Lexile by 761L to 950L

Two main factors influence reader engagement – how interesting the books are and how difficult they are to read. Lexile measures are indicators of book difficulty or text complexity. MetaMetrics’ Lexile Framework for Reading calculates a book’s text complexity based on word frequency and sentence length.

According to the Common Core State Standards, students should read books at a Lexile level of 770 or above by the time they are in Grade 4; a Lexile level of 955 or above by the time they are in Grade 6; and a Lexile level of 1080 or above by the time they are in Grade 9. However, some books may have a lower Lexile level but have a highly complex narrative due to their content and length. For this reason, the Common Core State Standards encourage teachers to consider other criteria, such as the plot and character themes and book-length when selecting books for their classroom.

A Child Called “It”

Pelzer writes about his abusive mother who singles him out among his siblings for repeated emotional and physical punishment.

A Single Shard

Tree-ear is an orphan who lives under a bridge. He wants nothing more than to watch master potter Min at work, and dreams of making a pot of his own someday.

Adventure of Ulysses

The mythological wanderings of Odysseus are recounted by the Greek epic poet, Homer. (Circa 550 B.C.)

All Quiet On The Western Front

This novel depicts the experiences of a group of young German soldiers fighting and suffering during the last days of World War I.

An Island Like You

Interconnected short stories feature life in Puerto Rico and in a New Jersey neighborhood. The Latino characters indulge in rivalries, a project to bring live theater to the barrio, and other activities.

Beardance

Cloyd Atcitty returns to the high country with his rancher friend Walter. Walter is searching for a lost cache of Spanish gold and Cloyd is hoping to find a family of grizzly bears.

Before We Were Free

Twelve-year-old Anita is living in the Dominican Republic in 1960. The secret police have started terrorizing her family for their suspected opposition to the country's dictator.

Bridge to Terabithia

Jess and Leslie become special friends as they create a magical secret world that they call Terabithia.

Bud, Not Buddy

Bud Caldwell is an orphan on the run during the Great Depression. One dilemma after another uncovers a tough character who perseveres and triumphs in his adventure.

Buried Onions

See the barrio life seen through the eyes of a young man desperately seeking a way out. All Eddie wants is to get by, hold down a job, and walk a straight line into the future.

Cannery Row

The adventures and misadventures of cannery workers living in the run-down waterfront section of Monterey, California, are recounted and exposed.

Code Talkers

Throughout World War II, in the conflict fought against Japan, Navajo code talkers were a crucial part of the U.S. effort, sending messages back and forth in an unbreakable code that used their native language.

Counting by 7's

Willow is a twelve-year-old genius. Her world is tragically changed when her parents both die in a car crash, leaving her alone.

Cry, the Beloved country

In the 1950s, a black South African accused of a crime turns to his minister father and a white attorney for help, but the racial problems of the country prevent justice from being served.

Dragonwings

In 1903 Moonshadow travels from a remote village in China to California to join his father, whom he has never seen. Despite tremendous difficulties and disasters, father and son struggle to build a life in San Francisco, working toward their dream of creating a dragon-like flying machine.

Fahrenheit 451

Guy Montage is a career fireman who lives in a world where thinking is dangerous and books are forbidden.

Flowers for Algernon

Algernon is a lab mouse and Charlie is a mentally disabled man. Find out how a brain operation increases Charlie’s IQ and changes his life and the life of Algernon.

Frindle

When he decides to turn his fifth-grade teacher's love of the dictionary around on her, Nick Allen invents a new word and begins a series of events that quickly move beyond his control.

Goodbye, Vietnam

When they realize that grandmother faces arrest in present-day Vietnam for following the old religion and practicing healing, the Vinh family decides to flee their small rice-growing village in the Mekong Delta and escape by sea to Hong Kong.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

The exciting experiences of Harry Potter are described as he goes from being an ordinary boy to being an unusual student at Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Heaven

When fourteen-year-old Marley discovers her parents are not her natural parents, her previously peaceful world is suddenly not what it seemed to be. This novel is useful for a discussion about adoption.

How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents

Interrelated stories describe the experiences of the four Garcia sisters before and after their family's exile from the Dominican Republic. The novel is set in New York in the 1960s.

I Am The Cheese

Imagine discovering that your whole life has been a fiction, your identity altered, and a new family history created.

I Lived on Butterfly Hill

Eleven-year-old Celeste lives peacefully in Chile-until one day when warships are spotted in the harbor and schoolmates start disappearing from class.

Joey Pigza Loses Control

When Joey Pigza meets his dad, Carter, for the first time in years, he meets a grown-up version of his old hyperactive self.

Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key

Joey Pigza is out of control because he has attention deficit disorder (ADD). After injuring another student, Joey finally gets the right professional help and starts to regain control of his actions.

Lord of the Flies

Stranded on an island when an atomic war destroys the rest of the world, a group of young boys revert to savagery as they struggle to survive.

Maniac Magee

Maniac is an "on-his-own" kid searching for a place that he can call home. When he sees no difference between the people of the East Side and the West Side, others begin to realize that Jeffrey "Maniac" Magee is truly the "stuff" from which legends are made.

My Brother Sam is Dead

The Meeker family is torn apart during the American Revolutionary War when one son joins the rebel forces and the rest of the family try to remain neutral in a divided town.

Nectar in a Sieve

This is a story of a simple peasant woman in a primitive village in India. Her entire life becomes a gallant, persistent battle to care for those she loves.

Nelson Mandela

South Africa has become known as the home of the world’s most famous former political prisoner. A prisoner who emerged to become an internationally respected statesman.

Paper Towns

Quentin has spent a lifetime loving adventurous Margo from afar. When she cracks open a window and climbs into his life-he follows.

Popcorn Days and Buttermilk Nights

Carley recalls the summer when, as a troubled fourteen-year-old, he came to northern Minnesota to stay with his Uncle David who was a blacksmith and gained not only new skills but also a new sense of himself.

Red Scarf Girl

Ji-Li Jiang is a highly-ranked student, exceptional athlete, and avid follower of Chairman Mao's new China until her family's bourgeois background brings persecution and wrecks her educational opportunities and dreams of a successful career.

Sarny

The Civil War is over, and Sarny has been released from the shackles of slavery. This sequel to Gary Paulsen's acclaimed novel, Nightjohn, follows Sarny as she searches for her children after the war.

Song of Solomon

Follow Milkman from his rustbelt city to the place of his family's origins. You will be introduced to a cast of strivers and seeresses, liars and assassins, the inhabitants of a fully realized black world.

Stuck in Neutral

A fourteen-year-old boy with cerebral palsy is unable to communicate and longs to make contact with others. Through his words, the reader learns that Shawn is bright, funny, occasionally sarcastic, and astonishingly optimistic.

Surviving the Applewhites

A troubled teen is sent to live with an eccentric family in this funny, contemporary story.

The Afterlife

Teenaged Chuy tells the story of what it is like for him to be dead, what he observes among the living in his former Fresno neighborhood, and how he alters his choices from those he made while living.

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

Malawi was a land withered by drought and hunger and where modern science was a mystery. William read about windmills and dreamed about building one to bring electricity and water to his village.

The Cay

In 1942 an elderly black man and a young white boy are victims of a shipwreck and are stranded on a Caribbean island.

The Circuit

These 12 poignant short stories about a family of migrant workers in the California fields are based on the author's own experiences. Each story describes the tenacity and courage of a family determined to build on its limited opportunities.

The First Part Last

In this prequel to HEAVEN, sixteen-year-old Bobby struggles between sleep deprivation, school pressures, and an increasing sense of fear as he cares for his infant daughter, Feather.

The Golden Compass

Lyra Belacqua is content to run wild among the scholars of Jodan College, with her daemon familiar always by her side. But the arrival of her fearsome uncle, Lord Asriel, draws her to the heart of a terrible struggle-a struggle born of Gobblers and stolen children, witch clans and armored bears.

The House on Mango Street

A young girl living in a Hispanic neighborhood in Chicago ponders her environment and evaluates her relationships with family and friends.

The Hunger Games

In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. Long ago the districts waged war on the Capitol and were defeated. As part of the surrender terms, each district agreed to send one boy and one girl to appear in an annual televised event called, "The Hunger Games," a fight to the death on live TV.