National Catholic Educational Association Accelerated Reader List

National Catholic Educational Association Accelerated Reader List

Almost Eden
Horrocks, Anita
AR Quiz No. 111536 EN Fiction
IL:MG- BL:4.3- AR Pts:9.0
AR Quiz Types:RP
Rating:
Twelve-year-old Elsie struggles with her mother's mental illness, her bossy older sister, and her faith in God in a small Mennonite community.

Blindspot
Pyle, Kevin C.
AR Quiz No. 118024 EN Fiction
IL:MG+- BL:2.2- AR Pts:0.5
AR Quiz Types:RP
Rating:
Dean Tollridge spends hours playing army with his friends in the woods behind his home, plotting out missions when he should be doing schoolwork, but reality intrudes when the boys encounter a homeless veteran living in their imaginary battlefield.

Cody's Varsity Rush
Hafer, Todd
AR Quiz No. 110061 EN Fiction
IL:MG- BL:5.1- AR Pts:4.0
AR Quiz Types:RP
Rating:
Now a high school freshman, Cody makes the varsity football team and struggles with whether to identify himself as a Christian at school and on the playing field. Book #5

Hey, 13!
Soto, Gary
AR Quiz No. 146388 EN Fiction
IL:MG- BL:5.2- AR Pts:7.0
AR Quiz Types:RP
Rating:
This collection of thirteen short stories shares the ups and downs of being thirteen years old.

Okay for Now
Schmidt, Gary D.
AR Quiz No. 143203 EN Fiction
IL:MG- BL:4.9- AR Pts:11.0
AR Quiz Types:RP
Rating:
Fourteen-year-old Doug Swieteck faces an abusive father, a brother traumatized by Vietnam, and suspicious teachers and police officers, but when he meets a girl known as Lil Spicer, he finds a safe place at the local library.

Sam I Am
Cooper, Ilene
AR Quiz No. 83022 EN Fiction
IL:MG- BL:5.1- AR Pts:8.0
AR Quiz Types:RP
Rating:
Twelve-year-old Sam, the son of a Jewish father and Christian mother, struggles to understand religion and its role in his family's life during the Hanukkah and Christmas holidays.

Through Thick & Thin
Byrd, Sandra
AR Quiz No. 136795 EN Fiction
IL:MG- BL:4.4- AR Pts:5.0
AR Quiz Types:RP
Rating:
Fifteen-year-old Savvy Smith, an American living near London, sees her chance to write a full column for her school newspaper and must rely on her Christian faith when she is forced to choose between friends, family, and fame. Book #2

Call Me Hope
Olson, Gretchen
AR Quiz No. 113812 EN Fiction
IL:MG- BL:4.6- AR Pts:6.0
AR Quiz Types:RP
Rating:
In Oregon, eleven-year-old Hope begins coping with her mom's verbal abuse by devising survival strategies for herself based on a history unit about the Holocaust. Despite the abuse, she works toward buying hiking boots by helping at a second-hand shop.

Candy Bomber: The Story of the Berlin Airlift's "Chocolate Pilot"
Tunnell, Michael O.
AR Quiz No. 137463 EN Nonfiction
IL:MG- BL:7.2- AR Pts:2.0
AR Quiz Types:RP
Rating:
This book describes the efforts of U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Gail Halvorsen to aid the children in Russian-blockaded West Berlin by dropping packages filled with candy from the air.

Car Trouble
DuPrau, Jeanne
AR Quiz No. 102546 EN Fiction
IL:MG+- BL:4.7- AR Pts:6.0
AR Quiz Types:RP
Rating:
Early one August morning, seventeen-year-old computer "nerd" Duff Pringle leaves Richmond, Virginia, in a newly acquired used car and begins an unexpectedly convoluted journey to San Jose, California, and the job that awaits him there.

Children of the Great Depression
Freedman, Russell
AR Quiz No. 102968 EN Nonfiction
IL:MG- BL:7.5- AR Pts:2.0
AR Quiz Types:RP,VP
Rating:
This book tells of the Great Depression, including stories of dust storms, soup kitchens, Hoovervilles, kids at work, kids on trains, popular culture, and the beginning of World War II.

Dear Jo: The Story of Losing Leah...and Searching for Hope
Kilbourne, Christina
AR Quiz No. 126274 EN Fiction
IL:MG+- BL:5.2- AR Pts:6.0
AR Quiz Types:RP
Rating:
Twelve-year-old Max shares her feelings of fear, guilt, and betrayal as she helps police find the Internet predator who abducted and killed her best friend. Written to alert potential victims, the tense plotline may be too harsh for some young readers.

Out of My Mind
Draper, Sharon M.
AR Quiz No. 136421 EN Fiction
IL:MG- BL:4.3- AR Pts:8.0
AR Quiz Types:RP
Rating:
Considered by many to be mentally retarded, a brilliant, impatient fifth-grader with cerebral palsy discovers a technological device that will allow her to speak for the first time.

Raising the Flag: How a Photograph Gave a Nation Hope in Wartime
Burgan, Michael
AR Quiz No. 141361 EN Nonfiction
IL:MG- BL:6.9- AR Pts:2.0
AR Quiz Types:RP
Rating:
This book explores and analyzes the historical context and significance of the iconic Joe Rosenthal photograph.

Rex Zero and the End of the World
Wynne-Jones, Tim
AR Quiz No. 112913 EN Fiction
IL:MG- BL:4.1- AR Pts:6.0
AR Quiz Types:RP
Rating:
In the summer of 1962 with everyone nervous about a possible nuclear war, ten-year-old Rex, having just moved to Ottawa from Vancouver with his family, faces his own personal challenges as he discovers new friends and a new understanding of the world.

Selling Hope
Tubb, Kristin O'Donnell
AR Quiz No. 141058 EN Fiction
IL:MG- BL:5.3- AR Pts:8.0
AR Quiz Types:RP
Rating:
As Halley's Comet approaches Chicago, a girl sells an "anti-comet" pill to make enough money to leave her traveling vaudeville troupe.

Shooting Kabul
Senzai, N.H.
AR Quiz No. 138279 EN Fiction
IL:MG- BL:5.4- AR Pts:7.0
AR Quiz Types:RP
Rating:
Escaping from Taliban-controlled Afghanistan in the summer of 2001, 11-year-old Fadi and his family immigrate to California, where Fadi schemes to return to a Pakistani refugee camp to find his little sister, who was accidentally left behind.

Tasting the Sky: A Palestinian Childhood
Barakat, Ibtisam
AR Quiz No. 115456 EN Nonfiction
IL:MG+- BL:5.8- AR Pts:7.0
AR Quiz Types:RP
Rating:
In this memoir set in Ramallah during the aftermath of the 1967 Six-Day War, IbtisamBarakat captures what it is like to be a child whose world is shattered by war.

A Time of Miracles
Bondoux, Anne-Laure
AR Quiz No. 140624 EN Fiction
IL:MG- BL:4.7- AR Pts:5.0
AR Quiz Types:RP
Rating:
In the early 1990s, a boy with a mysterious past and the woman who cares for him endure a five-year journey across the war-torn Caucasus and Europe, weathering hardships and unforgettable encounters with other refugees searching for a better life.

All the Things You Are
Sheinmel, Courtney
AR Quiz No. 145279 EN Fiction
IL:MG+- BL:4.8- AR Pts:10.0
AR Quiz Types:RP
Rating:
When Carly Wheeler's mother is arrested for embezzling, Carly's perfect life begins to fall apart as friends at her prestigious private school stop talking to her, her stepfather starts worrying about finances, and her image of her family changes.

Body of Water
Dooley, Sarah
AR Quiz No. 147392 EN Fiction
IL:MG+- BL:5.9- AR Pts:12.0
AR Quiz Types:RP
Rating:
After their trailer home and belongings are burned, twelve-year-old Ember and her Wiccan family move to a campground where her anguish over losing her dog as well as her friendship with the boy she fears started the fire, stops her from making friends.

Bread and Roses, Too
Paterson, Katherine
AR Quiz No. 110098 EN Fiction
IL:MG- BL:4.9- AR Pts:9.0
AR Quiz Types:RP,VP
Rating:
Jake and Rosa form an unlikely friendship as they try to survive and understand the 1912 Bread and Roses strike of mill workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts.

Criss Cross
Perkins, Lynne Rae
AR Quiz No. 101361 EN Fiction
IL:MG+- BL:5.5- AR Pts:7.0
AR Quiz Types:RP,VP
Rating:
Teenagers in a small town in the 1960s experience new thoughts and feelings, question their identities, connect, and disconnect as they search for the meaning of life and love.

The Day of the Pelican
Paterson, Katherine
AR Quiz No. 133458 EN Fiction
IL:MG- BL:5.2- AR Pts:6.0
AR Quiz Types:RP
Rating:
When the Kosovo hostilities escalate in 1998, 13-year-old Meli's life as an ethnic Albanian changes forever. Her brother escapes his Serbian captors and the family flees from one refugee camp to another until they are able to immigrate to the U.S.

Don't Talk to Me About the War
Adler, David A.
AR Quiz No. 122003 EN Fiction
IL:MG- BL:3.8- AR Pts:6.0
AR Quiz Types:RP
Rating:
In 1940, thirteen-year-old Tommy's routine of school, playing stickball in his Bronx neighborhood, talking with his friend Beth, and listening to Dodgers games on the radio changes as his mother's illness and the war in Europe transform his world.

Hearts of Stone
Ernst, Kathleen
AR Quiz No. 110709 EN Fiction
IL:MG+- BL:4.2- AR Pts:9.0
AR Quiz Types:RP
Rating:
Orphaned when her father dies fighting for the Union and her mother expires from exhaustion and also estranged from their Confederate neighbors, fifteen-year-old Hannah struggles to find a way for her family to survive during the Civil War in Tennessee.

Leap
Zalben, Jane Breskin
AR Quiz No. 112431 EN Fiction
IL:MG+- BL:4.5- AR Pts:9.0
AR Quiz Types:RP
Rating:
In the midst of the usual teenaged angst over romantic relationships and figuring out their place in the world, childhood friends Krista and Daniel reconnect when, in the sixth grade, Daniel is temporarily paralyzed.

Listen!
Tolan, Stephanie S.
AR Quiz No. 106310 EN Fiction
IL:MG- BL:5.4- AR Pts:6.0
AR Quiz Types:RP
Rating:
During her solitary convalescence from a crippling accident, twelve-year-old Charley finds a wild dog, and the arduous process of training him leads her to explore her feelings about her mother’s death two years earlier.

The Loud Silence of Francine Green
Cushman, Karen
AR Quiz No. 108302 EN Fiction
IL:MG- BL:4.6- AR Pts:7.0
AR Quiz Types:RP,VP
Rating:
In 1949, thirteen-year-old Francine goes to Catholic school in Los Angeles where she becomes best friends with a girl who questions authority and is frequently punished by the nuns, causing Francine to question her own values.

Louisiana's Song
Madden, Kerry
AR Quiz No. 114757 EN Fiction
IL:MG- BL:4.9- AR Pts:9.0
AR Quiz Types:RP
Rating:
Shy and awkward eleven-year-old Louisana (Louise) becomes the reluctant hero as she develops a talent for painting, takes care of Daddy, and shows a surprised Livy Two that sometimes the quietest sibling turns out to be the strongest.

The Other Half of My Heart
Frazier, Sundee T.
AR Quiz No. 137869 EN Fiction
IL:MG- BL:4.9- AR Pts:10.0
AR Quiz Types:RP
Rating:
Eleven-year-old Minni and Keira King, twin daughters of their black mom and white dad, stay with oppressive Grandmother Johnson and compete in the Miss Black Pearl Preteen pageant, where they both experience prejudice.

You Shouldn't Have to Say Good-bye
Hermes, Patricia
AR Quiz No. 6639 EN Fiction
IL:MG- BL:3.9- AR Pts:4.0
AR Quiz Types:RP,VP
Rating:
Sarah's mom is dying of cancer. Somehow she must come to terms with losing the person she loves the most.

90 Miles to Havana
Flores-Galbis, Enrique
AR Quiz No. 140562 EN Fiction
IL:MG- BL:4.8- AR Pts:10.0
AR Quiz Types:RP
Rating:
Julian's parents, hoping to protect Julian and his brothers from the dangers of the turmoil in Cuba, send them to the United States in 1961 as part of Operation Pedro Pan, where the boys learn life in a Miami refugee camp holds its own perils.

All of the Above
Pearsall, Shelley
AR Quiz No. 109071 EN Fiction
IL:MG- BL:5.3- AR Pts:5.0
AR Quiz Types:RP
Rating:
Five urban middle school students, their teacher, and other community members relate how a school project to build the world's largest tetrahedron affects the lives of everyone involved.

Countdown
Wiles, Deborah
AR Quiz No. 137204 EN Fiction
IL:MG- BL:4.4- AR Pts:9.0
AR Quiz Types:RP
Rating:
As eleven-year-old Franny Chapman deals with drama at home and with her best friend in 1962, she tries to understand the larger problems in the world after President Kennedy announces that Russia is sending nuclear missiles to Cuba.

The Crazy Man
Porter, Pamela Paige
AR Quiz No. 102555 EN Fiction
IL:MG- BL:4.5- AR Pts:3.0
AR Quiz Types:RP
Rating:
This novel, written in free verse, describes twelve-year-old southern Saskatchewan farm girl EmalineBitterman's physical and emotional healing after an accident leaves her disabled and her father's guilt drives him away

The Diamond of Darkhold
DuPrau, Jeanne
AR Quiz No. 125598 EN Fiction
IL:MG- BL:5.2- AR Pts:10.0
AR Quiz Types:RP,VP
Rating:
After obtaining an ancient book with only a few pages remaining, Lina and Doon return to Ember seeking the device described in the book that might be able to aid their new community, Sparks, through the winter. Book #4

Diamond Willow
Frost, Helen
AR Quiz No. 123490 EN Fiction
IL:MG- BL:4.3- AR Pts:2.0
AR Quiz Types:RP
Rating:
In a remote area of Alaska, twelve-year-old Willow helps her father with their sled dogs when she is not at school, all the while unaware that the animals around her carry the spirits of dead ancestors and friends who care for her.

Singing Hands
Ray, Delia
AR Quiz No. 106303 EN Fiction
IL:MG- BL:5.9- AR Pts:8.0
AR Quiz Types:RP
Rating:
In the late 1940s, twelve-year-old Gussie learns the definition of integrity while helping with a celebration at the Alabama School for the Deaf, her punishment for misdeeds against her deaf parents and their boarders.

Rules
Lord, Cynthia
AR Quiz No. 106154 EN Fiction
IL:MG- BL:3.9- AR Pts:4.0
AR Quiz Types:RP,RV,LS,VP
Rating:
Frustrated at life with an autistic brother, twelve-year-old Catherine longs for a normal existence, but her world is further complicated by a friendship with a teenage boy in a wheelchair.

Return to Sender
Alvarez, Julia
AR Quiz No. 127752 EN Fiction
IL:MG- BL:5.5- AR Pts:11.0
AR Quiz Types:RP
Rating:
After his family hires migrant Mexican workers to help save their Vermont farm from foreclosure, eleven-year-old Tyler befriends the oldest daughter, but when he discovers they may not be in the country legally, he realizes friendship knows no borders.

The Game of Silence
Erdrich, Louise
AR Quiz No. 87336 EN Fiction
IL:MG- BL:5.9- AR Pts:9.0
AR Quiz Types:RP
Rating:
Nine-year-old Omakayas of the Ojibwe tribe moves west with her family in 1849. Book #2

From Emporia: The Story of William Allen White
Buller, Beverley Olson
AR Quiz No. 126986 EN Nonfiction
IL:MG- BL:7.6- AR Pts:4.0
AR Quiz Types:RP
Rating:
Photographs, newspaper excerpts, and text chronicle the life of newspaper editor and publisher William Allen White, discussing his childhood, pride for his hometown of Emporia, Kansas, influence on American journalism, and other related topics.

Sweetgrass Basket
Carvell, Marlene
AR Quiz No. 102732 EN Fiction
IL:MG- BL:5.0- AR Pts:5.0
AR Quiz Types:RP
Rating:
In alternating passages, two Mohawk sisters describe their lives at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School (established in 1879 to educate Native Americans) as they try to assimilate into white culture, and one of them is falsely accused of stealing.

Turtle in Paradise
Holm, Jennifer L.
AR Quiz No. 137063 EN Fiction
IL:MG- BL:3.7- AR Pts:4.0
AR Quiz Types:RP
Rating:
In 1935, when her mother gets a job housekeeping for a woman who does not like children, eleven-year-old Turtle is sent to stay with relatives she has never met in faraway Key West, Florida.

The Wednesday Wars
Schmidt, Gary D.
AR Quiz No. 114653 EN Fiction
IL:MG- BL:5.9- AR Pts:12.0
AR Quiz Types:RP,VP
Rating:
During the 1967 school year, on Wednesday afternoons when all his classmates go to religion classes, seventh-grader Holling stays in Mrs. Baker's classroom where they read the plays of Shakespeare and he learns about the world he lives in.

When the Whistle Blows
Slayton, Fran Cannon
AR Quiz No. 130932 EN Fiction
IL:MG- BL:4.9- AR Pts:6.0
AR Quiz Types:RP
Rating:
Jimmy Cannon tells about his life in the 1940s as the son of a West Virginia railroad man, loving the trains and expecting one day to work on the railroad like his father and brothers.

Yellow Star
Roy, Jennifer Rozines
AR Quiz No. 106044 EN Fiction
IL:MG- BL:4.3- AR Pts:3.0
AR Quiz Types:RP
Rating:
From 1939, when Syvia is four and a half years old, to 1945 when she has just turned ten, a Jewish girl and her family struggle to survive in Poland’s Lodz ghetto during the Nazi occupation.

Wonderstruck
Selznick, Brian
AR Quiz No. 146551 EN Fiction
IL:MG- BL:5.4- AR Pts:4.0
AR Quiz Types:RP,VP
Rating:
Twelve-year old Ben, whose story is told in words, loses both his mother and his hearing and leaves home to seek the father he never knew, while Rose, whose story is told in pictures, is also compelled to search for the something missing in her life.

Windfall
Cassidy, Sara
AR Quiz No. 143410 EN Fiction
IL:MG- BL:3.7- AR Pts:2.0
AR Quiz Types:RP
Rating:
Thirteen-year-old Liza, grieving the loss of a local homeless man and her family's apple tree, seeks healing through gardening.

Almost Astronauts: 13 Women Who Dared to Dream
Stone, Tanya Lee
AR Quiz No. 129067 EN Nonfiction
IL:MG- BL:7.1- AR Pts:4.0
AR Quiz Types:RP
Rating:
Profiled in this book are thirteen women who, in the 1960s, challenged social norms and government policies to try to prove they had what it took to be among the first astronauts.

Before We Were Free
Alvarez, Julia
AR Quiz No. 60706 EN Fiction
IL:MG- BL:5.6- AR Pts:8.0
AR Quiz Types:RP,VP
Rating:
In the early 1960s, in the Dominican Republic, twelve-year-old Anita learns that her family is involved in the underground movement to end the bloody rule of the dictator, General Trujillo.

Birmingham, 1963
Weatherford, Carole Boston
AR Quiz No. 116743 EN Fiction
IL:MG- BL:4.4- AR Pts:0.5
AR Quiz Types:RP
Rating:
Captured in this book is the heartbreak of September 15, 1963, when members of the Ku Klux Klan planted nineteen sticks of dynamite under the back steps of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, which served as a meeting place for civil rights organizers.