Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Halfway Through Blondechick's 8th Grade Reading List

So here's an annotated list of books Blondechick14 has read since September. I'm not going to do all the links or look up all the author's names, but do ask if you want to know. They're almost all in the Sonlight catalog.

This has been a challenging list for her, but she's keeping up, with decent comprehension, and I have been so pleased!

A History of US, Bk. 1: The First Americans
A History of US, Bk. 2: Making Thirteen Colonies
A History of US, Bk. 3: From Colonies to Country
A History of US, Bk. 4: The New Nation
A History of US, Bk. 5: Liberty for All?
(Overall, she likes this series. For nonfiction, it's not bad, she thinks.)

Peace Child (her writing class summary is here)
The Landing of the Pilgrims (bor-ing, she thought. It quotes a lot from primary sources.)
Traitor: The Case of Benedict Arnold--Fritz (she thought the author seemed to throw in everything she knew about B.A., so it cluttered the plot. Knowing the author, I'm guessing she's right.)
Streams to the River, River to the Sea--Scott O'Dell (one of her favorites; she found the sequential plot line easy to follow--an "A-B-C plot, she calls it!--and enjoyed the bit of romance)
Sequoyah and the Cherokee Alphabet (okay, but didn't really interest her that much; she already knew the story)
The Slopes of War (she liked the slight bit of romance in the plot, but it was too sad. She found the battle scenes confusing. It's written from the points of view from a number of different soldiers and she found this hard to follow.)

Cameron Townsend (her paragraph about it for writing class is here)
A Treasury of Poetry for Young People: so far she's read the sections by Lewis Carroll, Emily Dickinson, Edward Lear (she likes reading poetry)
Stink Alley (another favorite--a good story. Her descriptive essay for writing class is here.)
Amos Fortune: Free Man (well-written; but not high-interest subject matter to her)
Rip Van Winkle (she disliked the wordy style of writing)
A Gathering of Days (she loved the beginning, but then it fizzled out, she says)
Bound for Oregon (she likes this exciting story with a straightforward plot. She's almost finished.)
(She skipped Indian Captive and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, which I just read aloud to them last summer. Instead, she read:)
Plain Girl (she liked this story about a sweet Amish girl)
Turn Homeward, Hannalee (too easy for her; too sad. She didn't enjoy it)

Right now, she's reading Dragon's Gate (by Lawrence Yep) and loving it--she thinks it may be the best book she's read so far!

And what does she read just for fun? Harry Potter. She's on her third time through the series, eagerly awaiting the release of the seventh and last book in the series, and praying that J.K. Rowling will change her mind and write more!

It seems like too much for one day to put up the Bantams' list as well, so that will be tomorrow.

1 comment:

Erin said...

I agree with her opinion of A Gathering of Days. I quite enjoyed the Benedict Arnold book, though.