Summer Reading List, Grades 6-8

Winner of the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award for Fiction * A New York Times Bestseller and Notable Book* A Junior Library Guild Selection

This Newbery Medal winner will appeal to readers of all types, especially those who are looking for a thought-provoking mystery with a mind-blowing twist.

Fefa struggles with words.

She has word blindness, or dyslexia, and the doctor says she will never read or write.

Every time she tries, the letters jumble and spill off the page, leaping away like bullfrogs.

How will she ever understand them?

USA Today bestseller * Time Magazine’s 100 Best Young Adult Books of All Time * New York Times Book Review Notable Book * Washington Post Best Kids’ Book

The book that inspired the Choose Kind movement!

Nicholas Flamel appeared in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter — but did you know he really lived? And his secrets aren’t safe! 

Discover the truth in book one of the New York Times bestselling series the Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel.

National Book Award Finalist for Young People’s Literature * 2007 Eisner Award for Best Graphic Album: New * Eisner Award nominee for Best Coloring * 2007 Bank Street Best Children’s Book of the Year * New York Times bestseller

A tour-de-force by New York Times bestselling graphic novelist Gene Yang, American Born Chinese tells the story of three apparently unrelated characters.

Their lives and stories come together with an unexpected twist in this action-packed modern fable. American Born Chinese is an amazing ride, all the way up to the astonishing climax.

Whether he’s fighting gun-toting dinosaurs, teaming up with Ninja Moon Warriors, or answering readers’ questions via his insightful advice column, “Ask Axe Cop,” the adventures of Axe Cop and his incomparable team of crime fighters will delight and perplex even the most stoic of readers.

A New York Times Notable Book of the Year * A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year * A Slate Favorite Book of the Year

Tim Federle writes a warm and witty debut that’s full of broken curfews, second chances, and the adventure of growing up – because sometimes you have to get 400 miles from your backyard to finally feel at home.

A Newbery Honor book * A National Book Awards finalist for Young People’s Literature * A Washington Post Best Kids Books of the Year

Perfect for middle grade readers and history enthusiasts, New York Times bestselling author Steve Sheinkin presents the fascinating and frightening true story of the creation behind the most destructive force that birthed the arms race.

The first book in Jeff Smith’s New York Times bestselling, award-winning graphic novel series featuring an unlikely hero who must save an idyllic valley from the forces of evil.

Full of humor, unforgettable characters, surprises, and lots and lots of heart, this is Joan Bauer at her most engaging.

When sixteen-year-old Amal decides to wear the hijab full-time, her entire world changes, all because of a piece of cloth…

1985 Nebula Award for Best Novel * 1986 Hugo Award for Best Novel

The war with the Buggers has been raging for a hundred years, and the quest for the perfect general has been underway for almost as long.

Ender’s two older siblings are every bit as unusual as he is, but in very different ways. Between the three of them lie the abilities to remake a world. If, that is, the world survives.

A coming-of-age tale with a spooky twist! Funny, surprising, and tender, Friends with Boys by Faith Erin Hicks is a pitch perfect YA graphic novel full of spooky supernatural fun.

This haunting story centers on Jonas who lives in a seemingly ideal, if colorless, world of conformity and contentment.

Not until he is given his life assignment as the Receiver of Memory does he begin to understand the dark, complex secrets behind his fragile community. 

Elizabeth has just started working as a page at the New York Circulating Material Repository – a lending library of objects, contemporary and historical, common and obscure.

Before she knows it, she and her fellow pages are suddenly caught up in an exciting, and dangerous, magical adventure.

In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts.

The Capitol keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV.

Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen regards it as a death sentence when she steps forward to take her sister’s place in the Games. Without really meaning to, she becomes a contender. 

Told in journal entries, this is the heart-pounding story of Miranda’s struggle to hold on to the most important resource of all, hope, in an increasingly desperate and unfamiliar world.

Winner of the New-York Historical Society Children’s History Book Prize * A New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice 

As twelve-year-old Marlee starts middle school in 1958 Little Rock, it feels like her whole world is falling apart. Until she meets Liz, the new girl at school.

Liz is everything Marlee wishes she could be: she’s brave, brash and always knows the right thing to say. But when Liz leaves school without even a good-bye, the rumor is that Liz was caught passing for white. 

James Patterson’s debut middle-grade novel addresses some of middle schoolers’ biggest issues: bullies, first crushes, and finding out what makes each of us special, all with a hilarious main character and fantastic in-text illustrations that are sure to have young readers begging for more!

Acclaimed author Heather Vogel Frederick will delight daughters of all ages in a novel about the fabulousness of fiction, family, and friendship.

In this Newbery Honor novel, New York Times bestselling author Rita Williams-Garcia tells the story of three sisters who travel to Oakland, California, in 1968 to meet the mother who abandoned them.

If you haven’t yet read the Kane Chronicles, Rick Riordan’s action-adventure trilogy based on Ancient Egyptian mythology…

Sadie and Carter discover that the gods of Egypt are waking, and the worst of them–Set–has his sights on the Kanes.

To stop him, the siblings embark on a dangerous journey across the globe — a quest that brings them ever closer to the truth about their family, and their links to a secret order that has existed since the time of the pharaohs.

Raina just wants to be a normal sixth grader. But one night after Girl Scouts she trips and falls, severely injuring her two front teeth.

What follows is a long and frustrating journey with on-again, off-again braces, surgery, embarrassing headgear, and even a retainer with fake teeth attached. 

They said his uncle Ian died in a car accident. Alex Rider knows that’s a lie, and the bullet holes in his uncle’s car confirm the truth.

Nothing can prepare him for the news that the uncle he always thought he knew was really a spy for Britain’s top-secret intelligence agency.

In this award-winning book, critically acclaimed author Deborah Hopkinson weaves together the voices and stories of real Titanic survivors and witnesses to the disaster.