Cyrus Peirce Middle School 2007 Summer Reading Packet and ...

surround them. Even if the boys do make it to shore, their dangerous ordeal is justbeginning.Durango Street by: Frank BonhamWhen Rufus Henry gets out of work camp for Grand Theft Auto, he has only one place togo— back to Durango Street. Almost right away, he gets on the wrong side of theGassers, has to join the rival Moors— and starts running for his life. Years ahead of itstime, Durango Street, like The Outsiders, shows that gang violence is, sadly, nothingnew— and nothing glamorous.Eagle Blue by: Michael D’OrsoEight miles above the Arctic Circle, there's a village with no roads leading to it, but a highschool basketball tradition that lights up winter's darkness and a team of native Alaskanboys who know "no quit." D'Orso (coauthor of Like No Other Time with Tom Daschle)follows the Fort Yukon Eagles through their 2005 season to the state championship,shifting between a mesmerizing narrative and the thoughts of the players, their coach andtheir fans. What emerges is more than a sports story; it's a striking portrait of a communityconsisting of a traditional culture bombarded with modernity, where alcoholism, domesticviolence and school dropout rates run wild.El Dorado Series by: Lloyd Alexander (you may read any one of the five books)The second in the five-book series, The El Dorado Adventure continues the excitingexperiences of Miss Vesper Holly, daughter of deceased anthropologist BenjaminRittenhouse Holly. Narrated by Vesper's guardian Brinnie, the plot involves Vesper andBrinnie's trip to El Dorado, where the two encounter Dr. Helvitius, their adversary in TheIllyrian Adventure. As in the previous book, Vesper must foil the schemes of Helvitius,who now plans to exploit the Chirican Indians by taking their land and destroying theirheritage.Ella Minnow Pea by: Mark DunnElla Minnow Pea is delightfully clever from start to finish. It's set on Nollop, a fictionalisland off the coast of South Carolina named for its long-dead founder, Nevin Nollop, the"genius" who came up with "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog." A hugecenotaph of Nollop's sentence stands over the town square-and one day, the "z" falls tothe ground. Nollop's elected-for-life Council interprets this as a missive from beyond thegrave, "that the letter `Z' should be utterly excised-fully extirpated-absolutely heave-ho'edfrom our communal vocabulary!" Other letters soon follow, and the novel becomesprogressively lipogrammatic (a "lipogram" being writing in which one or more letters areforbidden), told exclusively in the form of letters from one citizen to another as theystruggle to adapt (a third offense means banishment). Not even the discovery that the glueholding the letters up is calcifying sways the zealots on the Council (perhaps Nollopintended its deterioration). It's decided that only the construction of another sentence thatuses every alphabet letter in only 32 graphemes could discredit Nollop's "divine" word.Dunn plays his setup to the hilt, and the result is perfect for teens fond of wicked wit,wordplay, and stories that use the absurd to get at the serious.Esperanza Rising by: Pam Munoz RyanWhen Esperanza and Mama are forced to flee to the bountiful region of Aguascalientes,Mexico, to a Mexican farm labor camp in California, they must adjust to a life withoutfancy dresses and servants they were accustomed to on Rancho de las Rosas. Now theymust confront the challenges of hard work, acceptance by their own people, andeconomic difficulties brought on by the Great Depression. When Mama falls ill and astrike for better working conditions threatens to uproot their new life, Esperanza must