6th Grade Reads

Twelve-year-old Quijana is a biracial girl, desperately trying to understand the changes that are going on in her life; her mother rarely gets home before bedtime, her father suddenly seems to be trying to get in touch with his Guatemalan roots (even though he never bothered to teach Quijana Spanish), she is about to start seventh grade in the Texas town where they live and she is worried about fitting in--and Quijana suspects that her parents are keeping secrets, because she is sure there is something wrong with her little brother, Memito, who is becoming increasingly hard to reach.

Author: Rebecca Balcárcel

Call Number: Y FICTION BAL

Eleven-year-old Ava Andrews has a Technicolor interior with a gray shell. On the inside, she bubbles with ideas and plans. On the outside, everyone except her best friend, Zelia, thinks she doesn't talk or, worse, is stuck-up. What nobody knows is that Ava has invisible disabilities: anxiety and a heart condition.Ava hopes middle school will be a fresh start, but when Zelia moves across the country and Ava's Nana Linda pushes her to speak up about social issues, she withdraws further. So Ava is shocked when her writing abilities impress her classmates and they invite her to join their improv group, making up stories onstage. Determined to prove she can control her anxiety, she joins--and discovers a whole new side of herself, and what it means to be on a team. But as Ava's self-confidence blossoms, her relationship with Zelia strains, and she learns that it isn't enough just to raise your voice--it's how and why you use it that matters.

Author: Margaret Dilloway

Call Number: ASC J FICTION DIL

Twelve-year-old Dagmar and her family spend a summer living off-the-grid in a tiny home parked in the Northern California redwood forest, next door to an eccentric tech billionaire and his very unusual family.

Author: Keir Graff

Call Number: J FICTION GRA

Cash, Fitch, and Bird Thomas are three siblings in seventh grade together in Park, Delaware. In 1986, as the country waits expectantly for the launch of the Space Shuttle Challenger, they each struggle with their own personal anxieties. Cash, who loves basketball but has a newly broken wrist, is in danger of failing seventh grade for the second time. Fitch spends every afternoon playing Major Havoc at the arcade on Main. And Bird, his twelve-year-old twin, dreams of being NASA's first female shuttle commander. The Thomas children exist in their own orbits, circling a tense and unpredictable household, with little in common except an enthusiastic science teacher named Ms. Salonga. As the launch of the Challenger approaches, Ms. Salonga gives her students a project; they are separated into spacecraft crews and must create and complete a mission. When the fated day finally arrives, it changes all of their lives and brings them together in unexpected ways.

Author: Erin Entrada Kelly

Call Number: Y FICTION KEL

It is 1805 and Mary Lambert has always felt safe among the deaf community of Chilmark on Martha's Vineyard where practically everyone communicates in a shared sign language, but recent events have shattered her life; her brother George has died, land disputes between English settlers and the Wampanoag people are becoming increasingly bitter, and a "scientist" determined to discover the origins of the islands' widespread deafness has decided she makes the perfect "live specimen"--and kidnapped her.

Author: Ann Clare LeZotte

Call Number: ASC Y FICTION LEZ

Eight-year-old Aref is excited to reunite with his father in Ann Arbor, Michigan where he will start a new school, and while Aref misses his grandfather, his Sidi, he knows that his home in Oman will always be waiting for him.

Author: Naomi Shihab Nye

Call Number: J FICTION NYE

Twelve-year-old Rahul Kapoor, an Indian-American boy growing up in small-town Indiana, struggles to come to terms with his identity, including that he may be gay.

Author: Maulik Pancholy

Call Number: J FICTION PAN

Archer has four important role models in his life -- his dad, his grandfather, his uncle Paul, and his favorite teacher, Mr. McLeod. When Uncle Paul and Mr. McLeod get married, Archer's sixth-grade year becomes one he'll never forget.

Author: Richard Peck

Call Number: Y FICTION PEC

Cassie is determined to give her mom--who has early onset Alzheimer's--one last adventure.

Author: Sandy Stark-McGinnis

Call Number: J FICTION STA

In Washington, D.C., twelve-year-old Florian Bates, a consulting detective for the FBI, and his best friend Margaret help thwart the biggest art heist in United States history.

Author: James Ponti

Call Number: J MYSTERY PON

Douglas has grown up around the business of death. Generations of his family have run the Mortimer Family Funeral Home. The mortician and gravediggers are all his buddies. And the display room of caskets is an awesome place for hide and seek. It's business as usual in Douglas' small New England town. Until one day an incredibly out of the ordinary murder victim is brought to the funeral home. And more startling: others follow. On the cusp of Halloween, a serial killer has arrived. Unsatisfied with the small-town investigation, Douglas enlists his friends to help him solve the mystery.

Author: J. W. Ocker

Call Number: J MYSTERY OCK

Petra's world is ending. Earth has been destroyed by a comet, and only a few hundred scientists and their children - among them Petra and her family - have been chosen to journey to a new planet.
Hundreds of years later, Petra wakes to this new planet - and the discovery that she is the only person who remembers Earth. A sinister collective has taken over the ship during its journey, bent on erasing the sins of humanity's past by systematically purging the memories of all on board - or purging them altogether. Petra alone now carries the stories of our past, and with them, any hope for our future. Can she make them live again?

Author: Donna Barba Higuera

Call Number: Y SCIENCE FICTION HIG

Native families from Nations across the continent gather at the Dance for Mother Earth Powwow in Ann Arbor, Michigan. In a high school gym full of color and song, people dance, sell beadwork and books, and celebrate friendship and heritage. Young protagonists will meet relatives from faraway, mysterious strangers, and sometimes one another (plus one scrappy rez dog). They are the heroes of their own stories.

Author: edited by Cynthia Leitich Smith

Call Number: J STORY COLL ANC

A misfit girl and her brother attend summer camp, where they struggle with primitive plumbing, snobby tentmates, and boys-versus-girls competitions.

Author: Vera Brosgol

Call Number: Y FICTION BRO (Graphic Novel)

In order to get the attention of Nia, the girl he likes, eleven-year-old A.J. pretends to be a vampire, unaware that she intends to be a slayer.

Author: Whitney Gardner

Call Number: Y FICTION GAR (Graphic Novel)

Willow, who has been struggling with her emotions since her mother's death, runs away into the woods and meets Pilu, a lost tree spirit who cannot find her way back home.

Author: Mai K. Nguyen

Call Number: J FICTION NGU (Graphic Novel)

Explores the plight of Afghanistan's children since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, featuring the stories of two dozen or so children, aged 10 to 17, and their struggles to continue educating themselves and improving their own lives despite living in a country torn by war, violence and oppression. All royalties from the sale of Kids of Kabul will go to Women for Women in Afghanistan, a charitable organization.

Author: Deborah Ellis

Call Number: J305.235 ELL

In an inspiring middle grade nonfiction work, P. O'Connell Pearson tells the story of the Civilian Conservation Corps--one of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal projects that helped save a generation of Americans. When Franklin D. Roosevelt took office in March 1933, the United States was on the brink of economic collapse and environmental disaster. Thirty-four days later, the first of over three million impoverished young men were building parks and reclaiming the nation's forests and farmlands. The Civilian Conservation Corps--FDR's favorite program and "miracle of inter-agency cooperation"--resulted in the building and/or improvement of hundreds of state and national parks, the restoration of nearly 120 million acre of land, and the planting of some three billion trees--more than half of all the trees ever planted in the United States. Fighting for the Forest tells the story of the Civilian Conservation Corp through a close look at Shenandoah National Park in Virginia (the CCC's first project) and through the personal stories and work of young men around the nation who came of age and changed their country for the better working in Roosevelt's Tree Army.

Author: P. O'Connell Pearson

Call Number: J333.751 PEA

Describes the expedition to the summit of the world's most deadly mountain, K2, by Charlie Houston and his fellow mountaineers, detailing their life-risking efforts to follow in the footsteps of another expedition that ended in tragedy.

Author: Tod Olson

Call Number: J796.522 OLS

Eagle hunters date back thousands of years, but today only a few hundred exist in Mongolia and the other main eagle-hunting regions. The majority of the hunters are men, taught by their fathers, who were taught by their fathers. But Aisholpan grew up around eagles and always had a connection with them, so when she asked her father to train her and he said yes, she unknowingly joined an ancient tradition of women warriors. With the support of her family, she worked with her own golden eagle and became the youngest-and first female-eagle hunter to take part in the highly competitive Golden Eagle Festival in Öllgri, Mongolia. Then she won, and all of it was captured on film for what would become the award-winning documentary The Eagle Huntress.

Author: Nurgaiv Aisholpan

Call Number: J BIO AISHOLPAN

Gene understands stories - comic book stories, in particular. Big action. Bigger thrills. And the hero always wins. But Gene doesn't get sports. As a kid, his friends called him "Stick" and every basketball game he played ended in pain. He lost interest in basketball long ago, but at the high school where he now teaches, it's all anyone can talk about. The men's varsity team, the Dragons, is having a phenomenal season that's been decades in the making. Each victory brings them closer to their ultimate goal: the California State Championships. Once Gene gets to know these young all-stars, he realizes that their story is just as thrilling as anything he's seen on a comic book page. He knows he has to follow this epic to its end. What he doesn't know yet is that this season is not only going to change the Dragons's lives, but his own life as well.

Author: Gene Luen Yang

Call Number: J BIO YANG