GRADE 6 & 7 BOOKCLUB

Within Cole Matthews lies anger, rage and hate. Cole has been stealing and fighting for years. This time he caught Peter Driscal in the parking lot and smashed his head against the sidewalk. Now, Peter may have permanent brain damage and Cole is in the biggest trouble of his life.

Cole is offered Circle Justice: a system based on Native American traditions that attempts to provide healing for the criminal offender, the victim, and the community. With prison as his only alternative, Cole plays along. He says he wants to repent, but in his heart, Cole blames his alcoholic mom, his abusive dad, wimpy Peter (everyone but himself) for his situation.

Cole receives a one-year banishment to a remote Alaskan island. There, he is mauled by a mysterious white bear of Native American legend. Hideously injured, Cole waits for death. His thoughts shift from anger to humility. To survive, he must stop blaming others and take responsibility for his life. Rescuers arrive to save Cole's body, but it is the attack of the Spirit Bear that may save his soul.

Firebird explores a period in our history — one year in particular (1915–1916) — when a massive number of newcomers were deemed “enemy aliens,” arrested and put into internment camps set up all across Canada. Alex Kaminsky, a fourteen-year-old Ukrainian immigrant boy, suffers burns to his hands and face when his uncle’s farmhouse burns down. Rescued by a neighbour, he is tended to by a backcountry midwife before being taken in by a local postmaster. Determined to search for his older brother, an itinerant farm worker (and talented artist) who has disappeared, Alex follows Marco’s trail from a Vegreville farm to Edmonton. From there he is on the run from officials to Calgary and finally Banff, where he finds his brother close to death in the Castle Mountain Internment Camp. In many ways, it is a voyage of discovery for Alex, a discovery of the hatred harboured by many for immigrants who once lived happy lives in what has become an enemy empire. But also the discovery of those with a strong sense of humanity who decry Marco’s treatment and go the extra mile to help the brothers. For readers who believe such internment camps began only with Japanese Canadians in WWII, Firebird will be an eye-opening experience.

 

Cardboard City follows the lives of two young teens―members of a Romani family. Saida and Nikola experience harsh discrimination at school and crushing poverty in their informal settlement, spread out under a bridge in Belgrade. Their dreams of escape and of leaving deplorable conditions behind trigger a family crisis. In particular, Nikola is a gifted trumpeter and aspires to be a famous musician, but it proves challenging to surmount the enormous barriers between his present situation and the self-mastery and life of dignity he seeks. Introducing young readers to the world of Eastern Europe’s Rom, Cardboard City is evocative of the virulent racism, injustice and inhumane conditions endured by this community to this very day.

A smartly funny and sympathetic story about being different and finding your way. Meet the compelling, charismatic 13-year-old Augustus Constantine, a boy whose mind (and mouth) operate at a different speed than the rest of society. Gus has ADHD, and he’s on medication to help him focus.

Misuse of his medication is a recipe for disaster. At the Speed of Gus takes readers through a frenetic, twist-filled day that is the result of that misuse. When we first meet Gus, he’s putting his own special spin on morning announcements, much to the chagrin of school secretary Miss Funn (who’s anything but) and Principal Gorby (who’s getting tired of Gus’s endless jokes and unfiltered stream of consciousness).

After being suspended for three days as a result of these antics, Gus takes up his sister’s invitation to take the ferry to Vancouver Island and meet at her college. Once on the ferry, Gus’s thoughts begin to race. He’s having trouble concentrating and can’t calm down. The ride gets wilder and wilder, and the reader follows along at the speed of Gus’s brain, until it’s hard to tell what’s real from what’s imagined.

A cautionary and sympathetic tale, with loads of insight and smart humour, this new novel from middle-grade master Richard Scrimger will reach so many kids who need to see that their brains are a gift, even when (sometimes especially when) they don’t stay in the same lines as others.

In this twisty middle-grade mystery for fans of Knives Out, The Inheritance Game, and The Westing Game, thirteen-year-old twins Hope and Gordon enter a spelling bee in a last-ditch effort to save their family from financial ruin, only to find themselves in a cut-throat competition to uncover a fortune and dark secrets about the wealthy relations they’ve never known.

 

An exhilarating, awe-inspiring debut from a master storyteller writing for children for the first time, perfect for fans of Philip Pullman, Katherine Rundell and Eva Ibbotson.

Rachel and Robert live a grey, dreary life under the rule of cruel Charles Malstain. But when their librarian father enlists their help to steal a forbidden book, they are plunged into adventure. With their father captured, it is up to Rachel and Robert to uncover the secrets of the Book of Stolen Dreams and track down its mysteriously missing final page in order to save him.

What they are not expecting is to discover a family of ghosts, a door to the dead and that the Book grants the power of immortality. But they will do anything to stop it falling into Malstain's hands - for if it does, he could rule for ever.

Step inside the pages of an immortal adventure and discover a truly unforgettable journey of wonder, courage and magic...

A Little Piece Of Ground will help young readers understand more about one of the worst conflicts afflicting our world today.

Written by Elizabeth Laird, one of Great Britain’s best-known young adult authors, A Little Piece Of Ground explores the human cost of the occupation of Palestinian lands through the eyes of a young boy.

Twelve-year-old Karim Aboudi and his family are trapped in their Ramallah home by a strict curfew. In response to a Palestinian suicide bombing, the Israeli military subjects the West Bank town to a virtual siege. Meanwhile, Karim, trapped at home with his teenage brother and fearful parents, longs to play football with his friends.

When the curfew ends, he and his friend discover an unused patch of ground that’s the perfect site for a football pitch. Nearby, an old car hidden intact under bulldozed building makes a brilliant den. But in this city there’s constant danger, even for schoolboys. And when Israeli soldiers find Karim outside during the next curfew, it seems impossible that he will survive.

This powerful book fills a substantial gap in existing young adult literature on the Middle East.
 

Stanley Yelnats is under a curse. A curse that began with his no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather and has since followed generations of Yelnatses. Now Stanley has been unjustly sent to a boys' detention center, Camp Green Lake, where the boys build character by spending all day, every day digging holes exactly five feet wide and five feet deep. There is no lake at Camp Green Lake. But there are an awful lot of holes.

It doesn't take long for Stanley to realize there's more than character improvement going on at Camp Green Lake. The boys are digging holes because the warden is looking for something. But what could be buried under a dried-up lake? Stanley tries to dig up the truth in this inventive and darkly humorous tale of crime and punishment
—and redemption.

Nine of us came here. We look like you. We talk like you. We live among you. But we are not you. We can do things you dream of doing. We have powers you dream of having. We are stronger and faster than anything you have ever seen. We are the superheroes you worship in movies and comic books—but we are real.

Our plan was to grow, and train, and become strong, and become one, and fight them. But they found us and started hunting us first. Now all of us are running. Spending our lives in shadows, in places where no one would look, blending in. we have lived among you without you knowing. But they know.

They caught Number One in Malaysia.
Number Two in England.
And Number Three in Kenya.
They killed them all.

I am Number Four. I am next.