The Texas Lone Star list is a recommended reading list developed by public and school librarians from the Young Adult Round Table. The purpose of the list is to encourage students in grades 6, 7, or 8 to explore a variety of current books. The Lone Star list is intended for recreational reading, not to support a specific curriculum. Due to the diversity of this age range, Texas librarians should purchase titles on this list according to their individual collection policies. Each book on the list has been favorably reviewed for grades 6, 7, or 8 in a professional review source.

Berryhill, Shane. Chance Fortune and the Outlaws. Starscape, 2006.
Bryant, Jen. Pieces of Georgia: A Novel. Knopf, 2006.
Flinn, Alex. Beastly. HarperTeen, 2007.
Hale, Marian. Dark Water Rising. Holt, 2006.
Halls, Kelly Milner. Tales of the Cryptids: Mysterious Creatures That May or May Not Exist. Darby Creek, 2006.
Harper, Suzanne. The Secret Life of Sparrow Delaney. Greenwillow, 2007.
Haydon, Elizabeth. The Floating Island: The Lost Journals of Ven Polypheme. Starscape, 2006.
Holm, Jennifer L. Middle School is Worse than Meatloaf: A Year Told Through Stuff. Atheneum, 2007. Semicolon review here.
Korman, Gordon. Schooled. Hyperion, 2007.
Kostick, Conor. Epic. Viking, 2007.
Lurie, April. Brothers, Boyfriends, & Other Criminal Minds. Delacorte, 2007.
McNish, Cliff. Breathe: A Ghost Story. Carolrhoda, 2006.
Resau, Laura. What the Moon Saw: A Novel. Delacorte, 2006.
Salisbury, Graham. Night of the Howling Dogs. Wendy Lamb, 2007.
Schmidt, Gary D. The Wednesday Wars. Clarion, 2007. (I read part of this one, for what it’s worth, and didn’t care for it.)
Scott, Michael. Alchemyst: The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel. Delacorte, 2007.
Smith, Roland. Peak. Harcourt, 2007.
Sonnenblick, Jordan. Zen and the Art of Faking It. Scholastic, 2007.
Stead, Rebecca. First Light. Wendy Lamb, 2007.
Stewart, Trenton Lee. The Mysterious Benedict Society. Little, Brown, 2007. Semicolon review here.

Again, thanks to the Cybils, I’ve read a couple of these. There’s some category overlap since we’re considering some of these books as middle grade fiction (grades 3-7) for the Cybil, but the Lone Star Award is for middle school books (grades 6-8).