6th/7th grade level? That must be some school. :'D
Mellaart got kicked out of Turkey over something else (he was basically an innocent victim IMHO) and only unearthed about 3 per cent of Catal Huyuk, but there's an active excavation there now, and Mellaart is no longer banned from the country. There's the official site for Catal Huyuk, but that's not really got much zip to it. Kids need mooooore. I recommend this site, which is by a friend of mine:
http://xenohistorian.faithweb.com/neareast/index.html
In books, the late Samuel Noah Kramer's "The Sumerians" is not all that thick, and would be good for kids to read. It also has the virtue of being more up to date than Woolley, the early excavator.
Mellaart's 1960 book on Near Eastern prehistory is actually not bad despite its age (and its author, who is a little bit unreliable) but probably not suitable for kids.
"Plato Prehistorian" (ostensibly an exploration of the Atlantis legend) discusses Mellaart's and others' studies of Catal Huyuk, although it is pretty long, and I'm sure way too dry for kids to read.
Do a web search for "Babylonian Chronicle" and "Synchronistic Chronicle", and see what turns up. Those are ancient accounts which overlap and contain similar information about kings, wars, crises, that kind of thing. Also, check for the Assyrian King List (several nearly identical ancient copies have turned up over the years).
Other searches which may be of interest include Jericho (occupation goes back at least 8000 years); the Preceramic culture which left the mainland and paddled off for Cyprus, where it established itself, approximately 8000 years BP; Anshan, the formerly lost capital city of Elam, which reportedly turned up about five years ago under some Iranian mound; also "The Curse of Agade" and of course, this:
Meteor Clue To End Of Middle East Civilisations
The Telegraph (UK) | 11-04-2001 | Robert Matthews
Posted on 01/03/2002 10:50:09 PM PST by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/601395/posts
Evidence for Major Impact Events in the late Third Millennium BC
Evidence of Astronomical Aspects of Mankind's Past and Recent Climate Homepage | FR Post 9-4-2 | Timo Niroma
Posted on 09/04/2002 4:48:54 PM PDT by vannrox
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/744698/posts
An Impact Event in 3114BC? The beginning of a Turbulent Millennium.
http://personal.eunet.fi/pp/tilmari/tilmari3.htm#bc3114
Posted on 01/03/2003 8:06:06 PM PST by ckilmer
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/816604/posts
Drop me an email soon, I may have more to send.
Sunkenciv, that's a good one, but I admit the oldest papers linked to that page (Chapters 1-4) need to be updated. I first wrote them in 1991, and they don't reflect recent archaeological discoveries like Tel Brak, Hamoukar, Urkesh, or the intact tombs of four Assyrian queens found at Calah. I'll probably do the updates in 2006, after I get done with the African history project I'm working on now.
For now, may I first recommend this page from "The Genesis Chronicles": http://xenohistorian.faithweb.com/genesis/gen12.html
It covers how civilization got started in the years around 3000 B.C. There I talk about why civilization fully developed in Egypt and Mesopotamia, but only progressed to a point and stopped in places like Catal Huyuk. Recently I also added a section entitled "Ecology and Civilization," where I try to explain why the civilizations of Europe, the Middle East and northern Asia were the most successful, in the long run.