ZM Summer Reading for NCCS Middle School Students 2018: Adventure

Eleven-year-old Brian's summer turns out a lot less boring than expected when he encounters a huge, wacky house in the forest and befriends the eccentric family that lives there. Grade 4-6 (Lexile: 790L)

Twelve-year-old Emily accidentally releases Gorgo, a carnivorous demon, from the magic Spellstone to which he is bound, and must join him in protecting the Stone from villains planning world domination. Grade 4-6 (Lexile: 700)

nne and her friends Penelope and Hiro are tasked with a quest that could start a war between the Hierarchy and the dragon clan, and so to avoid disaster, the three friends must face dragon trials, defeat robots, and circumvent bureaucracy. Grade 3-6

Buck discovers that the world in his favorite novels is real, and he must intervene in a war between gnomes and trolls . Grade 4-6

Coming of age on an island where people prepare for the afterlife before entering a turbulent whirlpool from which nobody returns, orphan Wren dreams of escaping her home on a trading boat only to be accidentally sucked into the whirlpool, where she discovers a reality beyond the abyss that is worse than anyone could have imagined. Grade 5-8 (Lexile: 690)

cursed child destined to die on her eleventh birthday is rescued and whisked away to a secret realm called Nevermoor and given the chance to compete for a place in a prestigious organization called the Wundrous Society. Grade 5+ (Lexile: 790)

nne and her friends Penelope and Hiro are tasked with a quest that could start a war between the Hierarchy and the dragon clan, and so to avoid disaster, the three friends must face dragon trials, defeat robots, and circumvent bureaucracy. Grade 3-6

In one of the last cities standing after the world fell to monsters, best friends Zed Kagari and Brock Dunderfel have high hopes for the future. Zed desperately wishes to join the ranks of the Mages Guild, where his status as Freestone's only half elf might finally be an asset. Brock, the roguishly handsome son of merchants, is confident he'll be welcomed into the ranks of the Merchants Guild. But just as it seems the boys' dreams have come true, their lives take a startling turn... and they find themselves members of the perilous Adventurers Guild.Grade 5-8 (Lexile: 790)

wo descendants of a cursed family whose hapless encounter with a golden swamp gator centuries earlier has consigned them to lives of hopeless bad luck attempt to reclaim their rightful destinies on a quest that forces them to consider if the story is pure legend. By the award-winning author of Circus Mirandus. Grade 4-6 (Lexile: 680)

Aspiring to join other lucky finalists who are testing Mr. Lemoncello's fabulous new game, Kyle researches interesting facts about notable Americans only to stumble on a few less-than-encouraging truths about his hero. Grade 3-6 (Lexile: 750)

Eleven-year-old Travis and twelve-year-old Stacey, separated from their families after being thrown into the Pacific off the coast of Washington, battle hypothermia as they struggle to survive. Includes Coast Guard-approved cold-water survival tips. Grade 3-5 (Lexile: 540)

When her parents, the great marine scientists Dr. and Dr. Quail, are killed in a tragic accident, eleven year old Fidelia Quail is racked by grief. But she is forced out of her mourning when she's kidnapped by Merrick the Monstrous, a pirate whose list of crimes stretches longer than a ribbon eel. Her task? Use her marine know-how to retrieve his treasure, lost on the ocean floor. As Fidelia and the pirates close in on the prize, with the navy hot on their heels, she realizes that Merrick doesn't expect to live long enough to enjoy his loot. Could something other than black-hearted greed be driving him? Will Fidelia be able to master the perils of the ocean without her parents - and piece together the mystery of Merrick the Monstrous before it's too late? Grade 4-7

Although separated by continents and decades, Josef, a Jewish boy living in 1930s Nazi Germany; Isabel, a Cuban girl trying to escape the riots and unrest plaguing her country in 1994; and Mahmoud, a Syrian boy in 2015 whose homeland is torn apart by violence and destruction, embark on harrowing journeys in search of refuge, discovering shocking connections that tie their stories together. Grade 5-7 (Lexile: 800)

nne and her friends Penelope and Hiro are tasked with a quest that could start a war between the Hierarchy and the dragon clan, and so to avoid disaster, the three friends must face dragon trials, defeat robots, and circumvent bureaucracy. Grade 3-6

An epic alternate history series about three kids who try to solve the greatest mystery of the modern world: a puzzle and treasure hunt laid into the very streets and buildings of New York City.
It was 1798 when the Morningstarr twins arrived in New York with a vision for a magnificent city: towering skyscrapers, dazzling machines, and winding train lines, all running on technology no one had ever seen before. Fifty-seven years later, the enigmatic architects disappeared, leaving behind for the people of New York the Old York Cipher--a puzzle laid into the shining city they constructed, at the end of which was promised a treasure beyond all imagining. By the present day, however, the puzzle has never been solved, and the greatest mystery of the modern world is little more than a tourist attraction.
Tess and Theo Biedermann and their friend Jaime Cruz live in a Morningstarr apartment--until a real estate developer announces that the city has agreed to sell him the five remaining Morningstarr buildings. Their likely destruction means the end of a dream long held by the people of New York. And if Tess, Theo, and Jaime want to save their home, they have to prove that the Old York Cipher is real. Which means they have to solve it.
Grade 5-8

When thirteen-year-old Max Tilt happens upon his great-great-great-grandfather Jules Verne’s unfinished, unpublished manuscript, The Lost Treasures, he doesn’t realize that he’s found the answers to all his problems. And Max has a lot of problems—his mother is sick, his father is out of work, and his home is about to be foreclosed on. But when Max and his cousin Alex discover that Verne’s last work reveals everything he wrote was fact, not fiction, they realize that the book holds the key to something incredibly valuable. A treasure that can save his house—and maybe his entire family.

But Max and Alex aren’t the only ones who know about Verne’s clues. Spencer Niemend, a strange skunk-haired man who has spent his life researching Verne’s works, is bent on reshaping the world with the hidden treasure. To find it first, Max and Alex must go on an adventure that’ll take them from the broken remains of an underwater city to the very jaws of a giant squid to the edges of a whirlpool from which no one has ever emerged alive. Grade 4-6

While working in a mine on another planet, Daniel Coldstar finds a powerful relic that may help him escape from the masters who have stolen his memories. Gradde 4-7 (Lexile: 760)

est-selling author Rick Riordan introduces this adventure by Roshani Chokshi about twelve-year-old Aru Shah, who has a tendency to stretch the truth in order to fit in at school. While her classmates are jetting off to family vacations in exotic locales, she'll be spending her autumn break at home, in the Museum of Ancient Indian Art and Culture, waiting for her mom to return from her latest archeological trip. Is it any wonder that Aru makes up stories about being royalty, traveling to Paris, and having a chauffeur? One day, three schoolmates show up at Aru's doorstep to catch her in a lie. They don't believe her claim that the museum's Lamp of Bharata is cursed, and they dare Aru to prove it. Just a quick light, Aru thinks. Then she can get herself out of this mess and never ever fib again. But lighting the lamp has dire consequences. She unwittingly frees the Sleeper, an ancient demon whose duty it is to awaken the God of Destruction. Her classmates and beloved mother are frozen in time, and it's up to Aru to save them. The only way to stop the demon is to find the reincarnations of the five legendary Pandava brothers, protagonists of the Hindu epic poem, the Mahabharata , and journey through the Kingdom of Death. But how is one girl in Spider-Man pajamas supposed to do all that? Grade 3-6 (Lexile: 630)

Intrigued by the activities of a young band of pickpockets who steal from him and others in a busy square in Marseille, lonely Charley Fisher, the son of an American diplomat, infiltrates the group before enrolling in the mysterious School of Seven Bells to learn the tricks of the trade to become an elite Whiz Mob thief. Grade 5-8 (Lexile: 840)

An epic alternate history series about three kids who try to solve the greatest mystery of the modern world: a puzzle and treasure hunt laid into the very streets and buildings of New York City.
It was 1798 when the Morningstarr twins arrived in New York with a vision for a magnificent city: towering skyscrapers, dazzling machines, and winding train lines, all running on technology no one had ever seen before. Fifty-seven years later, the enigmatic architects disappeared, leaving behind for the people of New York the Old York Cipher--a puzzle laid into the shining city they constructed, at the end of which was promised a treasure beyond all imagining. By the present day, however, the puzzle has never been solved, and the greatest mystery of the modern world is little more than a tourist attraction.
Tess and Theo Biedermann and their friend Jaime Cruz live in a Morningstarr apartment--until a real estate developer announces that the city has agreed to sell him the five remaining Morningstarr buildings. Their likely destruction means the end of a dream long held by the people of New York. And if Tess, Theo, and Jaime want to save their home, they have to prove that the Old York Cipher is real. Which means they have to solve it.
Grade 5-8

Like Birdie Adams didn't have enough problems this summer. But Birdie's Birdie. And if a long-buried box has Open If You Dare written on its lid, then she and her best friends, Ally and Rose, are going to open it. And now, along with everything else that's going on--Ally's pitching slump, Rose's banishment to Britain, and Birdie's annoying younger sister being, you know, annoying--the best friends are caught up in having to solve a mystery from forty years ago, following clues planted by a dead girl. Grade 4-6 (Lexile: 550)

fter becoming undead, a boy tries to survive middle school.

Adrian Lazarus has met with a curious fate. He's returned from the dead (after a bad bike accident, no helmet), yet not a lot has changed. He's always been an outcast. But it's not just being a zombie that makes Adrian feel different. He notices the world has changed, too: bees are vanishing, forest fires are burning, super-flus are spreading. The holographic advertisements in the night sky assure people that all is well. Adrian and his friends - a beekeeping boy, a mysterious new girl, and a seventh-grade sleuth - aren't so sure.

When they discover a birdlike drone has been spying on Adrian, the clues lead to two powerful corporate moguls. What do they really want? Grade 5-8 (Lexile: 660)