Mrs. Cooks Book Talk

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Mrs. Cooks Book Talk

• Quick Reads

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Dont you dare read this, Mrs. Dunphrey by
Margaret Peterson

• In the journal she is keeping for English class,
  sixteen-year-old Tish chronicles the changes in
  her life when her abusive father returns home
  after a two-year absence.
• AR level 4.9 / pts. 4
• 108 p
• Realistic Fiction

3
The House on the Gulfby Margaret Peterson Haddix

• Sixteen-year-old Bran arranges a house-sitting
  job for the summer, but he starts acting
  strangely after his family moves in, and his
  twelve-year-old sister, Britt begins to suspect
  they are not supposed to be there.
• AR level 4.9 / pts. 8 / 208 p.
• Mystery

4
Running Out of Time by Margaret Peterson Haddix

• When a diphtheria epidemic hits her 1840 village,
  thirteen-year-old Jessie discovers it is actually
  a 1996 tourist site under unseen observation by
  heartless scientists, and its up to Jessie to
  escape the village and save the lives of the
  dying children.
• AR level 4.8 / pts. 7 / 184 p.
• Mystery

5
Soup by Robert Newton Peck

• The adventures and misadventures of two boys,
  Soup and Rob, growing up in a small Vermont
  town.
• AR level 4.4 / pts. 2
• 96 p.
• Realistic Fiction

6
Pictures of Hollis Woodsby Patricia Reilly Giff

• A troublesome twelve-year-old orphan, staying
  with an elderly artist who needs her, remembers
  the only other time she was happy in a foster
  home, with a family that truly seemed to care
  about her.
• AR level 4.4 / pts. 5 / 166 p.
• Realistic Fiction

7
Coming Homeby Lauren Brooke

• Amys mother founded Heartland, a place for
  healing traumatized horses, but Amy, who
  inherited her mothers skills with horses, must
  continue her work after an accident on a stormy
  night kills her mother.
• AR level 4.3 / pts. 4 / 140 p.
• Inspirational

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On My Honorby Marion Dane Bauer

• When his best friend drowns while they are both
  swimming in a treacherous river that they had
  promised never to go near, Joel is devastated and
  terrified at having to tell both sets of parents
  the terrible consequences of their disobedience.
• AR level 4.7 / pts. 2 / 90 p.
• Realistic Fiction

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After the Stormby Lauren Brooke

• Although she is still in pain from her mothers
  death, Amy must use all her skills with horses to
  help Spartan, the animal they were trying to
  rescue the night her mother was killed.
• AR level 4.3 / pts. 5
• 171 p.
• Inspirational

10
The Green Bookby Jill Paton Walsh

• As their small stock of essential supplies
  dwindles, a group of refugees from earth struggle
  to make their strange new planet provide lifes
  necessities.
• AR level 5.5 / pts. 2
• 69 p.
• Science Fiction

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Breaking Freeby Lauren Brooke

• Pegasus, the only link to Amys past, is growing
  weaker and Amy will try everything to nurse him
  back to health and keep Heartland together, but
  it will take all of Amys courage to avoid living
  in the shadow of her mother.
• AR level 4.6 / pts. 4 / 148 p.
• Inspirational

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The Hundred Dressesby Eleanor Estes

• None of her classmates pay much attention to
  Wanda Petronski, a Polish-American girl, until
  she announces she has 100 dresses in her closet.
  Everyone laughs and teases her so much that she
  stops coming to school. Then, her classmates
  discover she really does have 100 dresses and
  discover something about teasing and themselves.
• AR level 5.4 / pts. 1 / 80 p.
• Inspirational

13
A Blue-eyed Daisyby Cynthia Rylant

• Relates episodes in the life of eleven-year-old
  Ellie and her family who live in a coal mining
  town in West Virginia.
• AR level 4.6 / pts. 2
• 99 p.
• Realistic Fiction

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Ellen Fosterby Kaye Gibbons

• Growing up in a small Southern town,
  eleven-year-old Ellen Foster has already learned
  some of lifes most difficult lessons. Abused by
  her drunken father and cruel grandmother, she
  searches for a safe place to live.
• AR level 4.7 / pts. 6 / 146 p.
• Inspirational