A worthy tool to guide student research in Junior High

Try this new animation called I-Think Research Tutor:
http://www.proquestk12.com/widgets/ithink/ithink_research_tutor.shtml

The tutor helps students figure out the following:
What is the purpose of your project?
Basic Knowledge
Selecting a Focus
Fact/Opinion
Evaluation of Sources/Identifying Bias
Drawing Conclusions/Supporting Evidence
Applying knowledge/Audience Appeal

Use your mobile device (iPhone or iPod touch) to access iTunes U.

iTunes U: Free educational media files from well known institutions like MIT.

Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco X. Stork

STO Grades 9-12

Marcelo Sandoval, a 17-year-old with an Asperger's-like condition, has arranged a job caring for ponies at his special school's therapeutic-riding stables. But he is forced to exit his comfort zone when his high-powered father steers Marcelo to work in his law firm's mailroom (in return, Marcelo can decide whether to stay in special ed, as he prefers, or be mainstreamed for his senior year). Narrating with characteristically flat inflections and frequently forgetting to use the first person, Marcelo manifests his anomalies: he harbours an obsession with religion (he regularly meets with a plainspoken female rabbi, though he's not Jewish); hears "internal" music; and sleeps in a tree house. Readers enter his private world as he navigates the unfamiliar realm of menial tasks and office politics with the ingenuity of a child, his voice never straying from authenticity even as the summer strips away some of his differences. Stork introduces ethical dilemmas, the possibility of love, and other "real world" conflicts, all the while preserving the integrity of his characterizations and intensifying the novel's psychological and emotional stakes.

Dreams From My Father by Barack Obama

Non-fiction

President Barack Obama tells the story of his life as the son of a black African father and a white American mother, searching for a workable meaning to his life as an African American. Obama grew up mainly in Hawaii. He lived for several years in Indonesia as well after his mother married again. After college, he worked for three years as a community organizer on Chicago's South Side. Then, finally, he went to Kenya, to find the world of his dead father, his "authentic" self.

Demon in My View by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

PB GREEN ATW YA

High school senior Jessica Ashley Allodola is a misfit and a malcontent. What no one knows is that she is also a writer and has just published a new book, Tiger, Tiger, under the name, Ash Night. Her books, written in a dreamlike trance, describe a vivid and detailed world of vampires and witches. Jessica is someone who other students stay clear of…there is something about her that scares them or puts them off. When Jessie discovers that the vampire world of her fiction is real, she develops relationships with an alluring vampire named Aubrey and the teenage witch who is trying to save Jessica from his clutches.

The Last Knight by Hilari Bell

PB PURPLE BEL (Series: Knight and Rogue #1) Grades 7-10

The fourth son in a family of wealth and influence, Sir Michael knows he is destined for a life of tedium as a bookkeeper. In rebellion, he decides to pursue the path of a “knight errant”…a noble righter of wrongs and a rescuer of damsels in distress. With his indentured page (the rogue), Michael rescues a woman imprisoned in a tower only to discover that she indeed is a murderess. Under arrest, Michael is released when his father pays a large sum to the authorities. In return, Michael becomes his indentured servant and the only way Michael can be released from his debt is to recapture the murderess. Each chapter in the novel alternates between Michael and Fisk. Michael is honest beyond belief and Fisk is a con man, a liar and a cheat. Their adventures are both exciting and entertaining.

Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott

SCO Gr. 9 Up

This horror story/ sexual abuse novel is a tough one to read. Alice used to have a real name -- Kyla -- and she used to live in a real home with loving parents. But when she was ten, she was kidnapped and brutalized by a man named Ray. Five years later, she numbly tells her story as she lives through the daily horror of her life. Ray tries to keep her young because he likes little girls. She doesn't dare leave or ask for help, because Ray has told her that he will kill her parents if she does; and indeed, that is what appears to have happened to the parents of Ray's previous victim. As Alice searches for her own successor, she knows her life will end soon. Her emptiness and despair, and the details of Ray's sexual and physical abuse make this a thoroughly unpleasant but magnetic read.

The Swan Kingdom by Zoe Marriott

MAR Grades 6-9.
This is a romantic “remake” of Hans Christian Andersen's "The Wild Swans. The only daughter of a king and a beautiful woman with magical powers, 15-year-old Alexandra enjoys her life with her parents and three beloved brothers. Soon after a beast kills her mother, the king remarries with unseemly haste a woman whom Alexandra believes to be her mother’s shape-shifting murderess. Unfortunately, Alexandra's mother dies before explaining the full power of Alexandra's heritage. Alexandra is shipped off to live in a neighboring kingdom. Alone, Alexandra must find her strength, rescue her brothers who have been turned into swans by their wicked stepmother, and restore health to the kingdom. Only she can right the wrongs done to her family and her homeland.

Epic by Connor Kostick

PB Purple KOS Gr. 8 up
Kostick was a designer for the world's first live fantasy role-playing game in England, and his expertise is evident in this gripping novel, set on New Earth, where violence has been banned for generations and conflicts are settled in the fantasy computer game Epic. New Earth has little technology--people ride in donkey-pulled carts and drink from clay mugs- and most of the inhabitants struggle to survive. Erik's fantasy persona has been killed in a battle with a dragon, and he must prepare a new gaming identity. This time, he chooses a beautiful female named Cindella the sailor, and, with his friends, undertake a dangerous struggle against the Central Allocations Committee to save his family.

I AM THE MESSENGER by Markus Zusak (author of The Book Thief)

[PB RED ZUS; grades 10-12]

Ed Kennedy is in a rut. He thinks he is content with his go nowhere life. He is 19, drives a cab, lives in a shack with his old dog, Doorman, has a fun bunch of loser friends and is in love with Audrey who doesn't love him back. One day, he stops an incompetent bank robber and becomes a celebrity of sorts. Soon after, he starts receiving playing cards in the mail; on the ace of diamonds, someone has written three addresses and three times. Joe knows he is being manipulated but ends up going to these addresses to see what they could mean. As he works his way through the tasks on the cards, he decides he is a messenger and for each message, he has to figure out what he needs to do at each of these addresses. He works his way through all the aces (not without personal danger) and thinks he is finished... Excellent read!

The creepy stories of Joanne Dahme

The Plague [DAH; Gr.6-10]
On the day Nell's parents die and are taken away by the gravediggers, her life changes forever. Nell resembles Princess Joan and her father, King Edward III decides that 15-year-old Nell should serve as his daughter's body double. The princess’ brother, known as the Black Prince, carries out a treasonous plan that leaves the princess dead of the plague and Nell forced to take her place in a marriage to the Prince of Castile. Nell, brother George, and Henry, a soldier, try to escape the Black Prince but are ultimately captured and accused of treason. Their journey makes for an exciting story.


Tombstone Tea [DAH; ages 12+]
This story is an eerie communion with ghosts. After moving to Philadelphia, Jessie is so desperate to fit in that she accepts a dare to spend the night in a local graveyard. There, she meets ghostly Paul, a night watchman, who helps here find the graves from which she is required to get rubbings as proof of her successful completion of the dare. She meets spirits attracted to her life force and her ability to communicate with them. Drawn into a century-long family quarrel that is unsettling the cemetery residents, Jessie is asked to help banish a crazed and malevolent spirit once and for all. Dahme's storytelling is more about the journey than the destination and a suspenseful journey it was.

Check out her book, Creepers. [DAH]

Myths and more...some novels for junior high.

If you enjoyed the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series by Rick Riordan, then you need to read Iris, Messenger and The Night Tourist.


Iris, Messenger by Sarah Deming (DEM)
After discovering that the immortals of Greek mythology reside in her hometown of Middleville, Pennsylvania, twelve-year-old Iris listens to their life stories, gaining wisdom, beauty, and startling revelations about her past.




The Night Tourist by Katherine Marsh (PB PURPLE MAR)
Jack Perdu miraculously survives being hit by a car. He also acquires a new talent...that of seeing ghosts. Finding his way into the underground, he is helped and hunted by the spirits of famous people and mythological characters and creatures (like Cerberus) in his quest fo find his mother who died eight years before. Check out the author's website at http://www.katherinemarsh.com/ and watch for the sequel (on order): The Twilight Prisoner.