Ya Ta is the only girl in the family and her father and mother both support her desire to go to school. The
only problem is, in Nigeria, you have to pay for schooling. So Ya Ta is very hopeful she will do well on a district test, earn a government scholarship and be able to go to a boarding school to further her education. If not, she’ll have to find a way to earn money to go.
Ya Ta is like many girls. She longs for a better life for herself and her family, she adores her older brothers and protects her little brother and even hopes for a marriage to the local pastor’s son, Silence. However, lurking in the shadows, never quite out of mind, is the threat of Boko Haram. They are a militant religious group bent on taking down the government of Nigeria. While Ya Ta is wary of them, she doesn’t think they will ever come close enough to her village for her to worry.
Until the day they do. She sees all her brothers and father killed, her best friends are rounded up with her and taken away to the dense forest. Her only hope is that she can hold out until help arrives, or figure out a way to escape.
Buried Beneath the Baobab Tree by Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani is fiction, but based on the accounts of many girls and women who have been taken by force by Boko Haram and indoctrinated into their beliefs or held for years against their will. The true horror of this story is that this group is still active in Nigeria and still holds many women and girls prisoner.
Recommended for grades 8 and up due the mature content and violence portrayed.
called her Splash, after she canon-balled into their swimming pool. After that point, everyone seemed to be making fun of or disparaging her about her weight. She hadn’t thought anything of how she looked until that moment. But for every moment afterwards, it seems that is all she thinks about.
hide, or be concerned about. What they don’t know is that all of them are going to be faced with some horrible decisions that will change the rest of their lives, forever. That’s because, while they are all at the mall for different reasons that afternoon, it soon becomes apparent when gunmen open fire, no one will be safe.
Maya is looking forward to college as a place to dream big and follow her dreams – as in becoming a film maker. Ever since her father put a camcorder in her hands, she has been hooked. But the problem is, her parents see it as only as a hobby, not a career. With the school year winding down, and her parents clueless as to the fact that she wants to go to New York to study film, not stay in the Chicago area and be close to them, she has her work cut out for her.
#famous by Jilly Gagnon is great if you love stories about social media and the drama of having a crush, you have to read this book! It does have some mature content because the characters are in high school.
focus and function. He has become such a good player that he is being recruited by Cornell, but he hasn’t told his parents yet. And that is because of what happened to his sister years ago, and why Isaiah needs football.
Liliana is floored when she is called to the office of her high school at the beginning of her sophomore year and finds out she has been accepted into the METCO program. The only problem is that Liliana has no idea what the METCO program is. So she goes to talk to her guidance counselor, who, it just so happens is a graduate of the METCO program. Liliana is shocked to discover that her parents signed her up for this opportunity when she was young and her name has final come up. The METCO program takes kids from the urban areas of Boston and puts them into schools in the surrounding suburbs. The white surrounding suburbs. Liliana, a proud Latina, isn’t sure she wants this “opportunity.”
dead. Shot by one of his best friends on a hunting trip. But who did it and why? Kate, and everyone else, can’t wrap their heads around the fact that one of the most popular boys in their small community has died and no one is saying who pulled the trigger.
It has been a while since her parents got divorced, but it doesn’t mean that things are easier now for Isabella (as her dad calls her) or Izzy (as her mom calls her.) See, they can’t even agree on what to call their own child! Every week, Izzy finds herself in a new home – either living with her dad or her mom. It is hard to feel like she truly belongs anywhere. And now that she’s in 6th grade, she is realizing there are some things harder than just knowing whose week it is, but how does she, a child of a white mother and a black father, fit in to the world around her.
Allie is struggling after witnessing her father being the victim of prejudice on an airplane flight to visit relatives. She has always known people are prejudice, but to see it happen right in front of her, was very hard. Her father was raised Muslim and still identifies as that, even though he isn’t religious and doesn’t practice it. Her mother converted to Islam when she married Allies father. Allie’s dad never bothered to teacher her Arabic, so she can’t talk with her own grandmother, and this has been bothering Allie more and more. Where does she fit into the world?
Books in the Middle: Reading for Middle School 