Painless Reading Comprehension - Darolyn “Lyn” Jones Ed.D. 2021

Books that interest students
Books, books, and more books

I have compiled a list of the top five books recommended to me by students your age in a number of different categories. Over the years, I have had countless students say to me, “Dr. J, I have never read an entire book all the way through until I read this book. You have to read it!” Or, “Dr. J, thanks for recommending this book to me. It’s the best book I have ever read!”

Now, I am not trying to toot my own horn. But of all my responsibilities as a teacher, the one I take the greatest joy in is connecting kids to books. When my students tells me that they hate to read or have never read a book all the way through, I see it as a challenge. I am determined to find a book for those students. I believe those who claim to hate to read just haven’t found their books yet.

The lists of books that follow are based on genre and topic. I have rated the books as easy read, average read, and complex read. Please note that even the books that I list as complex reads are so good that most of my students who didn’t even consider themselves good readers took them on anyway. It may have taken them a little longer, but they all said it was worth it!

And books listed as average may be easier to some readers and harder to others. You all have different reading strengths and background knowledge of different topics you bring to the book when you read. For example, I know about the Navajo code talkers because I read a book about them in college. So if I read about them again, it would be easier for me than if I knew nothing about them. I love to read comic books, so reading the art in graphic novels is easier for me, but for some of my students who have never read a comic book before, even easy graphic novels can take some getting used to because you have to read the art and the words together.

My advice? Read the book descriptions and if that book description or topic interests you, then check out the book and give it a reading try!

Teens battle social injustice

When I Was the Greatest by Jason Reynolds is the story of three boys, three friends, growing up in a gritty urban neighborhood who learn how to navigate and survive when unwelcome trouble finds them. (average)

Internment by Samira Ahmed is the story Layla Amin, a Muslim American, living in an internment camp who, with the help of her boyfriend on the outside, starts a revolution inside to free everyone. (average)

Glimmer of Hope: How Tragedy Sparked a Movement by the March of Our Lives Founders is the true first-person accounts from twenty-four youths who have survived school shootings. (average)

Maybe He Just Likes You by Barbara Dee is about middle schooler, Mila, and her push to start a #MeToo movement in her school to let boys know that not everything they do or say is wanted or welcome. (easy)

Just Mercy: A True Story of the Fight for Justice by Bryan Stevenson chronicles the true story of young men being held unjustly on death row and Stevenson’s work challenging a broken criminal justice system. (complex)

Facing and overcoming despair and death

They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera is a dystopian contemporary fiction book where the Death-Cast calls two young gay men, Mateo Torrez and Rufus Emeterio, to their death. (complex)

Goodbye Days by Jeff Zentner is the story of how Carver is given a unique way to grieve and overcome his guilt when his three best friends are killed in a car accident caused by Mars answering a text Carver sent. (average)

Monster by Walter Dean Myers is the name the prosecutor gives the main teen character, Steve, who is on trial, claiming he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. (complex)

They Sky Is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson tells the story of Lennie and the loss of her beloved sister, Bailey, as she struggles to start a new romance with someone who doesn’t know her sister or can’t understand her pain. (average)

37 Things I Love (in no particular order) by Kekla Magoon shows how to adapt to serious life changes when Ellis watches her father taken off life support after a construction accident. (average)

History buff

Copper Sun by Sharon Draper is a historical fiction young adult novel about Amari, who is ripped from her fiancé, family, and home country in Africa, sold into slavery with a brutal and cruel family, and manages a unique escape not to the North but to the South. (average)

Code Talker: A Novel about the Navajo Marines of World War Two by Joseph Bruchac is the true story of the Navajo enlisted by the U.S. Marines to create communication code that the Japanese could not break. (complex)

Butterfly Yellow by Thanhha Lai is about main character Hang’s long and sometimes strange journey to reunite with her brother when he makes it out on a transport to the United States. and she does not. (average)

Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse is the incredible story of fourteen-year-old Billie Jo, who survives and finds hope during the depression after the Oklahoma dustbowl destroys her family and dreams. (easy)

Bull Run by Paul Fleischman lets you hear the story of how the famous Battle of Bull Run happened through the voices of sixteen different participants, from a top officer to a wife to a drummer boy. (easy)

Fantastic fantasy tales

The Hobbit, or There and Back Again by J.R.R. Tolkien is a timeless fantasy tale about Bilbo Baggin’s life in the shire with his wizard friend, Gandolf, setting up the Lord of the Rings trilogy. (average)

The Ash Princess trilogy by Laura Sebastian is part of a very popular dark fantasy series where a young girl’s throne is cruelly stolen and she must fight to gain her rightful place on the throne again. (average)

The Wicked King by Holly Black is a part of a series and tells the story of Jude, a female mortal, living in the evil high court of Faerie, who learns to survive despite the king’s cruel and wicked attacks. (average)

An Affair of Poisons by Addie Thorley is a story about a teenage alchemist who learns that, instead of being heroes of the people, alchemists are murderers, herself included. (average)

A Blade So Black by L.L. McKinney shows how Alice—a typical teen trying to do well in school, keep friends, and deal with her overprotective mother—has to also learn to fight the monstrous creatures that evade her dark dream realm known as Wonderland. (average)

Popular series

The Crank series by Ellen Hopkins includes Crank, Glass, and Fallout about a young woman named Kristina who becomes addicted to “the monster” (crystal meth), and while on the drug, she turns into someone different who in her mind is better than who she is. (complex)

The Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins comprises three titles: The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay. In the dystopian nation of Panem, one boy and one girl from each district are chosen to participate in the Hunger Games, where they are forced to fight to the death on television. (average)

The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling includes Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. This famous series chronicles the story of boy wizard Harry, who is born from very famous wizarding parents who die at the hand of a dark lord, Voldemort. (easy)

The Selection series by Kierra Cass is a five-book series where you learn which of the thirty-five girls will be given a chance to escape their rigid caste system and step into the palace and how the one selected doesn’t want the crown. (average)

The Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare is a six-book series where you enter the world of the Shadowhunters, a breed of people whose mission is to rid the city of demons. (complex)

Graphic novels

American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang is the story of middle-school student Jin Wang, who spins three different story lines about his life as both Asian and American and then brings them all together at the end. (average)

Anya’s Ghost by Vera Brosgol tells the story of Anya, who blames her struggles on her Russian immigrant family and her private, snobby friends until she falls into a well and discovers a ghost who, like Moaning Myrtle in the Harry Potter series, becomes her constant and clingy companion. (easy)

The Complete Maus by Art Spiegelman is a graphic novel about the author’s father who was a Holocaust survivor. The Nazis are depicted as cats, the Jewish people as mice, and the American soldiers as dogs. (complex)

tells the true story of Satrapi’s childhood living with a loving and progressive family during the Islamic revolution in Tehran and how she has to navigate her teen years and her private and public life during violent and political times. (average)The Complete Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

March, by John Lewis and Andrew Ayden and illustrated by Nate Powell, is a beautifully illustrated nonfiction graphic novel trilogy telling the stories of the civil rights movement through the eyes of U.S. congressman and civil rights leader John Lewis. (average)

Popular sports novels

The Contender by Robert Lipsyte is a classic young adult novel about a high school dropout named Alfred who discovers boxing, and it changes his life and keeps him off the streets. (average)

The Running Dream by Wendelin Van Draanen is about a teen named Jessica whose running dreams are crushed when her leg is crushed in a car accident, but who finds a friend and a way to run again. (average)

The Crossover by Kwame Alexander is the story of a twelve-year-old basketball prodigy who is on top of the world until his world crashes and the game changes. (easy)

Staying Fat for Sarah Brynes by Chris Crutcher reveals the true friendship of two friends and outcasts, Eric and Sarah, and how after swimming slimmed Eric, he vows to stay fat for Sarah, but you will have to read to learn why. (average)

Let Me Play: The Story of Title IX, the Law that Changed the Future of Girls in America by Karen Blumenthal tells the story of how women, lawmakers, activists, and athletes helped changed the law in 1972 so that women could play sports, too. (complex)

Disability representation in YA lit

A Boy Called Bat by Elana K. Arnold features a boy with autism named Bat, Bixby Alexander Tam, who learns to trust and make friends with his real-life pet bat. (easy)

The Wild Book by Margarita Engle tells the true story of Fefa living in Cuba in 1912 who struggles with her word blindness but who ends up saving her family’s life because of her unique disability. (easy)

Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco X. Stork tells the story of seventeen-year-old Marcello who is on the autism spectrum and whose father insists that his son, instead of just attending a special school, learn about the real world—and when he does, he is able to solve a serious real-world problem. (average)

Mockingbird by Kathryn Erskine tells the story of Caitlin who has Asperger’s syndrome and struggles with emotions but has to learn to grieve when her beloved brother, Devon, is killed in a school shooting. (average)

You’re Welcome, Universe by Whitney Gardner is the story of deaf Indian American Jordyn and how she goes from being kicked out of school for her graffiti to using her graffiti as her art and voice. (complex)

There are hundreds of categories and themes and literally hundreds of books I could talk to you about, but this book would be too long! Read through my descriptions and head to your teacher’s book shelves, your school or public library, or to the websites I suggested. Why not take a friend? Read a book together so you can talk about it. Remember, I included only books that my students swear are the best! Some of the books have now become my favorites, too.

Reflect on what you have learned!

1. What will you do next time when you are looking for a good book to read? What tools will you take with you?

2. List three books mentioned in this chapter that sound so interesting that you must check them out.

BRAIN TICKLERSSet # 9

When you answer the following questions, remember to use the strategies discussed in Chapter Two on how to answer multiple-choice questions.

1. Who is the best source for helping you in finding a good book to read?

a. Your grandparents

b. Your teachers

c. Your neighbor

d. Your friends

2. When browsing for a book, remember to first

a. look in a section you are interested in like biographies or fantasy.

b. read the last page to find out what happens.

c. read the reviews written by the experts.

d. look at the cover to see if there is any interesting artwork.

3. One of the benefits of using the internet to find good books is that

a. you can find out how hard the book is.

b. you can read reviews written by other students.

c. you can see the artwork in the book.

d. you can find out what parents think of the book.

(Answers are on page 164.)