Birmingham City Schools Reading Lists
Department of Reading/Language Arts 6-12
2011 Summer Reading Program
6th Grade
Required Reading
The Hitchhiker by Lucille Fletcher
Leisure Reading
The SOS File by
Betsy Byars
Angel in My Pocket
Ilene Cooper
The Wanderer by Sharon Creech
The Map That Breathed by Melanie Gideon
The Hero Beowulf by Eric Kimmel
Shots at Sea: A Houdini & Nate Mystery by Tom Lalicki
Holes by Louis Sachar
The Cay by Theodore Taylor
The Silver Penny by Randall Wright
Rex Zero and the End of the World by Tim Wynne-Jones
Foiled by Jan Yolen
7th Grade
Required Reading
The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street by Rod Serling
The Dream of Good Fortune from the Arabian Nights by Paul Sills
Leisure Reading
The Compound by S.A. Bodeen
Flash by Michael Cadnum
Running on the Cracks by Julia Donaldson
Spray by Harry Edge
A Fast and Brutal Wing by Kathleen Johnson
Abduction by Peg Kehret
Seaborn by Craig Moodie
The Wager by Donna Jo Napoli
The Humming of Numbers by Joni Sensel
Checkered Flag Cheater by Will Weaver
8th Grade
Required Reading
The Diary of Anne Frank by Frances Goodrich
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Leisure Reading
Flight #116 is Down by Caroline Cooney
Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
Girl Stolen by April Henry
Dirt Road Home by Watt Key
Soldier's Secret: The Story of Deborah Sampson by Sheila Solomon Klass
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling
Solitary Escape from Furnace 2 by Alexander Gordon Smith
Peak by Roland Smith
Super Stock Rookie by Will Weaver
Surviving Antarctica: Reality TV 2083 by Andrea White
9th Grade
Required Reading
The Miracle Worker by William Gibson
The Piano Lesson by August Wilson
Leisure Reading
The Extraordinary Adventures of Alfred Kropp by Rick Yancey
Pirates!: The True and Remarkable Adventures of Minerva Sharpe and Nancy Kington, Female Pirates by Celia Rees
Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
Stormbreaker by Anthony Horowitz
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
A Separate Peace by John Knowles
Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie by David Lubar
The Lord of the Flies by William Golding
A Time of Miracles by Anne-Laure Bondoux
Top 8 by Katie Finn
10th Grade
Required Reading
The Crucible by Arthur Miller
Our Town by Thornton Wilder
Leisure Reading
Between a Rock and a Hard Place by Alden R. Carter
Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer
The Man with the Silver Oar by Robin Moore
The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy & Goth Girl by Barry Lyga
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty by James Thurber
Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy
Over the Edge of the World by Laurence Bergreen
11th Grade
Required Reading
Fences by August Wilson
A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams
Leisure Reading
A Yellow Raft in Blue Water by Michael Dorris
Shackleton's Stowaway by Victoria McKernan
Looking for Alaska by John Green
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne
Bug Park by James P. Hogan
13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson
The Reivers: A Reminiscence by William Faulkner
The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow
Sword in Her Hand by Jean-Claude
12th Grade
Required Reading
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams
Leisure Reading
Watership Down by Richard Adams
2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke
Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
Hoops by Walter Dean Myers
The Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby by David Edgar
The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper
Bamboo People by Mitali Perkins
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho