Middle School (Grades 6–8)

Middle school students working on computers in a classroom, with a teacher assisting.

The book selection for the middle grades includes fantasy, realistic fiction, and historical fiction. Students get to read about personal narratives related to social problems, such as violation of basic human rights and the struggle of immigrants. When selecting books, educators should take into account language complexity, book-length, graphic descriptions of violence, and students’ prior knowledge about the topics highlighted in the book.

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.)

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.

Any Small Goodness: A Novel of the Barrio

This story is about a Mexican-American family in East L.A. where random acts of generosity and goodwill improves the lives of the community.

Anything But Typical

A 12-year-old with autism spectrum disorder meets his first real friend online when he posts his original stories.

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.

Breaking Through

Since coming from Mexico to California ten years ago, fourteen-year-old Francisco is still working in the fields, fighting to "break through" to improve his life and complete his education.

Bronx Masquerade

Grimes features the voices of 18 urban youths who share their innermost feelings in their open mike poetry presentations.

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.

Call of the Wild

The story opens at a ranch in the Santa Clara Valley of California when Buck is stolen from his home and sold into service as a sled dog in Alaska.

Child of the Owl

The story is set in 1960 in San Francisco's Chinatown. Casey, a Chinese American teen, slowly discovers the value of her Chinese heritage while living with her grandmother.

A Christmas Carol

"Bah Humbug!" said Scrooge. With those famous words, a tale unfolds that renews the joy and caring that are Christmas.

Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice

On March 2, 1955, an impassioned teenager, fed up with the daily injustices of Jim Crow segregation, refused to give her seat to a white woman on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama.

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.

Crossing the Wire

Fifteen-year-old Victor Flores heads north from Mexico so he can find work and send money home to his family.

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.

Esperanza Rising

This novel tells of a Mexican girl's fall from riches and her immigration to California in the 1930s. The story highlights her awareness of Mexico's post-revolution tensions, the rivalry with Oklahoma Dust Bowl victims, and struggles of Mexican workers trying to organize themselves to ask the U.S. government for better living conditions.

Framed in Fire

Peter Larson has an increasingly hostile relationship with his verbally abusive stepfather, Buck, and some scuffles at school, but is basically a good kid.

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.

Hatchet

After a plane crash, thirteen-year-old Brian survives 54 days in the wilderness, initially with only the aid of a hatchet given to him by his mother.

Holes

Seventeen-year-old Dijo (a victim in the real-life 1991 firebombing of a boys' shelter) is remembered by a girl named Jeremie, who cares for him in the hospital after he has been beaten in an unprovoked attack.

HUSH

A middle-class African American family is forced to enter the federal witness protection program after the father decides to testify against two policemen who killed an innocent boy.

I Am The Cheese

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

I Heard the Owl Call My Name

Kingcome’s younger generation is disenchanted and alienated from its heritage. And now, coming upriver is a young vicar, Mark Brian, on a journey of discovery that can teach him-and us- about life, death and the transforming power of love.

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.

If You Come Softly

This novel presents a gently told story of an interracial romance between Jeremiah, a fifteen-year-old African American, whose parents have just separated, and Ellie, an upper-middle-class Jewish girl. The story is told in alternating chapters by Ellie and Jeremiah.

Jesse

To escape a home dominated by his alcoholic stepfather, 17-year-old Jesse abruptly leaves high school, moves into an apartment with his older brother, and takes classes at Fresno City College.

Lisa, Bright and Dark

Lisa is smart, attractive, and seemingly successful, so her parents and teachers are unwilling to admit that she is struggling with a mental illness.

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.

Masterminds

A group of kids living in a Pleasantville-type town connect to some of the greatest criminal masterminds of their time after discovering a dark secret.

Miracle's Boys

Set in contemporary Harlem, this novel tells of three African-American brothers who are left alone after their mother's passing.

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.

Nightjohn

Nightjohn, an enslaved African American, risks severe punishments by teaching a young slave girl to read.

Nothing But the Truth

Ninth-grader Philip hums in his homeroom during the playing of the National Anthem, bringing him a suspension that gains national media attention.

Number the Stars

In 1943, during the German occupation of Denmark, ten-year-old Annemarie learns how to be courageous when she helps to shelter her Jewish friend from the Nazis.

Out of the Dust

A tribute to hope and inner strength, fourteen-year-old Billie Jo is dealing with unspeakable loss during the Great Depression.

Parvana's Journey

After her father's death, 13-year-old Parvana, disguised as a boy, wanders alone through the war-torn Afghanistan looking for her mother and siblings who had disappeared in the tumult of the Taliban takeover of Mazar-e-Sharif.

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.

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry

Set in Mississippi during the 1930s, this modern classic portrays the struggles of the Logan family, determined to retain the land they own in the face of threats, harassment, and prejudice.

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.

Seedfolks

When a young Vietnamese girl plants some bean seeds in a vacant lot because she misses her family, the beginnings of a community project emerge.

Shadow Spinner

In this story, Jimmy learns about his father and about himself, finding out that while things can’t always be fixed, sometimes they can be understood, and maybe even forgiven.

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.

Taste of Salt: A Story of Modern Haiti

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 Art of Keeping Cool

Fear permeates the Rhode Island coastal town where Robert, his mother, and sister are living out the war with his paternal grandparents: Fear of Nazi submarines offshore. Fear of Abel Hoffman, a German artist living reclusively outside of town. And for Robert, a more personal fear, of his hot-tempered, controlling grandfather.

The Breadwinner

Since the Taliban took over Afghanistan, 11-year-old Parvana has rarely been outdoors. Barred from attending school, shopping at the market, or even playing in the streets of Kabul, the heroine of The Breadwinner is trapped inside her family's one-room home.

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 Contender

Alfred begins going to Donatelli’s Gym, a boxing club in Harlem that has trained champions. There he learns it’s the effort, not the win, that makes the man.

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 Girl Who Owned a City

When a plague sweeps over the earth killing everyone except children under twelve, ten-year-old Lisa organizes a group to rebuild a new way of life.

The Giver

Jonas lives in a seemingly utopian society. He is about to experience the Ceremony of Twelve to determine his role in life. Little does he know that he will discover the secret memories of his dystopian society.

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 Hobbit

In the land of Middle Earth - inhabited by dwarves, elves, goblins, dragons, and humans - Bilbo Baggins, the hobbit, encounters many adventures when he is persuaded to join a band of dwarves on an expedition to recover a stolen treasure hidden by a thieving dragon.

The Jungle

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair is a novel that unveils the corruption and bad practices of the meatpacking industry during the early 20th century.

The Lightning Thief

After learning that he is the son of a mortal woman and Poseidon, god of the sea, twelve-year-old Percy is sent to a summer camp for demigods like himself, and joins his new friends on a quest to prevent a war between the gods.

The Maze

Rick Walker is a troubled teen who breaks out of Blue Canyon Youth Detention Center and becomes a stowaway in a pickup truck headed into Utah's canyons.

The Outside Shot

Recruited by a small Midwestern college to play basketball, Lonnie Jackson, a Harlem boy has many new experiences, including working with a child who needs physical therapy and dealing with corruption in college sports.

The Outsiders

Fourteen-year-old Ponyboy is loyal to his brothers and his gang from the wrong side of the tracks. Ponyboy is caught in a turbulent chain of events after his best friend kills a member of a rival gang.

The Pigman

When sophomores John and Lorraine played a practical joke a few months ago on a stranger named Angelo Pignati they had no idea that they were starting. Virtually overnight, almost against their will, the two befriended the lonely old man.

The Skin I'm In

Thirteen-year-old Maleeka, uncomfortable because her skin is extremely dark, meets a new teacher with a birthmark on her face. She learns how to value who she is and to accept what she looks like.

The Truth about Truman School

Zebby and Amr create a website about the real Truman Middle School. They want to say things that the school newspaper would never say.

The Westing Game

A bizarre chain of events begins when sixteen unlikely people gather for the reading of Samuel W. Westing’s will.

Tunes for Bears to Dance To

After his brother’s death, Henry moves with his parents to a new town, where he meets and befriends Mr. Levine, an elderly survivor of the Holocaust who spends his days craving a replica of his childhood village.

Under the Blood Red Sun

This novel depicts 1941 Hawaii through the eyes of a thirteen-year-old Japanese American boy, Tomi Nakaji, as he struggles with the racism, violence, and hardship that arise when his father and grandfather are wrongfully arrested after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.