Middle School Reads
The 28 books on this year's America's Battle of the Books list for grades 6-8.
A boy whose family is facing homelessness is visited by his old imaginary friend, a giant cat.
The son of a Nazi commandant befriends a boy on the other side of a concentration camp fence.
Nonfiction on how Lewis Hine's photographs of child coal workers helped end child labor.
A shepherd boy travels from Spain to Egypt in search of treasure and his personal legend.
On a road trip with her grandparents, Sal tells a friend's story while piecing together why her mother left.
In 1936 Michigan, an orphan sets out to find the jazz musician he believes is his father.
A photo-rich biography of Benjamin Franklin, from candle-maker's son to founding father.
The sequel to My Side of the Mountain: Sam's wilderness life is shaken when his sister runs off.
In a society that allows only two children per family, a hidden third child meets another like him.
In 1899 Washington State, the only girl in a Finnish immigrant family wants to do everything her brothers do.
A novel in verse: a boy on probation keeps a court-ordered journal while caring for his sick baby brother.
A girl raised by her grandmother on Cape Cod deals with friendship changes and questions about her mother.
A deaf girl who loves technology sets out to help a whale that sings at a frequency no other whale can hear.
A burned-out teacher is assigned the class nobody wants, and both sides surprise each other.
A young mapmaker joins Spanish conquistadors searching for gold and is later tried for withholding the king's share.
In twelfth-century Korea, orphaned Tree-ear apprentices himself to a master potter, enduring years of menial labor for a chance to learn the secrets of celadon glazing.
Sixth grader Rafe Khatchadorian sets out to break every rule in his middle school's code of conduct with his best friend, turning the dare into an escalating game that spirals further out of control than he planned.
Two girls get separated from their group on a hike in the Sierra Nevada and must survive.
A gifted 12-year-old loses both adoptive parents and builds an unlikely new family.
This collection of eleven short stories follows Mexican American kids and teens in Fresno, California, through baseball tryouts, first crushes, family expectations, and other everyday coming-of-age moments.
A Polynesian boy who fears the sea sets out alone in a canoe to prove his courage.
This nonfiction account follows the twelve-day manhunt for John Wilkes Booth after he assassinated Abraham Lincoln, tracking the conspirators and the chase through Maryland and Virginia to Booth's final standoff.
After the Civil War, the son of a white plantation owner and an enslaved mother works to buy land of his own.
Bilbo Baggins leaves his comfortable home to help a band of dwarves reclaim their treasure from the dragon Smaug.
A seventh grader spots a burglary through her binoculars and sets out to solve it.
A boy abandoned by his mother slowly builds a relationship with his distant father.
A girl disguises herself as a boy to ride with Kublai Khan's horses across Mongolia.
In 1971, a sixth grader wonders about hope and faith when a mysterious new boy joins her class.