by Ernesto Cisneros Efren is an American-born child of illegal Mexican immigrants living in Southern California. When his mother is caught by immigration officers and deported, Efren must balance caring for his younger twin siblings with his own school work and friendships, while also helping his father find a way to bring his mother back. […]
by Meg Medina Merci Suarez starts 6th grade with big hopes of joining the soccer team and having a great year. But things don’t go as planned, and she must navigate unsettling family health issues and friends who are suddenly more interested in boys than in sports. This story felt so real to me, even […]
by Kwame Alexander Told entirely in short poems/rap, this is the story of Josh Bell and his family—including his twin brother and their basketball star father. I’m not big on basketball or poetry, but this was an incredibly cool way to tell a story, and a lot of the poems were really poignant. I loved […]
by Louis Sachar When Stanley Yelnats is convicted of a crime he didn’t commit, he has the choice either to go to prison or to Green Lake correctional camp. In the camp (where there is no actual lake), convicts are forced to dig five-foot holes, one a day, every day. But Stanley soon realizes that […]
by Neil Gaiman As a toddler, Nobody Owens climbs out of his crib and wanders out the front door and up the hill to the nearby cemetery, away from the house where the rest of his family is being murdered in their sleep. The ghostly citizens of the graveyard protect him from the killer who […]
by Kelly Barnhill A baby is taken from her screaming mother to be left in the woods for the (make believe) witch in the annual Day of Sacrifice. The (very real) witch rescues an abandoned baby and feeds her starlight on the way to finding her a new, loving home. Except that she accidentally feeds […]
by Scott O’Dell Karana’s people have always lived undisturbed on the Island of the Blue Dolphins—that is, until the Aleuts came to hunt otter and ended up killing half of the villagers. The rest of the villagers welcome the chance to leave the island a couple of years later when a ship comes to take […]
by Sharon Creech Sal goes on a 6-day road trip across the country with her grandparents to see the truth of her mother’s disappearance for herself. On the way, she tells them the story of her friend Phoebe, which parallels her own and helps her process the events of her own life. This book was […]
by Robert C. O’Brien Mrs. Frisby’s youngest son Timothy is ill, too ill to leave their cinderblock mouse house. Unfortunately, the house is in the middle of a field that the farmer is going to plow in less than a week, which will destroy the house—and anyone in it. Can Mrs. Frisby find anyone able […]
by Lois Lowry Jonas has grown up in an “ideal,” well-ordered community, where life is easy and comfortable and everyone is always polite. When, at 12, his classmates are assigned to their adult jobs for training, Jonas is not assigned. Instead he is selected to be the next Receiver of Memory. He learns from the […]