We Have Faces (Lewis)
- Screwtape Letters (Lewis)

[KarenDV]

Check out books by Gary Schmidt. His latest is The Wednesday Wars, but also read Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy and other earlier works.

[Peek a Boo]

oh yeah! don't forget to browse the Sonlight Catalog -- they offer a nice description of the books. I would suggest pulling books from even the younger levels that your ds hasn't read yet.

[RebeccaC]

We like books that build character and that are useful for teaching a Christian worldview.

I have an 8th grade son who would rather be building model rockets but took two weeks off to speed through these books,

Raiders from the Sea
Mystery of the Silver Coins
The Invisible Friend
Heart of Courage
The Raider's Promise
http://www.christianbook.com/Christian/Books/search?author=Lois%20Walfrid%20Johnson&detailed_search=1&action=Search

These books are from a series called Viking Quest and fill the bill on what you are looking for. we have read several of the other books listed so far but these are the only books that my son asked for the next and stopped every thing else he was doing just to read and devour. Even my 15 year old son read these though not as passionately as my 14yo.

He also read all of the book of Acts and is working through the book of Mathew and the Psalm.

We are listening to the Teaching Company Lectures on C.S.Lewis and 8th grader is really enjoying these. He finished all of the Narina books and will begin the Lewis Si-Fi series Out of The Silent Planet soon.

He also just read the first Midshipman Quinn book that was published by Bethlehem press and enjoyed it. However this book just went out of print but you can still get it cheap at Amazon, http://www.amazon.com/Midshipman-Quinn-Collection-Bethlehem-Budget/dp/1883937450/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1205606755&sr=1-1

HTH