Summer Reading for Middle School: Laurie Halse Anderson

Curzon, having matured from boy to man over the course of the winter with the army at Valley Forge, worries that someone will learn he is a runaway slave passing for free, and tries to figure out the meaning of his friendship with Isabel.

After being sold to a cruel couple in New York City, a slave named Isabel spies for the rebels during the Revolutionary War.

Eighteen-year-old Lia comes to terms with her best friend's death from anorexia as she struggles with the same disorder.

After finally getting noticed by someone other than school bullies and his ever-angry father, seventeen-year-old Tyler enjoys his tough new reputation and the attentions of a popular girl, but when life starts to go bad again, he must choose between transforming himself or giving in to his destructive thoughts.

FMelinda Sordino begins her freshman year of high school as an outcast for having busted an end-of-summer drinking party by calling the police--and, while struggling through the daily absurdity of high school, she gradually learns a truth about herself that will change her life forever.

Eighteen-year-old Kate, who sometimes chafes at being a preacher's daughter, finds herself losing control in her senior year as she faces difficult neighbors, the possibility that she may not be accepted by the college of her choice, and an unexpected death.

In 1793 Philadelphia, sixteen-year-old Matilda Cook, separated from her sick mother, learns about perseverance and self-reliance when she is forced to cope with the horrors of a yellow fever epidemic.