Good class reader for Yr 7

[lecce]

At the moment we only have 'Boy in the Striped Pyjamas' and 'Toad Rage'. The former is ruined because they have all seen the film and/or have 'done' it in Yr 6, and the latter I hate .

What do others do that is short enough to complete in 6-8 weeks and, basically, works?

We really need an update!

My Year 7s have always loved 'Millions'. Best check primary haven't nicked that too though!

Another great one is 'Jake's Tower'. Easy-ish and quite short but well-written and covers interesting issues in an accessible way. I love it.

Louis Sachar's Holes? (Not a teacher but both my kids loved this book at that age)

The Outsiders (currently doing with my very low ability year 10/11 but good for middle/high Y7)
Fire, Bed and Bone (love this, maybe a bit hard)
Pig Heart Boy
Noughts and Crosses
Cirque Du Freak
Stone Cold
Two weeks with the queen (I don't like this one though....)
Al Capone does my shirts (love this)

I say currently I mean in September, planning running away with me there.

Skellig?

Holes is way too easy for Y7, we do it with Y4.

Holes has always been a Year 8 text IME!

Holes is good for Year 7 mixed ability - it's great as a springboard for creative writing.

I like Framed by Frank Cottrell Boyce and might ask for a set of Cosmic one day as that's funny too. Kensuke's Kingdom is easy but a nice read - Private Peaceful is more hard-hitting (we do it with y8). Or War Horse.

I desperately want a new pre-1900 text for y7 as we do Christmas Carol and I am sick of it!

DS1 did Skellig I think.

Treasure Island.
The Time Machine.

The problem is with primaries having to produce challenge after challenge, I agree with alma.
We have done a lot of these texts with Y6 (leafy M-C area, highly literate children.)
Too late to email their primaries and check, unless you have all the Y6 teachers emails, but we've done Holes, Skellig, Pigheart Boy, lots of Morpurgo (Kensuke is Y4)

Good call on The Time Machine. I looked at Treasure Island but thought it might be too long.

Set chapters as reading and evaluating homework. Summaries and characterisation and whatnot. Language analysis.

Another vote for Holes. Or Cosmic (FCB).
I think DD had a Darren Shan book as class reader in yr5.
But reasonable for y7.

YY to Private Peaceful.

I just did Abomination by Robert Swindells with my Y7. They loved it. Also have a list of Y7 readers on my website here Of the books on the list Lion Boy is one I would particularly love to do with Y7 if I had the chance.

Thank you for all the ideas.

We do 'Holes' with yr8, though that is another I would like to replace - getting a bit sick of it now. Private Peaceful we also do with Yr 8. I love it, though find it hard to do it justice in the time we have.

I will be looking up and reading some of the other suggestions-

I do think it's a shame that primaries rush to do books aimed at older children. I wonder what the younger children can get from some of these texts. I haven't had a Yr7 class this year ut had to cover a colleague's class for 10 minutes recently. I asked how many had done it in Yr 6 and whether they minded doing it again and many said they were pleased to do it again as they hadn't understood it in Yr6 and hadn't done many activities. We are not in a high-achieving area, though.

Likewise, my Yr 8s last year had already done 'Holes'. My heart sank when they told me as it was too late for me to change texts. However, if they hadn't told me I wouldn't have known - they didn't seem to know it at all! Same thing happened with a few of my Yr8s this year and the Pullman play version of 'Frankenstein'.

I agree lecce, I'd rather wait until the majority were truly able to grasp the complexities if a text before tackling it.
But the push towards harder texts links with other changes, such as the new grammar expectations in Y6.
I prefer to have knowledge and understanding fully embedded as a base.