top of page

 

Welcome to the 2018 Summer Reading List for students entering Class V in September!
 

This summer, you are required to read a total of five books.  Read the required book for Class V, The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin, plus four other books of your choice from the summer reading list. Of course, we welcome and encourage you to read more than five, if you’d like!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Keep a record of what you read by writing down the title and author of each book to share with your teacher and your classmates in September.

 

Students are asked to avoid reading the following works, which are part of the Middle School English curriculum:

 

The Witch of Blackbird Pond, Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry, Homeless Bird, A Single Shard, Black Ships Before Troy, Johnny Tremain, Beowulf the Warrior, Before We Were Free, The Miracle Worker, Forge, Fever, Chains, Ashes, The Outsiders, The House on Mango Street, A Raisin in the Sun, Animal Farm, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, This Boy’s Life, The Crucible, Macbeth, and Annie John.

 

A printable version of this list is available here.  If you are accessing this site from your cell phone, you will need to choose to view the desktop version of the site, not the mobile version.

   

This highly inventive mystery involves sixteen people who are invited to the reading of Samuel W. Westing’s will. They could become millionaires-it all depends on how they play the tricky and dangerous Westing game, a game involving blizzards, burglaries, and bombings! Ellen Raskin has created a remarkable cast of characters in a puzzle-knotted, word-twisting plot filled with humor, intrigue, and suspense.

Classics

Young Sam Gribley leaves New York City and spends a year living by himself in a remote area of the Catskill Mountains. No one knows where he is.  He has to live by his wits without help from any adults. 

Four lonely children explore an old wardrobe and find the fantasy world of Narnia, threatened by the evil spell of the White Witch.

A French professor and his two companions sail above and below the world's oceans as prisoners on the fabulous electric submarine of the deranged Captain Nemo.

In White's classic story about the boyhood of King Arthur, Wart—unaware of his true identity—is tutored by Merlyn, who occasionally transforms the young boy into various animals as a part of his schooling.

Fiction

"...there is..." Mrs. Tracy was saying quietly, "there is something we need to know about Jessica..." From this moment on, life is never quite the same for Tom and his seventh-grade classmates. They learn that Jessica has been in a fire and was badly burned, and will be attending St. Catherine's while getting medical treatments. Despite her horrifying appearance and the fear she evokes in him and most of the class, Tom slowly develops a tentative friendship with Jessica that changes his life.

Jackson is going into the fifth grade and has an imaginary 7 foot black and white cat with “cat-titude” following him around. Crenshaw, the imaginary friend is no stranger to Jackson.  He was there when Jackson’s family was homeless the first time around. Jackson was younger then and not embarrassed by Crenshaw but he feels he is way to grown-up now to have an imaginary friend, even if his family may soon be living out of their minivan again. Jackson is a boy who believes in science and things you can prove and doesn’t know why Crenshaw is back or what to do about it.  In his heart he fears it has to do with the financial problems his parents are having and the furniture which is slowly disappearing out of his home.

After her best friend dies in a drowning accident, Suzy is convinced that the true cause of the tragedy must have been a rare jellyfish sting because she knows that things don't just happen for no reason. The fact that she and her best friend had a falling out before this accident drives Suzy to craft a plan to prove her theory—even if it means traveling the globe, alone.  Once she explains this theory to her class in school she just knows it will all make sense and she will feel better.

Ava has a clubfoot that was never treated and can’t walk.  Her mother is cruel to her and hides her away, keeping her as a slave.   Only caring for her brother Jamie has made life tolerable. As Jamie grows up and goes out into the world, Ada is determined she will go too. She secretly begins to teach herself to walk, ever so painfully. When the day comes that the children are to be evacuated from London because of the war, Ada decides she will try to go with Jami to the train station, unbeknownst to her mother. Luckily, a stranger helps by carrying Ada to the train where they get evacuated with all the other children. They are taken in by a kind older woman named Susan. Life gets better, especially because of a pony named Butter, but things take a turn for the worse when Ada’s mother shows up and takes her home to London, where bombs are indeed falling!

This book introduces us to two orphaned sisters, Sabrina and Daphne, who are sent to live with their mysterious grandmother, Relda Grimm. Grandmother Grimm lives in a strange town in New York State, known for an extraordinary number of unexplained and unusual crimes. As soon as the sisters arrive, they begin to unravel a mystery that leads to their ancestors' magical beginnings.  There are many books in this series.  Read them all!

It's the start of fifth grade for seven kids at Snow Hill School. There's Jessica, the new girl, smart and perceptive, who's having a hard time fitting in; Alexia, a bully, your friend one second, your enemy the next; Peter, class prankster and troublemaker; Luke, the brain; Danielle, who never stands up for herself; shy Anna, whose home situation makes her an outcast; and Jeffrey, who hates school. Only Mr. Terupt, their new and energetic teacher, seems to know how to deal with them all. He makes the classroom a fun place, even if he doesn't let them get away with much.

Eleven-year-old Ant, stuck in a family that she does not like, copes by pretending that her "real" parents are coming to rescue her, by loving her dog Pistachio, by volunteering at the zoo, and by bending the truth and telling lies.

Thirteen-year-old Zinnia Taylor uncovers family secrets and self-truths while clearing a mysterious settler trail that begins on her family's farm in Kentucky.

"We are a family on a journey to a place called wonderful" is the motto of Deza Malone's family. Deza is the smartest girl in her class in Gary, Indiana, singled out by teachers for a special path in life. But the Great Depression has hit Gary hard, and there are no jobs for black men. When her beloved father leaves to find work, Deza, Mother, and her older brother Jimmie go in search of him, and end up in a Hooverville outside Flint, Michigan. Jimmie's beautiful voice inspires him to leave the camp to be a performer, while Deza and Mother find a new home, and cling to the hope that they will find Father.

As 10-year-old Raymie tells it, the only way to bring back her father, who has run away with a dental hygienist, is to become 1975's Little Miss Central Florida Tire. Surely when he sees her photo in the newspaper, he will come home. But first Raymie must learn to twirl a baton, which is how she comes to be at a twirling lesson flanked by world-weary, subversive Beverly Tapinski and fabulist Louisiana Elefante, a girl who faints at a drop of a hat (or a baton) but is actually stronger than she would have you believe.

In the old days, when Kate had no interest in romance, she never cared what other people thought. Now, it appeared, love was turning her into a rotten human being. Eleven-year-old Kate Faber wishes she could talk to her best friend, Marylin, about this. But Marylin is no longer her best friend. Or is she? They used to be the kind of best friends who didn't need words to talk, but who always just knew. Lately Marylin has started to think that Kate can be a bit babyish. And Kate thinks Marylin is acting like a big snob. Somehow nothing is the same, but secretly Kate and Marylin both wish it could be.

The first time she saw him, she flipped. The first time he saw her, he ran. That was the second grade, but not much has changed by the seventh. She says: "My Bryce. Still walking around with my first kiss." He says: "It's been six years of strategic avoidance and social discomfort." But in the eighth grade everything gets turned upside down. And just as he's thinking there's more to her than meets the eye, she's thinking that he's not quite all he seemed.

Stella lives in the segregated South—in Bumblebee, North Carolina. Some stores she can go into. Some stores she can’t. Some folks are right pleasant. Others are a lot less so. To Stella, it sort of evens out, and heck, the Klan hasn’t bothered them for years. But one late night, later than she should ever be up, much less wandering around outside, Stella and her little brother see something they’re never supposed to see, something that is the first flicker of change to come—unwelcome change by any stretch of the imagination. As Stella’s community—her world—is upended, she decides to fight fire with fire. And she learns that ashes don’t necessarily signify an end.

You just can't keep a good girl down . . . unless you use the proper methods. Piper McCloud can fly. Just like that, easy as pie. Sure, she hasn't mastered reverse propulsion and her turns are kind of sloppy, but she's real good at loop-the-loops. Problem is, the good folk of Lowland County are afraid of Piper. And her ma's at her wit's end. So it seems only fitting that she leave her parents' farm to attend a top-secret, maximum-security school for kids with exceptional abilities. School is great at first with a bunch of new friends whose skills range from super-strength to super-genius. But Piper is special, even among the special.

The close relationship of a pair of biracial twins is tested when their grandmother enters them in a pageant for African American girls.  When Minerva and Keira King were born, they made headlines: Keira is black like Mama, but Minni is white like Daddy.

Minni dreads the spotlight, but Keira assures her that together they'll get through their stay with Grandmother Johnson. But when grandmother's bias against Keira reveals itself, Keira pulls away from her twin. Minni has always believed that no matter how different she and Keira are, they share a deep bond of the heart. Now she'll find out if that is true.

The book club is about to get a makeover.... Even if Megan would rather be at the mall, Cassidy is late for hockey practice, Emma's already read every book in existence, and Jess is missing her mother too much to care, the new book club is scheduled to meet every month. But what begins as a mom-imposed ritual of reading Little Women soon helps four unlikely friends navigate the drama of middle school. From stolen journals, to secret crushes, to a fashion-fiasco first dance, the girls are up to their Wellie boots in drama.

When Sam, who can barely read, discovers an old newspaper clipping just before his eleventh birthday, it brings forth memories from his past, and, with the help of a new friend at school and the castle they are building for a school project, his questions are eventually answered.

After 12-year-old Lucy spots a foreclosure warning in the mail, she realizes that the smalltown Connecticut pharmacy owned and run by her mother and grandmother is in jeopardy. While Mom and Grandma argue about how to handle the crisis, Lucy, an aspiring makeup artist, joins her school’s Earth Club, researches green businesses, and hatches a plan to expand the pharmacy into an eco-spa.

It's a little strange for 11-year-old Ellie when her mother brings home a boy who looks to be about 13 but dresses like Ellie's grandfather. But it's a shocker when Ellie realizes that the kid is her grandfather! He is a scientist who has suddenly succeeded in reversing the aging process. The 13 year old grandpa goes to Ellie's middle school with her. Can you imagine that?  Grandpa convinces Ellie to sneak into his old lab and swipe what he needs to continue his research. What will happen to him?

Shug, as her family calls her, is beginning to think there's nothing worse than being twelve. She's too tall, too freckled, way too flat-chested and she is about to start junior high. She is sure that there is not one good or amazing thing about her.

Mila has been raised by dolphins. When the Coast Guard discovers her, she is taken to a research facility and has to adjust to living with humans. She slowly acquires language and develops a love for music. Her love for music gives her insight into the human world, and yet also allows her to remain connected to her dolphin world. 

Ally has been smart enough to fool a lot of smart people. Every time she lands in a new school, she is able to hide her inability to read by creating clever yet disruptive distractions.  She is afraid to ask for help; after all, how can you cure dumb? However, her newest teacher Mr. Daniels sees the bright, creative kid underneath the trouble maker. With his help, Ally learns not to be so hard on herself and that dyslexia is nothing to be ashamed of.

Lives of four misfits are intertwined when a bully's prank lands shy Virgil at the bottom of a well and Valencia, Kaori, and Gen band together in an epic quest to find and rescue him.

Calpurnia Virginia Tate is eleven years old in 1899 when she wonders why the yellow grasshoppers in her Texas backyard are so much bigger than the green ones. With a little help from her notoriously cantankerous grandfather, an avid naturalist, she figures out that the green grasshoppers are easier to see against the yellow grass, so they are eaten before they can get any larger. As Callie explores the natural world around her, she develops a close relationship with her grandfather, navigates the dangers of living with six brothers, and comes up against just what it means to be a girl at the turn of the century.

In a quiet Milwaukee suburb, Amina and her best friend Soojin grapple with their own ethnic identities and the pressure to Americanize. Soojin is Korean American and on the pathway to citizenship. She's contemplating changing her name to solidify her American identity, while Amina, who is Pakistani American, must reconcile her love of singing Motown with her Muslim faith.

The majestic Osprey is an endangered bird that hasn't been seen in Scotland for years, so when Iona McNair locates an Osprey nest, she's desperate to keep the bird safe from poachers. She shares her secret with her classmate Callum, and the two become friends as they work to save the Osprey they've named Isis. They're able to get the bird tagged by a preservationist, but after Isis flies to Africa for the winter, her signal becomes stagnant, then lost. Spurred by a promise to Iona, who has fallen ill, Callum is determined to track and save Isis.

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

The four Willoughby children are “neglected,” or so they like to tell themselves and anyone else who will listen. Their “mean” parents are off on a world adventure that is very dangerous and have left the children with a” mean” nanny. The children decide to become “poor deserving orphans” to con their neighbors into doing things for them.  This is a very funny story which makes you want to be a Willoughby for a while.

​

Rose Howard is obsessed with homonyms. She's thrilled that her own name is a homonym, and she purposely gave her dog Rain a name with two homonyms (Reign, Rein), which, according to Rose's rules of homonyms, is very special. Not everyone understands Rose's obsessions, her rules, and the other things that make her different –not her teachers, not other kids, and not her single father. When a storm hits their rural town, rivers overflow, the roads are flooded, and Rain goes missing. Rose's father shouldn't have let Rain out. Now Rose has to find her dog, even if it means leaving her routines and safe places to search.

After celebrating their first nine same-day birthdays together, Amanda and Leo, having fallen out on their tenth, have not been speaking to each other for the last year.  When they prepare to celebrate their eleventh birthday separately, peculiar things begin to happen. The day of their birthday begins, over and over and over and over again.  Will tomorrow ever come?

Twelve-year-old Joan, worried that she will not have any friends when her family moves from Connecticut to California, bonds right away with Sarah, a girl who prefers to be called Fox, and the two spend a joyous summer playing outside, making up stories, and attending a writing class.

During a student exchange program, seventh-graders Ivy, June and Catherine share their lives, homes, and communities, and find that although their lifestyles are total opposites they have a lot in common.

Georgina Hayes is desperate. Ever since her father left and they were evicted from their apartment, her family has been living in their car. With her mama juggling two jobs and trying to make enough money to find a place to live, Georgina is stuck looking after her younger brother, Toby. And she has her heart set on improving their situation. When Georgina spots a missing-dog poster with a reward of five hundred dollars, the solution to all her problems suddenly seems within reach. All she has to do is "borrow" the right dog and its owners are sure to offer a reward. What happens next is the last thing she expected. 

"My name is August, by the way. I won't describe what I look like. Whatever you're thinking, it's probably worse. Next week I start fifth grade. Since I've never been to a real school before, I am pretty much totally and completely petrified. People think I haven't gone to school because of the way I look, but it's not that. It's because of all the surgeries I've had. Twenty-seven since I was born.” 

Fifth grader Tamaya Dhilwaddi and seventh grader Marshall Walsh have been walking to and from Woodridge Academy together since elementary school. But their routine is disrupted when bully Chad Hilligas challenges Marshall to a fight. To avoid the conflict, Marshall takes a shortcut home through the off-limits woods. Tamaya, unaware of the reason for the detour, reluctantly follows. They soon get lost. And then they find trouble.

Jake and Lily are twins. Despite their slightly different interests and temperaments, they feel exactly the same—like two halves of one person. But the year they turn eleven, everything changes. Their parents announce it's time for separate bedrooms. Jake starts hanging out with a pack of boys on the block. And Lily is devastated, not to mention angry. Who is she without Jake? And as her brother falls under the influence of the neighborhood.

Four mysterious letters change Miranda's world forever. By sixth grade, Miranda and her best friend, Sal, know how to navigate their New York City neighborhood. They know where it's safe to go, like the local grocery store, and they know whom to avoid, like the crazy guy on the corner. But things start to unravel.

The notes keep coming, and Miranda slowly realizes that whoever is leaving them knows all about her, including things that have not even happened yet. Each message brings her closer to believing that only she can prevent a tragic death. Until the final note makes her think she's too late.

Kate, Michael, and Emma have passed from one orphanage to another in the ten years since their parents disappeared to protect them, but now they learn that they have special powers—and a fearsome enemy—and embark on a prophesied quest to find a magical book.

If you like Maximum Ride, you will like this book.

Belladonna Johnson just wants to be normal. Okay, she can talk to ghosts, but everyone has their problems. And since her parents are dead—but “living” in their house—this is a pretty convenient problem to have. Then one day, the stars go out. Just for a second. And the ghosts start to disappear . . . Soon Belladonna and her friend Steve find themselves on a dangerous quest to the deserted, decaying Other World, where the spirits usually dwell. They need to find out where Belladonna’s parents and all the other ghosts have gone—before it’s too late.

Reuben is a loner. He spends his days keeping to the shadows, always on the lookout for hiding places, while his mom works two jobs to keep them in their run-down apartment. But when one of Reuben's exploits results in him coming into possession of a pocket watch with an extraordinary function, Reuben suddenly finds himself swept up in a centuries-old fight for power. If he is to prevail, he must learn to trust his new companions: steadfast Penny, cunning Jack and wise Mrs. Genevieve. This is an edge-of-your-seat adventure.

Helen adored her beautiful golden Labrador from the first moment he was placed in her arms, a squirming fat sausage of creamy yellow fur. As her best friend, Friar Tuck waited daily for Helen to come home from school and play. He guarded her through the long, scary hours of the dark night. Twice he even saved her life.  Now it's Helen's turn. No one can say exactly when Tuck began to go blind. Probably the light began to fail for him long before the alarming day when he raced after some cats and crashed through the screen door, apparently never seeing it. But from that day on, Tuck's trouble—and how to cope with it—becomes the focus of Helen's life.

Moving is so routine for 12-year-old Charlotte that she can't keep all the places straight. Her writer mother uproots Charlotte and her siblings once again, this time moving them to Laura Ingalls Wilder's childhood home in Walnut Creek, MN, after her mother claims Wilder's spirit visited her in a dream. Her mom thinks this move will inspire her writing. Charlotte and her siblings aren't excited about leaving Lexington to face bitterly cold weather and small-town life, but mom prevails, and they move.

​

It is 1968, and three black sisters from Brooklyn have been put on a California-bound plane by their father to spend a month with their mother, a poet who ran off years before and is living in Oakland. It's the summer after Black Panther founder Huey Newton was jailed and member Bobby Hutton was gunned down trying to surrender to the Oakland police, and there are men in berets shouting "Black Power" on the news.Over the course of the next four weeks, Delphine and her younger sisters, Vonetta and Fern, spend a lot of time learning about revolution and staying out of their mother's way.

Twelve years ago a skiff containing a tiny, crying baby washed ashore on one of the small Elizabeth Islands off the coast of Massachusetts. Osh, the sole resident of the island, took the babe in and named her Crow, and the two have been family ever since. Now it's 1925, and Crow begins to wonder why people avoid her during her and Osh's occasional visits to the more populated islands. He eventually tells her that they believe her to be from Penikese Island, the site of a now shuttered hospital for lepers. As she pieces together the clues of her origin, she finds that her past is tangled up with a history of heartbreak and a local legend of treasure.

Adventure, Mystery & Suspense

Becky, who is in 6th grade, is accused of stealing 5 rare books from the library. She claims she didn't do it and her twin brother Toby believes her, but how can they prove it? They think that if they can solve a certain kind of puzzle they might be able to catch the thief.  

Description

Description

Description

This book is a puzzle, wrapped in a mystery, disguised as an adventure, and delivered as a work of art.  When a book of unexplainable occurrences brings Petra and Calder together, strange things start to happen: Seemingly unrelated events connect; an eccentric old woman seeks their company; an invaluable Vermeer painting disappears. Before they know it, the two find themselves at the center of an international art scandal, where no one is spared from suspicion.

Every four years in the village of Gavaldon, two children are stolen away by a mysterious person known only as the Schoolmaster. These children become students at the School for Good and Evil. One will be taught the ways of goodness, honor, and beauty; the other will be instructed in the ways of darkness and villainy. Twelve-year-old Sophie just knows she's destined to be picked for the school of Good this year, and can't wait to assume the role of a princess and meet her Prince Charming.

Just after midnight, a snowdrift stops the Orient Express in its tracks. The train is full but by the morning there is one passenger fewer.  An American lay dead in his compartment, stabbed a dozen times, his door locked from the inside. Hercule Poirot, the fearless detective, is on the case.

Allie Nichols knows she's being pursued by a ghost. But her friend Karen calls her a liar and doesn't want to hear "stuff like that." It is Allie's old pal Dub who listens eagerly as Allie tells him about a voice that guides her safely down a steep cliff side, the face in her mind's eye of a girl who begs "Help me," and a terrible nightmare in which that girl falls to her death.

Description

Description

Description

Description

When Ted and Kat's cousin Salim disappears from the London Eye ferris wheel, the two siblings must work together—Ted with his brain that is "wired differently" and impatient Kat—to try to solve the mystery of what happened to Salim.

Hansel and Gretel actually had their heads chopped off by their father, the King. Who knew? The children believed firmly in their little hearts that parents should not kill their children so they leave home to find a “nice” family to adopt them. (Does that sound strange to you? It should because it is.) The perfect family proves elusive, and the children find themselves in one outrageous situation after another—including, yes, a hungry old woman in an edible house.

Twelve-year-old Molly and her ten-year-old brother, Michael, have never liked their younger stepsister, Heather. Ever since their parents got married, she's made Molly and Michael's life miserable. Now their parents have moved them all to the country to live in a house that used to be a church, with a cemetery in the backyard. If that's not bad enough, Heather starts talking to a ghost named Helen and warning Molly and Michael that Helen is coming for them.

From the window of the small floatplane, fifteen-year-old Gabe Rogers is getting his first look at Canada's magnificent Northwest Territories with Raymond Providence, his roommate from boarding school. Below is the spectacular Nahanni River—wall-to-wall whitewater racing between sheer cliffs and plunging over Virginia Falls. The pilot sets the plane down on the lake-like surface of the upper river for a closer look at the thundering falls. Suddenly the engine quits. The only sound is a dull roar downstream, as the Cessna drifts helplessly toward the falls.  

Jenni Green's family vacation has finally arrived! Even though she has to deal with her annoying little brother, her slightly overbearing dad, and her very pregnant mom, she gets to spend a week with her best friend in the world, Autumn. But twelve-year-old Jenni's world turns upside down when she takes an old elevator to visit Autumn and discovers that everything has changed: not only is her friend in a different condo, but tragedy has struck Autumn's family, Jenni's mother has had her baby, and everyone is a year older.

Description

The sleepy seaside village of Porthaven hides a mystery: Mia's grandad has vanished, and nobody knows why. When Mia and her mom rush to Porthaven to help her grandmother, Mia imagines long dreary days with no one to talk to except for the old-time fisherman at her grandparents' pub. But that's before Mia finds a diary on an empty, docked fishing boat and starts exchanging notes with a local girl named Dee, a girl who seems much like her.

It’s wintertime at Greenglass House. The creaky smuggler’s inn is always quiet during this season, and twelve-year-old Milo, the innkeepers’ adopted son, plans to spend his holidays relaxing. But on the first icy night of vacation, out of nowhere, the guest bell rings. Then rings again. And again. Soon Milo’s home is bursting with odd, secretive guests, each one bearing a strange story that is somehow connected to the rambling old house.

Life becomes more interesting for Ananka Fishbein when, at the age of twelve, she discovers an underground room in the park across from her New York City apartment and meets a mysterious girl called Kiki Strike who claims that she, too, wants to explore the subterranean world.

After the mutant Erasers abduct the youngest member of their group, the "birdkids," who are the result of genetic experimentation, take off in pursuit and find themselves struggling to understand their own origins and purpose.

After learning 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.

Description

Tally is faced with a difficult choice when her new friend Shay decides to risk life on the outside rather than submit to the forced operation that turns sixteen-year-old girls into gorgeous beauties, and realizes that there is a whole new side to this pretty world that she doesn't like.

Historical Fiction

In medieval England, a nameless, homeless girl is taken in by a sharp-tempered midwife, and in spite of obstacles and hardship, eventually gains the three things she most wants.

Description

Description

Description

Description

This suspenseful tale begins in a detective's office in Venice, as the entirely unpleasant Hartliebs

request Victor Getz's services to search for two boys, Prosper and Bo, the sons of Esther Hartlieb's recently deceased sister. Twelve-year-old Prosper and 5-year-old Bo ran away when their aunt decided she wanted to adopt Bo, but not his brother. Refusing to split up, they escaped to Venice, a city their mother had always described reverently, in great detail.

Anna is not sure who Hitler is, but she sees his face on posters all over Berlin. Then one morning, Anna and her brother awake to find her father gone! Her mother explains that their father has had to leave and soon they will secretly join him. Anna just doesn’t understand. Why do their parents keep insisting that Germany is no longer safe for Jews like them? Because of Hitler, Anna must leave everything behind.

In 1892, nine-year-old Dom's mother puts him on a ship leaving Italy, bound for America. He is a stowaway, traveling alone and with nothing of value except for a new pair of shoes from his mother. In the turbulent world of homeless children in Manhattan's Five Points, Dom learns street smarts, and not only survives, but thrives by starting his own business. A vivid, fascinating story of an exceptional boy, based in part on the author's own grandfather.

Growing up in California during the depression isn't easy for eleven-year-old Rinko. She desperately wants to fit in and be like everyone else, but instead she is ridiculed and made to feel different because she is Japanese.  But when Aunt Waka comes to visit, and brings with her the old-fashioned wisdom of Japan, she teaches Rinko the importance of her Japanese heritage, and the value of her own strengths and dreams.

Fantasy & Science Fiction

Spat out by the sea, the boy lay on the rocks, as still as death. He had no home, no memory, and no name. So begins the tale of the boy who will one day become the greatest wizard of all time.

Twelve-year-old Artemis Fowl is the most ingenious criminal mastermind in history. With two trusty sidekicks in tow, he hatches a cunning plot to divest the fairy folk of their pot of gold. Of course, he isn't foolish enough to believe in all that "gold at the end of the rainbow" nonsense. Rather, he knows that the only way to separate the little people from their stash is to kidnap one of them and wait for the ransom to arrive.

On the Midwinter Day that is his eleventh birthday, Will Stanton discovers a special gift— that he is the last of the Old Ones, immortals dedicated to keeping the world from domination by the forces of evil, the Dark. At once, he is plunged into a quest for the six magical Signs that will one day aid the Old Ones in the final battle between the Dark and the Light. And for the twelve days of Christmas, while the Dark is rising, life for Will is full of wonder, terror, and delight.

On Perigee, the night of the nearest moon, a sudden log jam creates a dam along the river. Luna's community lives on the edges of the expanding swamp, building houses on ever higher stilts and believing that the evil spirit who caused the dam lurks under the water. All who taste the water sicken, dying in exactly three weeks. When water splashes into Luna's sister's mouth, Willow contracts the wasting sickness, and Luna breaks every one of her mother's rules to save Willow.

The great, underground city of Ember is designed as a last refuge for the human race. But when the storerooms run out of food and the lights begin to fail, it’s up to two teens, Lina and Doon, to decipher the fragments of an ancient parchment and find a way out of Ember. What an adventure they have. If you read this book you will have to read the others in the series. There’s no way around it—they are so good.

Miri lives on a mountain where, for generations, her ancestors have quarried stone and lived a simple life. Then word comes that the king's priests have decided that the future princess will be chosen from the girls in her small village. In a year's time, the prince himself will come and choose his bride from among them. The king's ministers set up an academy on the mountain, and every teenage girl must attend and learn how to become a princess. It is not fun. Miri soon finds herself confronted with a mean academy mistress, and bitter competition among the girls. 

​

Meg's father had been experimenting with time-travel when he suddenly disappeared. Will Meg, Charles Wallace, and Calvin outwit the forces of evil as they search through space for their father?  

Ellen awakens one morning with a mysterious silver crown on the pillow beside her. What magic powers it possesses she has not yet discovered, but the sudden changes in her life are unmistakable: her house is burned down, her family has disappeared, and a man in a dark uniform is stalking her. Can Ellen ever find her family? Can she use the power of the silver crown to thwart the powers of darkness? What diabolical force hides inside the mysterious castle in the woods?

This is a wonderful adventure about missing children, a golden, truth-divining compass and a young girl and her "daemon" who are catapulted into a life-and-death struggle against dark forces.

Biography &

Autobio.

The author presents humorous anecdotes from his childhood which includes summer vacations in Norway and an English boarding school.

Who could resist living for a year with a raccoon who is just about your best friend?  In this delightful memoir, Sterling North recalls his year with Rascal--a very mischievous and resourceful raccoon. Sterling, a boy of 11, watches in amazement as this baby raccoon, barely the size of Sterling's hand, instinctively washes everything before eating it. Sterling knows that every night Rascal will sneak into the house by hooking his claws onto the back screen door and head straight for Sterling's bed! Virtually everywhere Sterling goes, Rascal is there, and life is filled with one adventure after another.

Graphic Novels

For most of her twelve years, Astrid has done everything with her best friend Nicole. But after Astrid falls in love with roller derby and signs up for derby camp, Nicole decides to go to dance camp instead. And so begins the most difficult summer of Astrid's life as she struggles to keep up with the older girls at camp, hang on to the friend she feels slipping away, and cautiously embark on a new friendship. As the end of summer nears and her first roller derby bout (and junior high!) draws closer, Astrid realizes that maybe she is strong enough to handle the bout, a lost friendship, and middle school… in short, strong enough to be a roller girl.

Fish Girl lives in an aquarium, where visitors come to hear Neptune tell tales of the sea and to search for the elusive girl hiding in the tanks. When a human girl, Livia, sees Fish Girl, the two strike up a friendship that will bring secrets to light and put an end to Fish Girl's solitude.

Catrina and her family have moved to the coast of Northern California for the sake of her little sister, Maya, who has cystic fibrosis-and Cat is even less happy about the move when she is told that her new town is inhabited by ghosts, and Maya sets her heart on meeting one.

bottom of page