Multi-Genre Booklist: Honors 6th Grade
MYSTERY/SUSPENSE
The Mysterious Benedict SocietyTrenton Lee Stewart
"Are you a gifted child looking for Special Opportunities?" This curious newspaper ad catches the eye of orphan Reynie Muldoon. After taking exams that test both mind and spirit, Reynie is selected along with four other contestants--Sticky Washington, a nervous child with a photographic memory; irrepressible Kate Weatherhill; and a tiny child who lives up to her name, Constance Contraire. The children soon learn they've been chosen by mysterious Mr. Benedict for an important mission: they are to infiltrate the isolated Learning Institute for the Very Enlightened, from which messages of distrust and compliance are being broadcast into the minds of the world's citizens.
Theodore Boone: Kid LawyerJohn Griffin
Thirteen-year-old Theodore Boone wants to become a great lawyer one day, or better yet, a great judge. Theo's parents are both lawyers and have their law firm where Theo has his own little office. Because of his knowledge of legal matters, his classmates turn to him for advice. As the book begins, Theo has arranged for his class to go on a field trip to the courthouse for the opening of a high-profile murder trial. Theo becomes more directly involved when he finds someone who is in possession of key evidence in the case but is too afraid to come forward because of his immigration status. Although Theo is sworn to secrecy, he must figure out how to bring this information to light before the end of the trial.
The BoundlessKenneth Oppel
The Boundless is the greatest train ever built, and young Will Everett is aboard for the maiden voyage across the wild and rugged Canadian landscape. What do a tight rope walker, Saskwatch, mythical hag, a $200,000 railroad spike, and magical painting have to do with it? They’re all part of an elaborate and action packed train heist!
YOUNG ADULTS FICTION
Absolutely Normal Chaos Sharon Creech
Mary Lou, 13, wonders what it’s like to kiss a boy; if her best friend will ever shut up about her new boyfriend; and how her visiting cousin, Carl Ray, can be such a silent clod, especially when someone has anonymously given him $5000. Mary Lou is a typical teen whose acquaintance with the sadder parts of life is cushioned by a warm and energetic family.
Kissing Doorknobs Terry Spencer Hesser
Tara Sullivan first encounters her obsessive compulsive disorder at age 11, when she hears of the sidewalk game "Step on a crack, break your mother's back." Most people have heard this rhyme, but for Tara, it becomes something worse: "I couldn't not think the thoughts. And I couldn't not count the cracks." In one of several compulsive rituals, she must count every sidewalk crack between her house and school. If she is ever interrupted or loses her place, she must run back to the beginning and start over, or her mother's spinal health will be endangered. She recognizes this as absurd behavior, and gets absolutely no pleasure from the exercise, yet nonetheless feels inexplicably compelled to perform it.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-TimeMark Haddon
REQUIRES PARENT PERMISSION (some mature content and swear words) Fifteen-year-old Christopher John Francis Boone is mathematically gifted and socially hopeless, raised in a working-class home by parents who can barely cope with their child's autism. He takes everything that he sees (or is told) at face value, and is unable to sort out the strange behavior of his elders and peers. Late one night, Christopher comes across his neighbor's poodle, Wellington, impaled on a garden fork. Wellington's owner finds him cradling her dead dog in his arms, and has him arrested. After spending a night in jail, Christopher resolves to discover just who has murdered Wellington. Encouraged by Siobhan, a social worker at his school, to write a book about his investigations, the result is The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.
Peak
After fourteen-year-old Peak Marcello is arrested for scaling a New York City skyscraper, he's left with two choices: wither away in Juvenile Detention or go live with his long-lost father, who runs a climbing company in Thailand. As owner of Peak Expeditions, he wants his son to be the youngest person to reach the Everest summit--and his motives are selfish at best. Even so, for a climbing addict like Peak, tackling Everest is the challenge of a lifetime. But it's also one that could cost him his life.
SCIENCE FICTION
Life As We Knew ItSusan Pfeffer
Following a lunar disaster, the world begins to change for the worse. Supermarkets run out of food, gas goes up to more than ten dollars a gallon and school is closed indefinitely. As told in Miranda’s diary entries, this is the account of her struggle to hold onto the most important resource of all- hope- in an increasingly desperate and unfamiliar time.
The Dead And the GoneSusan Pfeffer
An asteroid knocks the moon closer to Earth, and every conceivable natural disaster occurs. Seventeen-year-old Alex Morales's parents are missing and presumed drowned by tsunamis. Left alone, he struggles to care for his sisters Bri, 14, and Julie, 12. Things look up as Central Park is turned into farmland and food begins to grow. Then worldwide volcanic eruptions coat the sky with ash and the land freezes permanently. People starve, freeze, or die of the flu. Only the poor are left in New York—a doomed island—while the rich light out for safe towns inland and south.
*The Maze Runner (Last chance to read it before the movie comes out!)James Dashner
Thomas wakes up in an elevator, remembering nothing but his own name and emerges into a world of about 60 teen boys who have learned to survive in a completely enclosed environment, subsisting on their own agriculture. A new boy arrives every 30 days. The original group has been in "the glade" for two years, trying to find a way to escape through a maze that surrounds their living space. They have begun to give up hope. Then a comatose girl arrives with a strange note, and their world begins to change.
Antarctica 2083Nancy Farmer
In the future there is no school. All students are educated by watching television and a reality TV show called “Historical Survivor”. This year’s Survivor show is a recreation of Scott’s doomed expedition to the South Pole. The contestants are children who, if they survive and are chosen by the audience as “most valuable player”, will be given an opportunity for something most people consider unattainable: a college education.
Unwind(Movie comes out in 2015!)Neal Shusterman
In a society where unwanted teens are salvaged for their body parts, three runaways fight the system that would "unwind" them. Connor's parents want to be rid of him because he's a troublemaker. Risa has no parents and is being unwound to cut orphanage costs. Lev's unwinding has been planned since his birth, as part of his family's strict religion. Brought together by chance, and kept together by desperation, these three unlikely companions make a harrowing cross-country journey, knowing their lives hang in the balance. If they can survive until their eighteenth birthday, they can't be harmed - but when every piece of them, from their hands to their hearts, are wanted by a world gone mad, eighteen seems far, far away.
Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment(Last chance to read it before the movie comes out!)James Patterson
Six kids with no families and no homes are running for their lives. They are the products of an experiment: they were engineered to fly. Now that they’ve escaped, they are being hunted by those who want to keep them a secret.
Truancy Isamu Fukui
Tack, 15, lives in a society where a corrupt government oppresses its citizens, starting when they are students. A group of young resistance fighters called the Truancy violently strikes back against the system. Tack joins the movement after his sister is accidentally killed in a Truancy attack on a government official. His intention is to murder its leader in revenge, but he finds himself drawn into the group's philosophy and is torn between wanting to bring down the government or destroy the ferocious resistance. (If you loved The Hunger Games, you might love this!)
UgliesScott Westerfield
Tally Youngblood lives in a futuristic society that acculturates its citizens to believe that they are ugly until age 16 when they'll undergo an operation that will change them into pleasure-seeking "pretties." Tally meets Shay, another female ugly, who disdains the false values and programmed conformity of the society and urges Tally to defect with her to the Smoke, a distant settlement of simple-living conscientious objectors. Tally declines, yet when Shay is found missing by the authorities, Tally is coerced by the cruel Dr. Cable to find her and her compatriots–or remain forever "ugly."
*Ender’s Shadow (Companion book to Ender’s Game!)Orson Scott Card
Aliens have attacked Earth twice and almost destroyed the human species. To make sure humans win the next encounter, the world government is searching for the next commander who can lead earth’s troops to victory. Beanis a little too young, a little too scrawny, and a little too head strong. Can he put aside his anger at the world to help Ender save the planet?
FANTASY
*The Red PyramidRick Riordan
Carter, 14, and Sadie, 12, have grown up apart. He has traveled all over the world with his Egyptologist father, Dr. Julius Kane, while Sadie has lived in London with her grandparents. Their mother passed away under mysterious circumstances, so when their father arrives in London and wants to take them both on a private tour of the British Museum, all is not necessarily what it seems. The evening ends with the apparent destruction of the Rosetta Stone, the disappearance of Dr. Kane, and the kidnapping of Carter and Sadie. More insidiously, it leads to the release of five Egyptian gods, including Set, who is their mortal enemy.
The Last Apprentice: Revenge of the WitchJoseph Delaney
For years, old Gregory has been the Spook for the county, ridding the local villages of evil. Now his time is coming to an end. But who will take over for him? Twenty-nine apprentices have tried- some floundered, some fled, some failed to stay alive. Only Thomas Ward is left. He’s the last hope, the last apprentice.
The Ranger’s Apprentice: The Ruins of GorlanJohn Flanagan
Will hopes to become a knight; instead, he winds up as a Ranger's apprentice, joining the secretive corps that uses stealth and courage to protect the kingdom. His bravery gradually earns the respect of his stern but good-hearted master. When the kingdom is attacked by evil forces he is called into the action.
EverlostNeal Shusterman
Nick and Allie don’t survive the car accident, but their souls don’t exactly get where they’re supposed to go either. Instead, they’re caught halfway between life and death, in a sort of limbo known as Everlost: a shadow of the living world, filled with all the things and places that no longer exist. It’s a magical, yet dangerous place where bands of lost kids run wild and anyone who stands in the same place too long sinks to the center of the Earth.
Full TiltNeal Shusterman
Brothers Blake and Quinn are in for the surprise of their lives when they're thrust into the world of a bizarre phantom carnival -- and their souls are the price of admission. In order to save his brother, and himself, Blake must survive seven different carnival rides before dawn. Seven rides...it sounds easy. But each ride is full of unexpected dangers, because each ride is a reflection of one of Blake's deepest fears. And the last ride is the worst one of all. Because that's the one that confronts Blake with a terrifying secret from his past -- a secret he's been running from for years.
Miss Peregrin’s Home For Peculiar Children (Movie comes out in 2015!)Ransom Riggs
A horrific family tragedy sets sixteen-year-old Jacob journeying to a remote island off the coast of Wales, where he discovers the crumbling ruins of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. As Jacob explores its abandoned bedrooms and hallways, it becomes clear that the children were more than just peculiar. They may have been dangerous. They may have been quarantined on a deserted island for good reason. And somehow—impossible though it seems—they may still be alive.
*Something Wicked This Way Comes(1983 movie is so different, I’m leaving it on the list.)Ray Bradbury
The carnival rolls in sometime after midnight, ushering in Halloween a week early. The shrill siren song of a calliope beckons to all with a seductive promise of dreams and youth regained. In this season of dying, Cooger & Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show has come to Green Town, Illinois, to destroy every life touched by its strange and sinister mystery. And two boys will discover the secret of its smoke, mazes, and mirrors; two friends who will soon know all too well the heavy cost of wishes and the stuff of nightmare.
*The Hobbit (Last chance to read it before the REST of the movie comes out!)J.R.R. Tolkien
Bilbo Baggins, is the last person one would expect to go on a hazardous journey. When Gandalf the Grey stops by one morning, "looking for someone to share in an adventure," Baggins is not interested. Soon 13 dwarves have arrived on the hobbit's doorstep in search of a burglar, and before he can even grab his hat or an umbrella, Bilbo Baggins is swept out his door and into a dangerous adventure.
*HeroMike Lupica
Zach Harriman knew that his dad was something of a hero, a man trusted by the president to solve international crises at a moment's notice. Suddenly people are telling him he has powers - people who know much more about his father than Zach ever did. Zach begins to do things ordinary people cannot like fend off grown men as though he possesses the strength of a hundred and sense when evil is about to strike (and evil is about to strike in a very big way). Zach Harriman is his father's son. And he, too, is a hero.
HISTORICAL FICTION
Girl In a CageJane Yolen
In 1306, a year has passed since patriot William "Braveheart" Wallace was executed, and things are not going well for the cause of Scottish freedom. Robert Bruce, newly crowned king of Scotland, has managed to evade his powerful enemy, Edward I of England, but many allies have been killed or taken. A recent capture is Bruce's 11-year-old daughter Marjorie. The princess finds herself conveyed to the English border town of Lanercost, locked in an iron cage, and displayed outdoors day and night by the decree of ailing King Edward, "Longshanks," himself.
Fever 1793Laurie Halse Anderson
During the summer of 1793, Mattie Cook lives above the family coffee shop with her widowed mother and grandfather. But when fever breaks out Mattie flees the city with her grandfather. She soon discovers that the sickness is everywhere, and must learn quickly how to survive in a city turned frantic with disease.
Under a War Torn Sky L.M. Elliot
American Henry Forester, a young flier with the Royal Air Force during World War II. On his thirteenth bombing mission, he is shot down, having no idea where he has landed. His journey back through Nazi-occupied Europe and his involvement with members of the French resistance are depicted with chilling realism.
Esperanza RisingPam Munoz Ryan
Esperanza and her mother face many difficulties when they are forced to flee their comfortable ranchero in Mexico and become farm laborers in California.
The Devil’s ArithmeticJane Yolen
After hearing many stories of the Holocaust, Hannah finds herself transported back in time into the middle of it. Will she be strong enough to endure what she knows is the most horrifying event of the 20th century?
*Prisoner B-3087Alan Gratz
As a Jewish boy in 1930s Poland, Yanek is at the mercy of the Nazis who have taken over. Everything he has, and everyone he loves, have been snatched brutally from him. And then Yanek himself is taken prisoner -- his arm tattooed with the words PRISONER B-3087. He is forced from one nightmarish concentration camp to another. Can Yanek make it through the terror without losing his hope, his will -- and, most of all, his sense of who he really is inside?