Book recs...

[telophase]

...posting this for puppleball, since more people read my journal than hers:

I'm looking for recommendations for SF books (or something that fits the
guidelines I have to work under). Basically, At a recent meeting it was brought
up how our students don't read enough, so I'm looking at incorporating more
reading into the science honors class.

1. I need appropriate books (probably one novel each, or one collection of
short stories, or something) for 6th, 7th and 8th grade. They need to be both
age appropriate (6th-11-12, 7th-12-13, 8th-13-14) and level appropriate. While
this is for honor science, the assumption that the kids are higher level
readers would be false for my school as I work with a high ESL/At Risk
population.

2. I need to be able to justify the book with the TEKS (the essential knowledge
and skills the kids are taught). How would the book fit into the curriculum.
For those who have been out of middle school for a while, TEKS breaks down into
these broad categories for middle school: Nature of Science, Physics,
Chemistry, Life, Earth and Space. We also do a bit of Technology and may be
able to work some ethics into it, but not centered. Basically I need to be able
to build lesson plans around this.

3. Price=Free. It needs to be easy to get these from a source we don't have to
pay for, either donated from a book store or directly from the publisher.
Considering my student population, I think that's doable. That being said, just
one class set for each grade level is all that's needed. I'm the only 8th
honors teacher, there's only one 7th and one 6th (though I need to double check
about the 6th).

So any suggestions/recommendations? Recommendations on how to incorporate the
particular book is also appreciated.