5th Grade

Broach, Elise. Masterpiece.
After Marvin, a beetle, makes a miniature drawing as an eleventh birthday gift for James, a human with whom he shares a house, the two new friends work together to help recover a Durer drawing stolen from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 292 pages.

DiCamillo, Kate. The magician’s elephant.
When ten-year-old orphan Peter Augustus Duchene encounters a fortune teller in the marketplace one day who tells him that his sister, who is presumed dead, is in fact alive, he embarks on a remarkable series of adventures in an attempt to find her. 201 pages.

Kibuishi, Kazo. The Stonekeeper (Amulet, book 1).
After the tragic death of their father, Emily and Navin move with their mother into the strange and dangerous home of her deceased great-grandfather. After a sinister creature lures the kids' mom through a door in the basement Em and Navin, desperate not to lose her, follow her into an underground world inhabited by demons, robots, and talking animals. 185 pages. Also try Book 2: The stonekeeper's curse.

Korman, Gordon. Swindle.
After unscrupulous collector S. Wendell Palamino cons him out of a valuable baseball card, sixth-grader Griffin Bing puts together a band of misfits to break into Palomino's heavily guarded store and steal the card back, planning to use the money to finance his father's failing invention, the Smart Pick fruit picker. pages. 252 pages. Also try the sequel, Zoobreak.

Kovac, Tommy. Wonderland.
A graphic novel based on Lewis Carroll's classic stories that follows the White Rabbit's housemaid, Mary Ann, on her nonsensical adventures in Wonderland. 159 pages.

Krosoczka, Jarrett. Lunch Lady and the cyborg substitute.
The school lunch lady is a secret crime fighter who uncovers an evil plot to replace all the popular teachers with robots. Unpaged graphic novel.

Law, Ingrid. Savvy.
Recounts the adventures of Mibs Beaumont, whose thirteenth birthday has revealed her "savvy"—a magical power unique to each member of her family—just as her father is injured in a terrible accident. 342 pages.

Margolis, Leslie. Boys are dogs.
When her mother gets a new boyfriend, sixth-grader Annabelle gets to cope with a new town, a new school, and a new puppy. While training her puppy, she decides to apply some of the same techniques to tame the unruly boys that are making her middle-school life miserable. 195 pages.

Mass, Wendy. 11 Birthdays.
Amanda and Leo celebrate all their same-day birthdays together until, having fallen out on their tenth and not speaking to each other for the last year, they prepare to celebrate their eleventh birthday separately. But peculiar things begin to happen as the day of their eleventh birthday begins to repeat itself over and over again. 267 pages.

Patron, Susan. The higher power of Lucky.
Fearing that her legal guardian plans to abandon her to return to France, ten-year-old aspiring scientist Lucky Trimble determines to run away while also continuing to seek the Higher Power that will bring stability to her life. 133 pages.

Van Draanen, Wendelin. Sammy Keyes.
Thirteen-year-old Sammy's penchant for speaking her mind gets her in trouble when she involves herself in various investigations while living with her grandmother. If she's not putting out fires or planting baby-monitor listening devices or tracking down missing valuable from her church's coffers, then she's running from the law.

Holm, Jennifer and Matthew. Babymouse.
"Meet Babymouse! She's sassy! She's funny! She has imagination to spare!" She's a young mouse who dreams of glamour, excitement, adventure, straight whiskers, and being queen of the world.

Kimmel, Elizabeth Cody. Suddenly supernatural.
"My name is Kat. And I totally see dead people..." Like her mother who is a professional medium, Kat has been able to see dead people since turning thirteen. Read to see what happens when the supernatural and the seventh grade collide.

Kinney, Jeff. Diary of a Wimpy Kid.
Boys don't keep diaries--or do they? Greg Heffley finds himself thrust into middle school, where undersized weaklings share the hallways with kids who are taller, meaner, and already shaving. The hazards of growing up before you're ready are revealed through words and drawings as Greg records them in his diary.

Lasky, Kathryn. Guardians of Ga’Hoole.
Four owls band together to save the owl world from an unimaginable evil. Together they traveled to the Great Ga'Hoole Tree to train with a mythic community of owls who rise nightly to perform noble deeds. Soon they will have the wisdom and bravery required... Also try the related series Wolves of the beyond.

Riordan, Rick. Percy Jackson and the Olympians.
The gods of Olympus are alive and well in the 21st century! They still fall in love with mortals and have children who are half-god, half-human, like the heroes of the old Greek myths. Percy Jackson discovers he is one of these children - the son of Poseidon, god of the sea. Join Percy and his modern, demigod friends as they fight mythological monsters and the forces of the titan lord Kronos.

Rowling, J. K. Harry Potter.
Join Harry in a 7-year journey as he discovers he is a wizard, attends Hogwarts School, learns how to use his powers, makes life-long friends who stand by his side through adventure and danger, and struggles to defeat the evil Lord Voldemort who killed his parents when he was a baby and who threatens the wizarding world that is now his home.

Barrie, J. M. Peter Pan.
The adventures of the three Darling children, Michael, Peter, and Wendy with Peter Pan, the boy who would not grow up. 189 pages.

Dahl, Roald. Matilda.
Matilda applies her untapped mental powers to rid the school of the evil, child-hating headmistress, Miss Trunchbull, and restore her nice teacher, Miss Honey, to financial security. 240 pages.

Lewis, C. S. The lion, the witch, and the wardrobe
Four English school children find their way through the back of a wardrobe into the magic land of Narnia and assist Aslan, the golden lion, to triumph over the White Witch who has cursed the land with eternal winter. 155 pages. Book 2 of the Chronicles of Narnia series.

Montgomery, Lucy Maude. Anne of Green Gables.
Anne, an eleven-year-old orphan, is sent by mistake to live with a lonely, middle-aged brother and sister on a Prince Edward Island farm and proceeds to make an indelible impression on everyone around her. 308 pages.

Naylor, Phyllis Reynolds. Shiloh.
When he finds a lost beagle in the hills behind his West Virginia home, Marty tries to hide it from his family and the dog's real owner, a mean-spirited man known to shoot deer out of season and to mistreat his dogs. 144 pages.

Sachar, Louis. There's a Boy in the Girls Bathroom.
An unmanageable, but lovable, eleven-year-old misfit learns to believe in himself when he gets to know the new school counselor who is a sort of misfit too. 195 pages.

Taylor, Mildred. Roll of thunder, hear my cry.
A black family living in the South during the 1930's are faced with prejudice and discrimination which their children don't understand. 276 pages.