Radnor Library's List for Middle School Readers

The Radnor Library has created a list of recommended reading for middle school-age children to supplement a list recommended by the Radnor School District.

REALISTIC FICTION

After (Grades 7, 8)

Francine Prose

In the aftermath of a nearby school shooting, a grief and crisis counselor takes over Central High School and enacts increasingly harsh measures to control students, while those who do not comply disappear.

Bullyville (Grades 7,8)

Francine Prose

After the death of his estranged father in the World Trade Center on 9/11, thirteen-year-old Bart, still struggling with his feelings of guilt, sorrow and loss, wins a scholarship to the local preparatory school and there encounters a vicious bully whose cruelty compounds the aftermath of the tragedy.

Cracked (Grade 8)

K.M. Walton

When Bull Mastrick and Victor Konig wind up in the same psychiatric ward at age sixteen, each recalls and relates in group therapy the bullying relationship they have had since kindergarten, but also facts about themselves and their families that reveal they have much in common.

The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks (Grade 8)

E. Lockhart

Sophomore Frankie starts dating senior Matthew Livingston, but when he refuses to talk about the all-male secret society that he and his friends belong to, Frankie infiltrates the society in order to enliven their mediocre pranks.

Dunk

David Lubar

While hoping to work as the clown in an amusement park dunk tank on the New Jersey shore the summer before his junior year in high school, Chad faces his best friend's serious illness, hassles with police, and the girl that got away.

Flipped (Grades 6-8)

Wendelin Van Draanen

In alternating chapters, two teenagers describe how their feelings about themselves, each other, and their families have changed over the years.

The Future of Us (Grade 8)

Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler

It's 1996, and less than half of all American high school students have ever used the Internet. Emma just got her first computer and Josh is her best friend. They power up and log on--and discover themselves on Facebook, fifteen years in the future. Everybody wonders what their Destiny will be. Josh and Emma are about to find out.

Holes (Grade 6)

Louis Sachar

As further evidence of his family's bad fortune which they attribute to a curse on a distant relative, Stanley Yelnats is sent to a hellish correctional camp in the Texas desert where he finds his first real friend, a treasure, and a new sense of himself.

Joey Pigza Loses Control (Grade 6)

Jack Gantos

Joey, who is still taking medication to keep him from getting too wired, goes to spend the summer with the hard-drinking father he has never known and tries to help the baseball team he coaches win the championship.

Nothing but the Truth (Grade 6-8)

Avi

A ninth-grader's suspension for singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" during homeroom becomes a national news story.

The Running Dream (Grades 7 and 8)

Wendelin Van Draanen

When a school bus accident leaves sixteen-year-old Jessica an amputee, she returns to school with a prosthetic limb and her track team finds a wonderful way to help rekindle her dream of running again.

Scat (Grades 6-8)

Carl Hiaasen

Nick and his friend Marta decide to investigate when a mysterious fire starts near a Florida wildlife preserve and an unpopular teacher goes missing.

Schooled (Grades 6,7)

Gordon Korman

Homeschooled by his hippie grandmother, Capricorn (Cap) Anderson has never watched television, tasted a pizza, or even heard of a wedgie. But when his grandmother lands in the hospital, Cap is forced to move in with a guidance counselor and attend the local middle school. While Cap knows a lot about tie-dyeing and Zen Buddhism, no education could prepare him for the politics of public school.

Stargirl  (Grades 6-8)

Jerry Spinelli

In this story about the perils of popularity, the courage of nonconformity, and the thrill of first love, an eccentric student named Stargirl changes Mica High School forever.

Tangerine (Grades 7 and 8)

Edward Bloor

Twelve-year-old Paul, who lives in the shadow of his football hero brother Erik, fights for the right to play soccer despite his near blindness and slowly begins to remember the incident that damaged his eyesight.

HISTORICAL FICTION

Al Capone Does My Shirts (Grades 6-8)

Gennifer Cholodenko

A twelve-year-old boy named Moose moves to Alcatraz Island in 1935 when guards' families were housed there, and has to contend with his extraordinary new environment in addition to life with his autistic sister.

Catherine Called Birdy (Grade 6)

Karen Cushman

The thirteen-year-old daughter of an English country knight keeps a journal in which she records the events of her life, particularly her longing for adventures beyond the usual role of women and her efforts to avoid being married off.

Cracker! The Best Dog in Vietnam (Grades 6-8)

Cynthia Kadohata

A young soldier in Vietnam bonds with his bomb-sniffing dog.

Lily’s Crossing (Grades 6 and 7)

Patricia Reilly Giff

During a summer spent at Rockaway Beach in 1944, Lily's friendship with a young Hungarian refugee causes her to see the war and her own world differently.

Path of the Pale Horse (Grade 6)

Paul Fleischman

Lep, an apprentice to a doctor, helps his master take care of yellow fever victims in Philadelphia during the epidemic of 1793.

Revolution is Not a Dinner Party (Grades 6 and 7)

Ying Chang Compestine

Starting in 1972 when she is nine years old, Ling, the daughter of two doctors, struggles to make sense of the communists' Cultural Revolution, which empties stores of food, homes of appliances deemed "bourgeois," and people of laughter.

Saving Zasha (Grades 6-8)

Randi Barrow

Starting in 1972 when she is nine years old, Ling, the daughter of two doctors, struggles to make sense of the communists' Cultural Revolution, which empties stores of food, homes of appliances deemed "bourgeois," and people of laughter.

True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle (Grade 6)

Avi

As the lone "young lady" on a transatlantic voyage in 1832, Charlotte learns that the captain is murderous and the crew rebellious.

Uprising (Grades 6-8)

Margaret Peterson Haddix

In 1927, at the urging of twenty-one-year-old Harriet, Mrs. Livingston reluctantly recalls her experiences at the Triangle Shirtwaist factory, including miserable working conditions that led to a strike, then the fire that took the lives of her two best friends, when Harriet, the boss's daughter, was only five years old.

FANTASY

A Tale Dark and Grimm (Grade 6)

Adam Gidwitz

Follows Hansel and Gretel as they walk out of their own story and into eight more tales, encountering such wicked creatures as witches, along with kindly strangers and other helpful folk. Based in part on the Grimms' fairy tales Faithful Johannes, Hansel and Gretel, The seven ravens, Brother and sister, the robber bridegroom, and The devil and his three golden hairs.

Beastly (Grade 8)

Alex Flinn

A modern retelling of "Beauty and the Beast" from the point of view of the Beast, a vain Manhattan private school student who is turned into a monster and must find true love before he can return to his human form.

The Book of Three (Grades 6 and 7)

Lloyd Alexander

Taran, Assistant Pig-Keeper to a famous oracular sow, sets out on a hazardous mission to save Prydain from the forces of evil.

Coraline (Grade 6)

Neil Gaiman

Looking for excitement, Coraline ventures through a mysterious door into a world that is similar, yet disturbingly different from her own, where she must challenge a gruesome entity in order to save herself, her parents, and the souls of three others.

The Graveyard Book (Grade 6-8)

Neil Gaiman

Nobody Owens is a normal boy, except that he has been raised by ghosts and other denizens of the graveyard.

Gregor the Overlander (Grades 6 and 7)

Suzanne Collins

When eleven-year-old Gregor and his two-year-old sister are pulled into a strange underground world, they trigger an epic battle involving men, bats, rats, cockroaches, and spiders while on a quest foretold by ancient prophecy.

Half Upon a Time (Grade 6)

James Riley

In the village of Giant's Hand Jack's grandfather has been pushing him to find a princess and get married, so when a young lady falls out of the sky wearing a shirt that says "Punk Princess," and she tells Jack that her grandmother, who looks suspiciously like the long-missing Snow White, has been kidnapped, Jack decides to help her.

The Hobbit (Grades 6-8)

J.R.R. Tolkien

Bilbo Baggins, a respectable, well-to-do hobbit, lives comfortably in his hobbit-hole until the day the wandering wizard Gandalf chooses him to take part in an adventure from which he may never return.

Inkheart (Grade 6)

Cornelia Funke

Twelve-year-old Meggie learns that her father, who repairs and binds books for a living, can "read" fictional characters to life when one of those characters abducts them and tries to force him into service.

Island of the Aunts (Grade 6)

Eva Ibbotson

As they get older, several sisters decide that they must kidnap children and bring them to their secluded island home to help with the work of caring for an assortment of unusual sea creatures.

Jolted: Newton Starker’s Rules for Survival (Grades 6-8)

Arthur Slade

Many of Newton Starker's ancestors, including his mother, have been killed by lightning strikes, so when he enrolls at the eccentric Jerry Potts Academy of Higher Learning and Survival in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, he tries to be a model student so that he can avoid the same fate.

Mister Monday (Grades 6-8)

Garth Nix

Arthur Penhaligon is supposed to die at a young age, but is saved by a key that is shaped like the minute hand of a clock. The key causes bizarre creatures to come from another realm, bringing with them a plague. A man named Mister Monday will stop at nothing to get the key back. Arthur goes to a mysterious house that only he can see, so that he can learn the truth about himself and the key.

The Phantom Tollbooth (Grade 6)

Norton Juster

A journey through a land where Milo learns the importance of words and numbers provides a cure for his boredom.

Whales on Stilts (Grade 6)

M.T. Anderson

Racing against the clock, shy middle-school student Lily and her best friends, Katie and Jasper, must foil the plot of her father's conniving boss to conquer the world using an army of whales.

The Willoughbys (Grade 6)

Lois Lowry

In this tongue-in-cheek take on classic themes in children's literature, the four Willoughby children set about to become "deserving orphans" after their neglectful parents embark on a treacherous around-the-world adventure, leaving them in the care of an odious nanny.

DYSTOPIA

Divergent (Grade 8)

Veronica Roth

In a future Chicago, sixteen-year-old Beatrice Prior must choose among five predetermined factions to define her identity for the rest of her life, a decision made more difficult when she discovers that she is an anomaly who does not fit into any one group, and that the society she lives in is not perfect after all.

The Giver (Grades 6-8)

Lois Lowry

Given his lifetime assignment at the Ceremony of Twelve, Jonas becomes the receiver of memories shared by only one other in his community and discovers the terrible truth about the society in which he lives.

The Maze Runner (Grades 6-8)

Jack Dashner

Sixteen-year-old Thomas wakes up with no memory in the middle of a maze and realizes he must work with the community in which he finds himself if he is to escape.

Ship Breaker (Grades 7 and 8)

Paoli Bacigalupi

In a futuristic world, teenaged Nailer scavenges copper wiring from grounded oil tankers for a living, but when he finds a beached clipper ship with a girl in the wreckage, he has to decide if he should strip the ship for its wealth or rescue the girl.

So Yesterday (Grades 7 and 8)

Scott Westerfeld

Hunter Braque, a New York City teenager who is paid by corporations to spot what is "cool," combines his analytical skills with girlfriend Jen's creative talents to find a missing person and thwart a conspiracy directed at the heart of consumer culture.

Running Out of Time (Grades 6-8)

Margaret Peterson Haddix

When a diphtheria epidemic hits her 1840 village, thirteen-year-old Jessie discovers it is actually a 1995 tourist site under unseen observation by heartless scientists, and it's up to Jessie to escape the village and save the lives of the dying children.

Uglies (Grades 6-8)

Scott Westerfield

Everybody gets to be supermodel gorgeous. What could be wrong with that? Tally is about to turn sixteen, and she can't wait. Not for her license -- for turning pretty. In Tally's world, your sixteenth birthday brings an operation that turns you from a repellent ugly into a stunningly attractive pretty and catapults you into a high-tech paradise where your only job is to have a really great time. In just a few weeks Tally will be there. But Tally's new friend Shay isn't sure she wants to be pretty. She'd rather risk life on the outside. When Shay runs away, Tally learns about a whole new side of the pretty world -- and it isn't very pretty. The authorities offer Tally the worst choice she can imagine: find her friend and turn her in, or never turn pretty at all. The choice Tally makes changes her world forever.

SCIENCE FICTION

Airborn (Grades 6 and 7)

Kenneth Oppel

Matt, a young cabin boy aboard an airship, and Kate, a wealthy young girl traveling with her chaperone, team up to search for the existence of mysterious winged creatures reportedly living hundreds of feet above the Earth's surface.

A Wrinkle in Time (Grades 6 and 7)

Madeline L’Engle

Meg Murry and her friends become involved with unearthly strangers and a search for Meg's father, who has mysteriously disappeared while engaged in secret work for the government.

The City of Ember (Grades 6 and 7)

Jean DuPrau

In the year 241, twelve-year-old Lina trades jobs on Assignment Day to be a Messenger to run to new places in her decaying but beloved city, perhaps even to glimpse Unknown Regions.

The Ear, the Eye and the Arm (Grades 6-8)

Nancy Farmer

In 2194 in Zimbabwe, General Matsika's three children are kidnapped and put to work in a plastic mine while three mutant detectives use their special powers to search for them.

Ender’s Game (Grades 6-8)

Orson Scott Card

Child-hero Ender Wiggin must fight a desperate battle against a deadly alien race if mankind is to survive.

Unwind (Grades 7-8)

Neal Shusterman

In a future world where those between the ages of thirteen and eighteen can have their lives "unwound" and their body parts harvested for use by others, three teens go to extreme lengths to uphold their beliefs--and, perhaps, save their own lives.

MULTI-CULTURAL

Boys Without Names (Grades 6 and 7)

Kashmira Sheth

Eleven-year-old Gopal and his family leave their rural Indian village for life with his uncle in Mumbai, but when they arrive his father goes missing and Gopal ends up locked in a sweatshop from which there is no escape.

The Breadwinner (Grade 6-8)

Deborah Ellis

Because the Taliban rulers of Kabul, Afghanistan, impose strict limitations on women's freedom and behavior, eleven-year-old Parvana must disguise herself as a boy so that her family can survive after her father's arrest.

Does My Head Look Big in This? (Grade 8)

Randa Abdel-Fattah

Year Eleven at an exclusive prep school in the suburbs of Melbourne, Australia, would be tough enough, but it is further complicated for Amal when she decides to wear the hijab, the Muslim head scarf, full-time as a badge of her faith--without losing her identity or sense of style.

Esperanza Rising (Grade 6)

Pamela Muñoz Ryan

Esperanza and her mother are forced to leave their life of wealth and privilege in Mexico to go work in the labor camps of Southern California, where they must adapt to the harsh circumstances facing Mexican farm workers on the eve of the Great Depression.

Homeless Bird (Grades 6-8)

Gloria Whelan

When thirteen-year-old Koly enters into an ill-fated arranged marriage, she must either suffer a destiny dictated by India's tradition or find the courage to oppose it.

Island of the Blue Dolphins (Grade 6)

Scott O’Dell

Left alone on a beautiful but isolated island off the coast of California, a young Indian girl spends eighteen years, not only merely surviving through her enormous courage and self-reliance, but also finding a measure of happiness in her solitary life.

Julie of the Wolves (Grade 6)

Jean Craighead George

While running away from home and an unwanted marriage, a thirteen-year-old Eskimo girl becomes lost on the North Slope of Alaska and is befriended by a wolf pack.

Shooting Kabul (Grades 6 and 7)

N.H. Senzai

Escaping from Taliban-controlled Afghanistan in the summer of 2001, eleven-year-old Fadi and his family immigrate to the San Francisco Bay Area, where Fadi schemes to return to the Pakistani refugee camp where his little sister was accidentally left behind.

NON-FICTION

Amelia Lost: The Life and Disappearance of Amelia Earhart

Candace Fleming

Tells the story of Amelia Earhart's life - as a child, a woman, and a pilot - and describes the search for her missing plane.

An American Plague: the True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793

Jim Murphy

It's 1793, and there's an invisible killer roaming the streets of Philadelphia. The city's residents are fleeing in fear. This killer has a name--yellow fever--but everything else about it is a mystery. Its cause is unknown and there is no cure. This [book] traces the devastating course of the epidemic. [The book] offers a ... glimpse into the conditions in American cities at the time of our nation's birth while drawing thought-provoking parallels to modern-day epidemics.

Bootleg: Murder, Moonshine, and the Lawless Years of Prohibition

Karen Blumenthal

For more than a decade starting in 1920, millions of regular Americans ignored the law of the land. Parents became bootleggers, kids smuggled illegal alcohol, and outlaws became celebrities. It wasn't supposed to be that way, of course. When Congress passed the Eighteenth Amendment, prohibiting the sale and manufacture of alcohol in the United States, supporters believed it would create a better, stronger nation. Instead it began an era of lawlessness, when famous gangsters like Al Capone rose to fame, and many reconsidered their concept of right and wrong. This is the story of those years in American history-- the story of prohibition.

Built to Last: Building America’s Amazing Bridges, Dams, Tunnels, and Skyscrapers

George Sullivan

Americans didn't let mountains stand in the way of trade with the American West--they tunneled right through them to make the Cascade Tunnel and Hoosac Tunnel. When water and power were needed, they built huge dams, such as the Fort Peck Dam and the Hoover Dam. Faced with water to cross, they built beautiful bridges, such as the Brooklyn Bridge and the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel. And the American character is best reflected by the building it invented, the skyscraper. BUILT TO LAST profiles 17 architectural and engineering marvels, from the Erie Canal to Boston's Big Dig.

Charles and Emma: The Darwins’ Leap of Faith

Deborah Heiligman

Charles Darwin and his wife, Emma, were deeply in love and very supportive of each other, but their opinions often clashed. Emma was extremely religious, and Charles questioned God's very existence.

Flesh and Blood So Cheap: The Triangle Fire and it’s Legacy

Albert Marrin

Provides a detailed account of the disastrous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City, which claimed the lives of 146 garment workers in 1911, and examines the impact of this event on the nation's working conditions and labor laws.

Going Blue: a Teen Guide to Saving Our Oceans, Lakes, Rivers and Wetlands

Cathryn Berger Kaye

Teaches young people about the Earth's water crisis and provides practical suggestions on how readers can identify water-related needs in the community and transform their ideas into action.

Left for Dead: a Young Man's Search for Justice for the USS Indianapolis

Peter Nelson

Recalls the sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis at the end of World War II, the navy cover-up and unfair court martial of the ship's captain, and how a young boy helped the survivors set the record straight fifty-five years later.

Letters to a Bullied Girl

Olivia Gardner

One bullied girl, two sisters who cared, and thousands more who opened up their hearts.

Out of the Dust

Karen Hesse

In a series of poems, fifteen-year-old Billie Jo relates the hardships of living on her family's wheat farm in Oklahoma during the dust bowl years of the Depression.

Phineas Gage: A Gruesome but True Story About Brain Science

John Fleishman

Through the case history of Phineas Gage, a 19th century Vermonter who had an iron bar driven through his brain and lived, the book examines what is known of brain function.

Surviving Hitler: A Boy in the Nazi Death Camps

Andrea Warren

Caught up in Hitler's Final Solution to annihilate Europe's Jews, fifteen-year-old Jack Mandelbaum is torn from his family and thrown into the nightmarish world of the concentration camps. Here, simple existence is a constant struggle, and Jack must learn to live hour to hour, day to day. Despite intolerable conditions, he resolves not to hate his captors and vows to see his family again. But even with his strong will to survive, how long can Jack continue to play this life-and-death game?

They Call Themselves the KKK

Susan Campbell Bartoletti

Boys, let us get up a club.With those words, six restless young men raided the linens at a friend’s mansion, pulled pillowcases over their heads, hopped on horses, and cavorted through the streets of Pulaski, Tennessee. The six friends named their club the Ku Klux Klan, and, all too quickly, their club grew into the self-proclaimed Invisible Empire with secret dens spread across the South.  This is the story of how a secret terrorist group took root in America’s democracy. Filled with chilling and vivid personal accounts unearthed from oral histories, congressional documents, and diaries, it is a book to read and remember.

Witches!: The Absolutely True Tale of Disaster in Salem

Tosalyn Schanzer

Tells the story of the victims, the accused witches, and the scheming officials that turned a mysterious illness into a witch hunt.

GRAPHIC NOVELS

Adventures in Cartooning

James Sturm

Once upon a time . . . a princess tried to make a comic.  And with the help of a magical cartooning elf, she learned how – well enough to draw her way out of an encounter with a dangerous dragon, near-death by drowning, and into her very own adventure!  Like the princess, young readers will discover that they already have the drawing and writing skills it takes to make a comic – they just need a little know-how.

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Anya’s Ghost

Vera Brosgol

Anya, embarrassed by her Russian immigrant family and self-conscious about her body, has given up on fitting in at school but falling down a well and making friends with the ghost there just may be worse.

Bad Island

Doug TenNapel

Lyle, Karen, Janie, and Reese must find a way off an island while they dodge strange and dangerous things on the island.

Bayou

Jeremy Love

Lee Wagstaff is the daughter of a black sharecropper in the depression-era town of Charon, Mississippi. When Lily Westmoreland, her white playmate, is snatched by agents of an evil creature known as Bog, Lee's father is accused of kidnapping. Lee's only hope is to follow Lily's trail into this fantastic and frightening alternate world. Along the way she enlists the help of a benevolent, blues singing, swamp monster called Bayou. Together, Lee and Bayou trek across a hauntingly familiar Southern Neverland, confronting creatures both benign and malevolent, in an effort to rescue Lily and save Lee's father from being lynched.

Foiled
Jane Yolen

Aliera is a star at fencing, but at school no one notices her--until her new lab partner Avery begins flirting with her. Aliera's mother just bought her a foil from a garage sale, and it has a strange jewel attached to the hilt. Will Aliera's first date be ruined when magical creatures try to steal her foil?

Level Up

Gene Yang

Dennis, the son of Chinese immigrants, yearns to play video games like his friends and, upon his strict father's death, becomes obsessed with them but later, realizing how his father sacrificed for him, he chooses a nobler path.

Maus

Art Spiegelman

A story of a Jewish survivor of Hitler's Europe and his son, a cartoonist who tries to come to terms with his father's story and history itself.

The Plain Janes

Cecil Castellucci

When transfer student Jane is forced to move from the confines of Metro City to Suburbia, she thinks her life is over. But there in the lunch room at the reject table she finds her tribe: three other girls named Jane. Main Jane encourages them to form a secret art gang and paint the town P.L.A.I.N. -- People Loving Art In Neighborhoods. But can art attacks really save the hell that is high school?

The Storm in the Barn

Matt Phelan

In Kansas in the year 1937, eleven-year-old Jack Clark faces his share of ordinary challenges: local bullies, his father's failed expectations, a little sister with an eye for trouble. But he also has to deal with the effects of the Dust Bowl, including rising tensions in his small town and the spread of a shadowy illness.

Stormbreaker

Anthony Horowitz

This very first Alex Rider adventure, featuring manga-like illustrations, follows a fourteen-year-old boy, who, after the death of the uncle who had been his guardian, is coerced into continuing his uncle's dangerous work for Britain's intelligence agency, MI6.

Yummy: The Last Days of a South Side Shorty

Greg Neri

A graphic novel based on the true story of Robert "Yummy" Sandifer, an eleven-year old African American gang member from Chicago who shot a young girl and was then shot by his own gang members.