6th GRADE

Dear Sixth Grade, Here are the books that I talked about, plus a few more, for your independent reading assignment. This list is organized with fiction first, by genre, followed by nonfiction. Please stop by and see me if you would like more suggestions or if you need help in finding a title, or if you just want to chat -- I'd love to hear about what you are reading.  
Kim Claire, Young Adult Librarian

   Fantasy   

Skellig, by David Almond, 1998.  Unhappy about his baby sister's illness and the chaos of moving into a dilapidated old house, Michael retreats to the garage and finds a mysterious stranger who is something like a bird and something like an angel.

Sea of Trolls, by Nancy Farmer, 2004.  After Jack becomes apprenticed to a Druid bard, he and his little sister Lucy are captured by Viking Berserkers and taken to the home of King Ivar the Boneless and his half-troll queen, leading Jack to undertake a vital quest to Jotunheim, home of the trolls. First book in trilogy.


Ranger’s Apprentice, by John Flanagan, 2004.  When 15-year-old Will is rejected by battle-school, he becomes the reluctant apprentice to the mysterious Ranger Halt, and winds up protecting the kingdom from danger. First book in series.





        Fantasy: Fairy Tale Inspired        

Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow, by Jessica Day George, 2008.  As the last child born in a family of 9 siblings, the lass is a source of great displeasure to her mother, who denies her a name. Nevertheless, the child finds happiness in a close relationship with her older brother. This closeness is broken when an enchanted polar bear enters her home and demands that she spend a year and a day with him in return for her family attaining riches and good fortune.

Wildwood Dancing, by Juliet Marillier, 2007. Five sisters who live with their merchant father in Transylvania use a hidden portal in their home to cross over into a magical world, the Wildwood.


Toads and Diamonds, by Heather Tomlinson, 2010.  Set in pre-colonial India, in which two stepsisters, Diribani and Tana, receive gifts from an Indian goddess and each walks her own path to find her gift's purpose. 




     Historical    

Laika, by Nick Abadzis, 2007.  The journey of Laika, the abandoned puppy destined to become Earth's first space traveler. With the blending of fact and fiction, this story intertwines three compelling lives. Along with Laika, there is Korolev, a driven engineer at the top of the Soviet space program and Yelena, the lab technician responsible for Laika's health and life.  Graphic format.
Alchemy and Meggy Swann, by Karen Cushman, 2010.  In 1573, the crippled, scorned, and destitute Meggy Swann goes to London, where she meets her father, an impoverished alchemist, and eventually discovers that although her legs are bent and weak, she has many other strengths.


The Year We Were Famous, by Carole Estby Dagg, 2011. A novel based on the true story of Clara Estby's walk across America with her mother Helga, to save their farm with the ten thousand dollars promised by a New York City publisher-- if they can do it in eight months.



Bloody Jack: Being an Account of the Curious Adventures of Mary 'Jacky' Faber, Ship's Boy, by L. A. Meyer, 2002. Reduced to begging and thievery in the streets of London, a thirteen-year-old orphan disguises herself as a boy and connives her way onto a British warship set for high sea adventure in search of pirates.



Bread and Roses, Too, by Katherine Paterson, 2006.  Jake and Rosa, two children, form an unlikely friendship as they try to survive and understand the 1912 Bread and Roses strike of mill workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts.

Woods Runner, Gary Paulsen, 2010. From his 1776 Pennsylvania homestead, 13-year-old Samuel, who is a highly-skilled woodsman, sets out toward New York City to rescue his parents from the band of British soldiers and Indians who kidnapped them after slaughtering most of their community.
Marathon, by Boaz Yakin and Joe Infurnari, 2012.  Tells the story of Eucles, the Athenian messenger who, in 490 B.C., ran twenty-seven miles from Sparta to Athens, preventing the fall of Greece to the Persian Empire.  Graphic format.



  Historical Fantasy  
       
Ghost Hawk, by Susan Cooper, 2013.  Set in the 17th century. At the end of a winter-long journey into manhood, Little Hawk returns to find his village decimated by a white man's plague and soon, despite a fresh start, Little Hawk dies violently but his spirit remains trapped, seeing how his world changes.


Dodger, by Terry Pratchett, 2012. In an alternative version of Victorian London, 17-year-old Dodger, a cunning and cheeky street urchin, unexpectedly rises in life when he saves a mysterious girl, meets Charles Dickens, and unintentionally puts a stop to the murders of Sweeney Todd.




    Horror            

Revenge of the Witch, by Joseph Delaney, 2005.  Young Tom, the seventh son of a seventh son, starts work as an apprentice for the village spook, whose job is to protect ordinary folk from "ghouls, boggarts, and all manner of wicked beasties."   First book in series.



The Graveyard Book Graphic Novel, adapted by P. Craig Russell, 2014.  Volume one of a two-part graphic novel adaptation of Neil Gaiman's Newbery Medal-winning tale.  Features sumptuous illustrations by leading genre artists and follows the adventures of Bod, who is being raised by ghosts while avoiding the man who killed his family. Graphic format.



          Mystery          

Down the Rabbit Hole: An Echo Falls Mystery, by Peter Abrahams, 2005. Like her idol Sherlock Holmes, 8th grader Ingrid Levin-Hill uses her intellect to solve a murder case in her home town of Echo Falls. First book in series.




Eye of the Crow, by Shane Peacock, 2007. Young Sherlock finds comfort studying the world around him and reconstructing events, but when he decides to snoop around for clues to solve a sensational murder, Sherlock is accused of the crime and now must use all his mystery-solving clues to save himself.
She Is Not Invisible, by Marcus Sedgwick, 2014. A London teenager who is blind and her younger brother travel to New York City to find their missing father, using clues from his notebook based on his lifelong obsession with coincidences.  As they read his notes, they start noticing coincidences all around them, and soon a real sense of danger sets in. Has their father unlocked some forbidden truth about the universe? Or are they just finding patterns because they want to?


  Science Fiction  

Epic, by Conor Kostick, 2006. On New Earth, a world where violence has been banned for generations and conflicts are settled in the fantasy role-playing computer game Epic. Getting ahead in the real world means winning in the gaming world--and everyone plays. 14-year-old Erik persuades his friends to aid him in some unusual gambits in order to save Erik's father from exile and safeguard the futures of each of their families. First book in series.


A Beautiful Friendship, by David Weber, 2011.  12-year-old Stephanie, a genetically-enhanced girl on the pioneer planet of Sphinx, bonds with a treecat, a telepathic and fully sentient animal, putting her in danger from highly placed enemies who want to ensure that the planet remains entirely in human hands.




   Sports    


Tangerine, by Edward Bloor, 1997.  12-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.




Re-giftersby Mike Carey, 2007.  "Dixie," as she's known to her friends, is living on the ragged edge of LA's Koreatown. She's on the verge of winning a championship in the ancient martial art of hapkido -- until she falls for fellow hapkido fan/California surfer boy Adam and gets thrown spectacularly off her game. As she struggles to win the tournament -- not to mention Adam's affections -- Dixie learns that in love and in gift-giving, what goes around comes around. Graphic format.


Last Shot: A Final Four Mystery, by John Feinstein, 2005.   After winning a basketball reporting contest, eighth graders Stevie and Susan Carol are sent to cover the Final Four tournament, where they discover that a talented player is being blackmailed into throwing the final game.

Fantasy League, by Mike Lupica, 2014. In Los Angeles, twelve-year-old Charlie's skill at fantasy football gains the attention of both the local media and the owner of a professional football team.




            Realistic          

Grandmaster, by David Klass, 2014.  Invited to a parent-child weekend chess tournament in New York City, freshman Daniel discovers that his father was once one of the country's leading young players but that the intense competition surrounding the game proved to be unhealthy, a past they are forced to confront when they meet a former rival. 


Ungifted, by Gordon Korman, 2012.  When one of Donovan's thoughtless pranks accidentally destroys the school gym during the Big Game he knows he's in for it. But through a strange chain of events, his name gets put on the list for the local school for gifted students. Donovan knows he's not a genius, but he can't miss this chance to escape. Now, he has to figure out a way to stay at ASD and fit in with the kids there.

Counting by 7s, by Holly Goldberg Sloan, 2013.  12-year-old genius and outsider Willow Chance must figure out how to connect with other people and find a surrogate family for herself after her parents are killed in a car accident.




     Romance    


Guitar Notes, by Mary Amato, 2012. Tripp, who plays guitar only for himself, and Lyla, a cellist whose talent has already made her famous but not happy, form an unlikely friendship when they are forced to share a practice room at their high school.


Flipped, by Wendelin Van Draanen, 2001. In alternating chapters, two teenagers describe how their feelings about themselves, each other, and their families have changed over the years.




        Supernatural       


Flip, by Martyn Bedford, 2011.  14-year-old geeky musician Alex wakes up inside the body of Philip Garamond, a high-school soccer star, and faces a life-or-death quest to return to his true self or be trapped forever in the wrong existence.  





          Nonfiction          

Why'd They Wear That?: Fashion as the Mirror of History, by Sarah Albee, 2015.  In this humorous narrative, you will learn about outrageous, politically-perilous, funky, disgusting, regrettable, and life-threatening creations people have worn throughout the course of human history, all the way up to the present day. From spats and togas to hoop skirts and hair shirts, why people wore what they did is an illuminating way to look at the social, economic, political, and moral climates throughout history.

I Will Always Write Back: How One Letter Changed Two Lives, by Caitlin Alifirenka and Martin Ganda; with Liz Welch, 2015. Chronicles the friendship between an American girl and her pen pal from Zimbabwe, discussing how a class assignment was the beginning of a correspondence that spanned six years and changed two lives.

Can I See Your I.D.?: True Stories of False Identities, by Chris Barton, 2011. Looks at the lives of ten imposters, including Keron Thomas, Princess Caraboo, and Frank W. Abagnale, Jr., describing their motivations and exploits.  Biography.




The Nazi Hunters: How a Team of Spies and Survivors Captured the World's Most Notorious Nazi, by Neal Bascomb, 2013.  Recounts how, 16 years after the end of World War II, a team of undercover Israeli agents captured the Nazi war criminal, Adolf Eichmann, in a remote area of Argentina and brought him to trial in Israel for crimes committed during the Holocaust.
Beetle Busters: A Rogue Insect and the People Who Track It, by Loree Griffin Burns, 2014. This book about the tree-killing Asian longhorned beetle reveals how the help of everyday people, their neighborhoods, teams of beetle-sniffing dogs, and a nationwide effort from bug scientists to tree doctors are working to eradicate this invasive pest.

Daisy to the Rescue: True Stories of Daring Dogs, Paramedic Parrots, and Other Animal Heroes, Jeff Campbell, 2014. Collects over fifty true stories of heroic animals rescuing people, including a pot-bellied pig, parrot, dolphin, and half-breed wolf, with current scientific research about the human-animal bond.
Eye Benders: The Science of Seeing & Believing, by Clive Clifford, 2014. Presents examples of optical illusions and discusses how they happen by looking at how the brain and the eyes work together.




Choosing Courage: Inspiring Stories of What It Means to be a Hero, by Peter Collier, 2015. Shares the stories of Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation recipients while offering sidebars and essays to illuminate the qualities of true-life heroes.



The Brilliant History of Color in Art, by Victoria Finlay, 2014. Presents the primary colors as they appear in great works of art throughout history, from the caves paintings of the Ice Age to the modern works of today, offering little-known facts, anecdotes, and the science behind the creation of each individual color.



First Flight Around the World: The Adventures of the American Fliers Who Won the Race, by Tim Grove, 2015. An account of the 1924 race between six nations to be the first to circumnavigate the globe by airplane describes the efforts of the U.S. team as they struggled to overcome limited technology, dangerous weather, and unfamiliar cultures.

Ghostly Evidence: Exploring the Paranormal, by Kelly Milner Halls, 2014. Do you believe in ghosts? Enter the realm of the paranormal with Kelly Milner Halls. Explore what ghosts are, where they're found, and meet some famous ghost busters. Check out the high-tech equipment modern ghost hunters use, and see their most convincing evidence that ghosts are real. Finally,take a look at a few famous hoaxes.


Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice, by Phillip Hoose, 2009. Presents the life of the Alabama teenager who played an integral but little-known role in the Montgomery bus strike of 1955-1956, once by refusing to give up a bus seat, and again, by becoming a plaintiff in the landmark civil rights case against the bus company. Biography.

Moonbird: A Year on the Wind with the Great Survivor B95, by Phillip Hoose, 2012. Documents the survival tale of an intrepid shorebird who has endured annual migrations between Argentina and the Canadian Arctic throughout the course of a long lifetime while his species continues to decline.

Every Body's Talking: What We Say Without Words, by Donna M. Jackson, 2014. Discover what is really being expressed when people stand, sit, or move in certain ways and learn how you can use your body and facial expressions to communicate more effectively in a variety of situations.


Red Madness: How a Medical Mystery Changed What We Eat, by Gail Jarrow, 2014. 100 years ago, a mysterious and alarming illness spread across America's South. People were left weak, disfigured, insane, and in some cases, dead. Gail Jarrow tracks this disease, commonly known as pellagra, and highlights how doctors, scientists, and public health officials finally defeated it. Illustrated with 100 archival photographs. Includes stories about pellagra victims and accounts of scientific investigations.

Running Dry: The Global Water Crisis, by Stuart A. Kallen, 2015. Discusses how droughts, floods, and massive storms along with the human population affect water usage, and explains how the competition for clean water has increased.

When the Worst Happens: Extraordinary Stories of Survival, by Tany Lloyd Kyi, 2014.  True stories of young people who must find a way to survive extreme life or death situations.


Houdini: The Handcuff King, by Jason Lutes, 2007.  Offers a portrait of the legendary escape artist in graphic novel format, and reveals the secret behind his most amazing trick. Biography. Graphic format.



Sally Ride: Life on a Mission, by Sue Macy, 2014.  A biography of the first American woman astronaut to travel in space. Sally Ride was an astronaut, a nationally ranked tennis player, a physicist who enjoyed reading Shakespeare, a university professor, the founder of a company that helped inspire girls and young women to pursue careers in science and math, and a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Temple Grandin: How the Girl Who Loved Cows Embraced Autism and Changed the World, by Sy Montgomery, 2012. An authorized portrait about Grandin's life with autism and her groundbreaking work as a scientist and designer of cruelty-free livestock facilities describes how she overcame key disabilities through education and the support of her mother.

Primates: The Fearless Science of Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Birute Galdikas, by Jim Ottaviani, 2013. Introduces the lives and work of three eminent primatologists, shares insights into their educations under mentor Louis Leakey, while exploring their pivotal contributions to twentieth-century natural science.  Graphic format.


Patient Zero: Solving the Mysteries of Deadly Epidemics, by Marilee Peters, 2014. A look at seven deadly epidemics that have occurred since 1665 and the people who worked to solve the mystery of each disease.



Gandhi: My Life Is My Message, by Jason Quinn, 2014.  Introduces the life and accomplishments of the Indian political and spiritual leader who led his country to freedom from British rule through his policy of nonviolent resistance. Biography. Graphic format.





The Next Wave: The Quest to Harness the Power of the Oceans, by Elizabeth Rusch, 2014. Traces the innovative efforts of the scientific community to transform ocean waves into a renewable source of electrical power. A Scientists in the Field series book.


'21': The story of Roberto Clemente, by Wilfred Santiago, 2011.  Inspired by the life of baseball star Roberto Clemente; includes coverage of a wide range of topics from the ways in which prejudice challenged his career and his personal responsibilities to his achievements with the Pittsburgh Pirates and his triumphant 3,000th hit before his tragic fatal plane crash. Biography. Graphic format.


Outlaws, Spies, and Gangsters: Chasing Notorious Criminals, by Laura Scandiffio, 2014. Provides information on eight of the most notorious criminals who were caught on the run, including John Dillinger, Adolf Eichmann, and Osama bin Laden.



Witches!: The Absolutely True Tale of Disaster in Salem, by Rosalyn Schanzer, 2011. Shares the story of the victims, accused witches, corrupt officials, and mass hysteria that turned a mysterious illness affecting two children in Salem Village, Massachusetts, into a witch hunt that took more than a dozen lives and ruined hundreds more.


Cleopatra Rules!: The Amazing Life of the Original Teen Queen, by Vicky Alvear Shecter, 2010.  Presents the life of the last Egyptian queen, who survived internal politics to became the powerful ruler of her country and was linked to two famous Roman leaders, Julius Caesar and Marc Antony.

Sisters, by Raina Telgemeier, 2014.  In a semi-autobiographical graphic novel, Raina's disappointing bond with a cranky, independent younger sister is further challenged by the arrival of a baby brother and an estrangement in their parents' marriage. Autobiography. Graphic format.




Photos Framed: A Fresh Look at the World's Most Memorable Photographs, by Ruth Thomson, 2014.  Explores more than two dozen famous and vivid photographs, from Louis Daguerre's 1844 formal portrait to a 2011 candid shot of a Cuban girl and her doll, to reveal the power of photographs to convey information and trigger powerful emotional responses.