6th Grade
FAMILY LIFE
F ARM Sounder. By William H. Armstrong
Angry and humiliated when his sharecropper father is jailed for stealing food for his family, a young black boy grows in courage and understanding by learning to read and with the help of the devoted dog Sounder.
F BAU On My Nonor. By Marion Dane Bauer.
When his best friend drowns while they are both swimming in a treacherous river that they had promised never to go near, Joel is devastated and terrified at having to tell both sets of parents the terrible consequences of their disobedience.
F FIN The Tulip Touch. By Anne Fine.
Natalie, who lives in the large hotel managed by her father, has a dangerous friendship with Tulip, the wildly uncontrollable girl on a neighboring farm.
F FOX One-Eyed Cat. By Paula Fox
An eleven-year-old shoots a stray cat with his new air rifle, subsequently suffers from guilt, and eventually assumes responsibility for it.
F KON The View From Saturday. By E.L. Konigsburg.
Four students, with their own individual stories, develop a special bond and attract the attention of their teacher, a paraplegic, who chooses them to represent their sixth-grade class in the Academic Bowl competition.
F LEN Meet the Austins. By Madeleine L’Engle
The life of the Austin family is changed by the arrival of self-centered young Maggy Hamilton, orphaned by the sudden death of her pilot father.
F MAC Journey. By Patricia MacLachlin.
When their mother goes off, leaving her two children with their grandparents, they feel as if their past has been erased until Grandfather finds a way to restore it to them.
F STA Shiva’s Fire. By Suzanne Fisher Staples
In India, a talented dancer sacrifices friends and family for her art.
F WHE Homeless Bird. By 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.
F ALC Little Woman. By Louisa Alcott
Chronicles the joys and sorrows of the four March sisters as they grow into young ladies in nineteenth-century New England.
F PAR A Single Shard. By Linda Sue Park.
Tree-ear, a thirteen-year-old orphan in medieval Korea, lives under a bridge in a potters' village, and longs to learn how to throw the delicate celadon ceramics himself.
HUMOUR
F BLU Starring Sally J. Freedman as herself. By Judy Blume.
While spending the winter of 1947-1948 in Miami Beach with her family, ten-year-old Sally makes up stories, casts herself in starring roles in movies, and encounters a sinister stranger.
F LIM Girl, Going on 17, Pants on Fire. By Sue Limb.
Jess' seventeenth year is a tumultuous one, due to a series of lies and unfortunate circumstances, including her break-up with Fred, her school detention, and her mother's new romance.
F PRA Going Postal. By Terry Pratchett.
A condemned swindler is offered the position of Postmaster.
F ROD Freaky Friday. By Mary Rodgers.
A thirteen-year-old girl gains a much more sympathetic understanding of her relationship with her mother when she has to spend a day in her mother's body.
F SNI The Bad Beginning. By Lemony Snicket
After the sudden death of their parents, the three Baudelaire children must depend on each other and their wits when it turns out that the distant relative who is appointed their guardian is determined to use any means necessary to get their fortune.
PB GR (YA) The Day My Butt Went Psycho! By Andy
Zack Freeman joins forces with the B-Team squad in an effort to stop a plot by the world's butts--including Zack's own backside--to take what they believe to be their rightful place on the human body.
F AND Burger Wuss. By M.T. Anderson.
Hoping to lose his loser image, Anthony plans revenge on a bully which results in a war between two competing fast food restaurants, Burger Queen and O'Dermott's.
F HEN The Ransom of Red Chief. By O. Henry.
Two men kidnap a mischievous boy and request a large ransom for his return, but the child's father, knowing his son well, turns the tables on the kidnappers. Includes a discussion of the story and a biography of O. Henry.
F AND Whales on Stilts. By 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.
F PAU Harris and Me. By Gary Paulsen.
Sent to live with relatives on their farm because of his unhappy home life, an eleven-year-old city boy meets his distant cousin Harris and is given an introduction to a whole new world.
PB AVI (MS) Romeo and Juliet-- Together (and Alive!) at Last. By Avi.
The eighth grade's plan to get two reluctant "lovers" together by means of a classroom production of Shakespeare's play has some very unexpected results.
PB KOR (YA) Losing Joe's Place. By Gordon Korman.
Jason and his two friends move into Jason's brother's apartment and manage to wreak havoc in it during one funny and memorable summer.
ADVENTURE & MYSTERY
F AIK Cold Shoulder Road. By Joan Aiken.
As they search for Arun's mother, Is Twite and her cousin Arun are grateful for their ability to communicate telepathically when they find themselves in a series of dangerous predicaments involving the evil Dominic de la Twite and his Silent Sect.
PB BOD (MS) Williwaw! By Tom Bodett
In their father's absence, thirteen-year-old September and her younger brother Ivan disobey his orders by taking the boat out on their Alaska bay, where they are caught in a terrifying storm called a williwaw.
F CAS Behind the Attic Wall. By Sylvia Cassedy.
In the bleak, forbidding house of her great-aunts, neglected twelve-year-old orphan Maggie hears ghostly voices and finds magic that awakens in her the capacity to love and be loved.
F DUN A Gift of Magic. By Lois Duncan
A young girl, gifted with extrasensory perception, struggles to cope with her unusual ability.
F ECK Incident at Hawk’s Hill. By Allan Eckert.
A shy, lonely six-year-old wanders into the Canadian prairie and spends a summer under the protection of a badger.
PB GEO (MS) Julie of the Wolves. By Jean 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.
F HAH Wait Till Helen Comes. By Mary Downing Hahn
Molly and Michael dislike their spooky new stepsister Heather but realize that they must try to save her when she seems ready to follow a ghost child to her doom.
F IRW The Original Freddie Ackerman By Hadley Irwin
Twelve-year-old Trevor Frederick Ackerman refuses to spend another summer with his extended family of divorced parents, step-parents, and step-brothers and step-sisters, so he is sent up to Maine to stay with two eccentric great aunts and there gets involved with some interesting people and an unexpected mystery.
F MIK Countdown. By Ben Mikaelson
In two parallel stories, a fourteen-year-old boy who is NASA's first Junior Astronaut and a fourteen-year-old Maasai herder in Kenya both edge into maturity while questioning their family traditions.
F ODE Zia. By Scott O’Dell.
A young Indian girl, Zia, caught between the traditional world of her mother and the present world of the Mission, is helped by her aunt Karana whose story was told in the Island of the Blue Dolphins.
F RAS The Westing Game. By Ellen Raskin
Each of the sixteen people invited to the reading of a very strange will are given $10,000, a set of clues, ad the chance to become a millionaire.
F TAY The Cay. By Theodore Taylor
When the freighter on which they are traveling is torpedoed by a German submarine during World War II, an adolescent white boy, blinded by a blow on the head, and an old black man are stranded on a tiny Caribbean island where the boy acquires a new kind of vision, courage, and love from his old companion.
HISTORICAL FICTION
F AND Fever, 1793. By Laurie Anderson
In 1793 Philadelphia, sixteen-year-old Matilda Cook, separated from her sick mother, learns about perseverance and self-reliance when she is forced to cope with the horrors of a yellow fever epidemic.
F AVI Crispin: The Cross of Lead. By Avi.
Falsely accused of theft and murder, an orphaned peasant boy in fourteenth-century England flees his village and meets a larger-than-life juggler who holds a dangerous secret.
F BLA The Shakespaeare Stealer. By Gary Blackwood
Falsely accused of theft and murder, an orphaned peasant boy in fourteenth-century England flees his village and meets a larger-than-life juggler who holds a dangerous secret
.
F CUS Catherine, Called Birdy. By Catherine 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.
PB KON (YA) The Seconds Mrs. Giaconda. By E.L. Konigsburg Leonardo da Vinci's lying, thieving, and indispensable servant-apprentice, Gian Giacomo de' Caprotti, called Salai, recounts the circumstances and motives behind the master's painting of the Mona Lisa.
F MCC The Kite Rider. By Geraldine McCaughrean
In thirteenth-century China, after trying to save his widowed mother from a horrendous second marriage, twelve-year-old Haoyou has life-changing adventures when he takes to the sky as a circus kite rider and ends up meeting the great Mongol ruler Kublai Khan.
F REI The Upstairs Room. By Johanna Reiss
A Dutch Jewish girl describes the two-and-one-half years she spent in hiding in the upstairs bedroom of a farmer’s house during World War II.
PB SPE (YA) The Witch of Blackbird Pond. By Elizabeth Speare
In 1687 in Connecticut, Kit Tyler, feeling out of place in the Puritan household of her aunt, befriends an old woman considered a witch by the community and suddenly finds herself standing trial for witchcraft.
TF STE Treasure Island. By Robert Louis Stevenson
While going through the possessions of a deceased guest who owed them money, the mistress of the inn and her son, Jim, find a treasure map that leads them to a pirate's fortune.
FANTASY
F ALE The Iron Ring. By Lloyd Alexander
Driven by his sense of "dharma," or honor, young King Tamar sets off on a perilous journey, with significance greater than he can imagine, during which he meets talking animals, villainous and noble kings, demons, and the love of his life.
F BEL The House With a Clock on its Walls. By John Bellairs
A boy goes to live with his magician uncle in a mansion that has a clock hidden in the walls which is ticking off the minutes until doomsday.
F BIL The Folk Keeper. By Franny Billingsley
Orphan Corinna disguises herself as a boy to pose as a Folk Keeper, one who keeps the Evil Folk at bay, and discovers her heritage as a seal maiden when she is taken to live with a wealthy family in their manor by the sea.
F COO Over Sea, Under Stone. By Susan Cooper
Three children on a holiday in Cornwall find an ancient manuscript which sends them on a dangerous quest for a grail that would reveal the true story of King Arthur.
F GRI Switching Well. By Peni Griffin
Two twelve-year-old girls in San Antonio, Texas, Ada in 1891 and Amber in 1991, switch places through a magic well and try desperately to return to their own times.
F LAN The Fledging. By Jane Langton
Georgie's fondest hope, to be able to fly, is fleetingly fulfilled when she is befriended by a Canada goose.
F TOL The Hobbit. By J.R.R. Tolkien
Chronicles the adventures of the inhabitants of Middle-earth and Bilbo Baggins, the hobbit who brought home to The Shire the One Ring of Power.
SCIENCE FICTION
F ALM Skellig. By David Almond.
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.
F LOW The Giver. By 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.
F FAR The Eye, the Ear, and the Arm. By 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.
F LAW The Thieves of Ostia. By Caroline Lawrence
In Rome in the year 79 A.D., a group of children from very different backgrounds work together to discover who beheaded a pet dog -- and why.
PB ROB (MS) The Girl With the Silver Eyes. By Willo Roberts
A 10-year-old girl, who has always looked different from other children, discovers that she not only has unusual powers but that there are others like her.
NON-FICTION
331.892 BAR Kids on Strike! By Susan Campbell Bartoletti
Describes the conditions and treatment that drove workers, including many children, to various strikes, from the mill workers strikes in 1828 and 1836 to the work of Mother Jones on behalf of child workers.
921 FIL Zlata’s Diary. By Zlata Filipovic
The diary of a thirteen-year-old girl living in Sarajevo, begun just before her eleventh birthday when there was still peace in her homeland.
921 FRI Homesick. By Jean Fritz
The author's fictionalized version, though all the events are true, of her childhood in China in the 1920's.
363.25 JAC The Bone Detectives. By Donna Jackson
Explores the world of forensic anthropology and its applications in solving crimes.
551.2 LAU Volcano. By Patricia Lauber
An account of how and why Mount St. Helens erupted in May 1980 and the destruction it caused, and a discussion of the return of life to that area.
599.74 NOR Rascal. By Sterling North
Skunks, woodchucks, a crow named Poe, an absent-minded father, an eighteen foot, half-finished canoe in the living room—welcome to the North home! Nothing’s surprising at the North residence. Not even eleven-year-old Sterling’s new pet raccoon.
