Mapleton Public Schools

Mapleton Reads
2023-24

Mapleton Reads, Mapleton Public Schools’ community reading program, returns for its 11th year! Everyone in the community, from students, to parents, and neighbors are invited to pick up any or all of this year’s book selections and read them through the fall and winter. Stacks of each book await readers at the district’s Welcome Center, the Mapleton Arts Center, and each schools’ main office. Take a look at the books’ summaries below and pick one up for yourself soon.

Elementary Level, K-5 
“You Belong Here,” by M.H. Clark

A classic bedtime story takes the reader around the world to observe plants and animals everywhere and reminds children that they are right where they belong. “You Belong Here” provides readers with many different examples in nature and around the world of belonging and how we all belong in the world.

Middle Level, Grades 6-8 
“Echo Mountain,” by Lauren Wolk

A young heroine in Depression-era Maine is navigating the rocky terrain of her new life on Echo Mountain.   

After the financial crash, Ellie and her family have lost nearly everything--including their home in town. They have started over, carving out a new life in the unforgiving terrain of the mountain. Though her sister, Esther, resents everything about the mountain, Ellie has found more freedom, a new strength, and a love of the natural world that now surrounds them. But there is little joy, even for Ellie, as they all struggle with the sorrow in the aftermath of an accident that left their father in a coma. An accident for which Ellie has accepted the unearned weight of blame. 
 
Urgent for a cure to bring her father back, Ellie is determined to try anything. Following her heart, and the lead of a scruffy mutt, Ellie will make her way to the top of the mountain, in search of the healing secrets of a woman known only as "the hag." But the mountain still has many untold stories left to reveal to Ellie, as she finds her way forward among a complex constellation of strong generations. 

High School Level, Grades, 9-12
“Long Way Down,” by Jason Reynolds 

This story is focused on a moment of a decision. It happens in an elevator, when fifteen-year-old Will is on his way to take revenge for the murder of his brother, using his brother’s gun. But his plan is interrupted by a few visitors on the way down to the ground floor. 

At each stop, someone connected to his brother gets on to give Will a piece to a bigger story than the one he thinks he knows. A story that might never know an END…if Will gets off that elevator.

Told in short, fierce staccato narrative verse, “Long Way Down” is a fast and furious, dazzlingly brilliant look at teenage gun violence.