Middle school students have reading interests that run the gamut from Diary of a Wimpy Kid to Twilight. Sometimes as a parent it is hard to know what is age appropriate for your child. Through this blog, I will try to help parents make informed decisions about what is available in our library. I am hoping that this blog will be a resource for our parents, and that we can all work together to make our students life-long readers!



Wednesday, July 1, 2015

Our Students' Favorite Books, Part 2

Here are some more of our students' favorite books from this past school year:

Dystopian/Science Fiction (one of our most popular genres - be aware that most dystopians have a lot of violence)

1.  The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins
2.  Divergent series by Veronica Roth (how have I not reviewed Divergent?!  I have certainly read it.  I'll have to post a review later.)
3.  The Maze Runner series by James Dashner
4.  The Matched series by Ally Condie
5.  The Angel Experiment series by James Patterson
6.  The Legend series by Marie Lu
7.  The Lorien Legacies by Pittacus Lore
8.  The Selection series by Kiera Cass (very clean and less violent than others)
9.  The Testing series by Joelle Charboneau
10.  Escape from Furnace series by Alexander Gordon Smith

Please be aware that these are the most checked out by the students, and not my recommendations.  Dystopian/science fiction books tend to be incredibly violent and some have tons of bad language.  If your younger middle school students are interested in this genre, but you don't want them reading all the violence and language, here are some that I would call "starter" dystopian that have more implied and less graphic violence, and less bad language:

The One Safe Place by Tania Unsworth
The Sky Jumpers series by Peggy Eddleman
The Elemental series by Anthony John (there is another Elemental series, so don't mix them up)
The Pivot Point duology by Kasie West
The Book of Ember series by Jeanne DuPrau
The Tomorrow Girls series by Eva Gray


Fantasy

1.  The Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan (and any other thing Rick Riordan writes)
2.  Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling
3.  The Ranger's Apprentice series by John Flanagan (and the others Brotherband Chronicles)
4.  The Warriors series (and all the off-shoots) by Erin Hunter
5. The Eragon series by Christopher Paolini
6.  The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel series by Michael Scott
7.  The Mysterious Benedict Society series by Trenton Lee Stewart
8.  The Fablehaven series by Brandon Mull
9.  The Keeper of the Lost Cities series by Shannon Messenger
10.  The Familiars series by Adam Jay Epstein


Paranormal/Supernatural  (another of our most popular genres - be aware the there is usually quite a bit of violence in these, and that the romances can get pretty steamy)

1.  The Unearthly series by Cynthia Hand
2.  The Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare
3.  The Tiger Saga by Colleen Houck
4.  The Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer
5.  The Wings series by Aprilynne Pike
6.  The Paranormalcy series by Kiersten White
7.  The Chronicles of Nick series by Sherilyn Kenyon
8.  The Skulduggery Pleasant series by Derek Landy
9.  The Starcrossed series by Josephine Angelini
10.  The Holders duology by Julianna Scott

With the exception of The Chronicles of Nick series and The Skulduggery series, I have read at least the first book in all of these series, but most of them before I started this blog so I haven't reviewed them here.  I may have to go back and re-read and review because some of them got a little edgy with the violence and romance.  Be careful with this genre.  The ones I remember being pretty clean are The Unearthly series, The Tiger Saga, The Wings series and the Paranormalcy series.  Those are always the first ones I suggest to my students.

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