Instructions
For incoming 6th graders, students are required to read two books before the end of summer. One of those two books must be chosen from the first list below, and the second book may be chosen from either list. Learn more about Aestas Libri guidelines and requirements.
Book Report Form
Download the book report forms, and print out a copy for each of the books read. Book report forms are specific to each grade level and are not interchangeable. Both book reports are required to be submitted on the first day of school, and will result in a literature completion grade.
Choose 1 Required Book
Crispin: The Cross of Lead
by AVI
Falsely accused of theft and murder, an orphaned peasant boy in fourteenth-century England flees his village and meets a larger-than-life juggler who holds a dangerous secret.
ISBN 978-0-7868-1658-3
Matilda Bone
by Karen Cushman
Fourteen-year-old Matilda, an apprentice bonesetter and practitioner of medicine in a medieval English village, tries to reconcile the spiritual and practical aspects of her life.
ISBN 978-0-547-72242-9
Choose 1 additional Book
Lillian Trasher: The Greatest Wonder in Egypt
by Janet Benge
A biography of the American missionary woman who founded an orphanage in Egypt in the early 1900s, when Egyptians were rebelling against their British overlords, where she trusted God to provide for the thousands of children in her care. ISBN 978-1-57658-305-0
The Great Brain
by John Dennis Fitzgerald
The exploits of the Great Brain of Adenville, Utah, are described by his younger brother, frequently the victim of the Great Brain’s schemes for gaining prestige or money. ISBN 978-0-14-240058-6
Old Yeller
by Fred Gipson
In the late 1860s in the Texas hill country, a big yellow dog and a fourteen-year-old boy form a close, loving relationship. ISBN 978-0-06-440382-5
Misty of Chincoteague
by Marguerite Henry
Two youngsters’ determination to own a Chincoteague pony is greatly increased when the Phantom and her colt are among those rounded up for the yearly auction. ISBN 978-1-41692-783-9
The Phantom Tollbooth
by Norton Juster
Milo, a young boy with little interest in anything, takes a trip through the Phantom Tollbooth to the Lands Beyond where he meets an enchanting cast of characters that teaches him the importance of words, numbers, ideas, creativity, and enthusiasm for life. ISBN 978-0-394-82037-8
Big Red
by Jim Kjelgaard
A trapper’s son and a champion Irish Setter roam wilderness areas and grow to maturity together. ISBN 978-0-8234-2391-0
Mara, Daughter of the Nile
by Eloise Jarvis McGraw
The adventures of an ingenious Egyptian slave girl who undertakes a dangerous assignment as a spy in the royal palace of Thebes, in the days when Queen Hatshepsut ruled. ISBN 978-0-14-031929-3
Mary, Bloody Mary
by Carolyn Meyer
Mary Tudor, who would reign briefly as Queen of England during the mid-sixteenth century, tells the story of her troubled childhood as daughter of King Henry VIII. ISBN 978-0-15-216456-0
Brian’s Winter
by Gary Paulsen
Instead of being rescued from a plane crash, as in the author’s book Hatchet, this story portrays what would have happened to Brian had he been forced to survive a winter in the wilderness with only his survival pack and hatchet. ISBN 978-0-307-92958-7
Men of Iron
by Howard Pyle
Young Myles Falworth, son of a fourteenth-century nobleman unjustly named as a traitor, sets out to reclaim his family’s honor in a quest that leads to knighthood and the defeat of his father’s betrayer. ISBN 978-1-60450-607-5
Summer of the Monkeys
by Wilson Rawlings
In the late 1800’s, a fourteen-year-old Ozark mountain boy spends the summer trying to recapture monkeys escaped from a traveling circus. ISBN 978-0-440-41580-0
The Eagle of the Ninth
by Rosemary Sutcliff
A young centurion ventures among the hostile tribes beyond the Roman Wall to recover the eagle standard of the Ninth, a legion which mysteriously disappeared under his father’s command. ISBN 978-0-312-64429-1
Outcast
by Rosemary Sutcliff
Cast out because of his Roman birth by the Celtic tribe that raised him, fifteen-year-old Beric feels increasingly bitter isolation when, after reaching a Roman settlement, he is sold into slavery and sentenced to serve in a galley for the rest of his life. ISBN 978-0-374-45673-3
Augusta Came to Kent
by Barbara Willard
In 597, Wolf, a young Angle, travels from Rome to England, the land of his birth, accompanying Prior Augustine, later to be known as St. Augustine of Canterbury, on his mission to bring Christianity to English soil. ISBN 978-1-883937-21-8
