Children Realistic Fiction

Nobody said starting fifth grade would be easy, and Penny Lowry's anxiety means a million questions are always spinning through her thoughts. Luckily she's got a lot to look forward to, like her favorite after-school activity, Art Club, and seeing her best friend Violet again after spending the whole summer apart. The thing is, Violet has been acting weird ever since she got back. She never wants to hang out anymore, says Art Club is for babies, and spends all her time with Riley, the meanest girl in school. Did Penny do something wrong? And if she did, can she undo it?

Nikki Beckett could only watch as her boyfriend, Jack, sacrificed himself to save her, taking her place in the Tunnels of the Everneath for eternity - a debt that should've been hers. Now she is living a borrowed life, and she doesn't know what to do with the guilt. And every night, Jack appears in her dreams, lost and confused and wasting away. No matter how she tries to reach for his hand, she can never find it.

As a member of the Vipers Swim Team, Julia Nam's always in the pool. Mountainview Community Center is like her second home, not only because swimming at the aquatic center is her favorite thing in the world, but also because her parents run the center's sushi café. Julia would much rather be in the pool than sitting behind the counter of Sushi on the Go! watching other people swim.

As far as twelve-year-old McKinley O’Dair is concerned, the best thing about living in Gap Bend, Pennsylvania, is the Time Hop—the giant party the town throws every June to celebrate a single year in history. That one day is enough to make the few things that aren’t so fantastic about McKinley’s life—like her crabby homeroom teacher or her super-scheduled father—worth suffering through. And when McKinley learns that this year’s theme is 1993, she can’t wait to enter the Time Hop fashion show with a killer '90s outfit she’s designed and sewn all on her own.

What is stargazer, skateboarder, chess champ, pepperoni pizza eater, older brother, sister hater, best friend, first kisser, science geek, control freak Will Tuppence so afraid of in this great big universe? Jerry Spinelli knows.

Twelve-year-old Isabel is the new kid in her San Francisco middle school. It’s the first time in many years that she’ll be living with her mother again. Mama's job in the US allowed Isabel and her grandparents to live more comfortably in the Philippines, but now Isabel doesn't really know her own mother anymore. Making new friends in a new city, a new country, is hard, but joining the gardening and cooking club at school means Isabel will begin to find her way, and maybe she too, will begin to bloom.

A classic coming-of-age story which has held generations of fans spellbound. Rusty, a 16-year-old Anglo-Indian boy, is orphaned, and has to live with his English guardian in the claustrophobic European part in Dehra Dun. Unhappy with the strict ways of his guardian, Rusty runs away from home to live with his Indian friends. Plunging for the first time into the dream-bright world of the bazaar, Hindu festivals and other aspects of Indian life, Rusty is enchanted...and is lost forever to the prim proprieties of the European community.

From the beloved author of the Mr. Terupt and Perfect Score series comes this stand-alone middle-grade novel about a girl who is dealing with the tragic loss of her best friend, and the dog that helps her forge new friendships and find happiness once again.

Halloween is just around the corner, and with it comes the dreaded overnight class trip at a smelly farm. Fonda has ideas for a way cooler trip, but before she can say Catalina Island, other kids (including her best friend’s crush’s best friend!) come forward with class trip proposals of their own. There's only one solution: a petition competition, and whoever gets the most signatures wins. Fonda enlists her besties, Drew and Ruthie, to help, but are they ready to do whatever it takes to win?

Belle Prater is missing. Since she inexplicably disappeared about a year ago, her son, Woodrow, has been living with his grandparents, next door to his cousin Gypsy. The two are best friends, joined by their adventurous sprits and shared love of stories and magic.

One night they receive a puzzling phone call, which provides a clue that sends Gypsy and Woodrow on a mission to find Belle.

Gooney Bird Greene likes to be right smack in the middle of everything. That's why she wants to have the lead role of Squanto in her class Thanksgiving pageant. But that role will go to whoever finds someone to be the room mother. All the parents are so busy, no one can bring cupcakes to the play. Gooney Bird Greene to the rescue! She finds a room mother alright, but promises not to tell who it is until the day of the play. Now the kids are really busy getting ready for the show.

When her grandmother comes off the airplane in Houston from Pakistan, Mahnoor knows that having Dadi move in is going to disrupt everything about her life. She doesn’t have time to be Dadi’s unofficial babysitter—her journalism teacher has announced that their big assignment will be to film a documentary, which feels more like storytelling than what Maha would call “journalism.”

Zeke Stahls is not the best kid in the world. Some days he struggles just to be good. He'd rather be pulling pranks than doing extra credit, and he's too busy performing experiments on his little brother, Nate, or tormenting his older sister, Jackie, to volunteer for charity. Which is why Zeke and his entire family are shocked when they receive word that he has been selected as a contestant in an online competition to find the World's Greatest Kid.

Twelve-year-old Amelia Gray has changed schools thirty-nine times (!!!) because of her dad’s job, which doesn’t leave a lot of time for making friends. But that’s okay. Amelia loves her “life on the go” with Dad and their adorable supermutt, Biscotti. She’s been in enough middle schools to know that friendships are messy, and who needs that? But when her dad announces that he wants to stay in their new town for the whole summer—maybe even forever—Amelia realizes she’s going to have to do the one thing she’s never had to do: fit in.

Isaiah ""Ice"" Abernathy has always worshiped his older brother, Seth. For years they’ve been not just brothers but best friends—and as Seth starts his senior year, Ice is eager to spend as much time with his brother as he can, making memories before Seth goes to college.

After breaking school rules the last time she solved a mystery, Drew Leclair has a new mission: get good grades, stay under the radar, and do not get suspended. But when Drew finds out that there’s a thief breaking into the P.E. lockers and leaving behind cryptic ransom notes, it’s hard to resist cracking a new case. Especially when one of the victims is her best friend Shrey’s crush, and he’s practically begging her to get involved.

Twelve-year-old Calista Wynn will lose her ability to speak with the dead on her thirteenth birthday. And with only a few weeks left, children have started going missing. When Calista meets the Tall Lady—an angry spirit with a grudge against Calista, her family, and the entire town—she knows she’s found the ghost responsible for the disappearances.

Dani and Eric have been best friends since Dani moved next door in second grade. They bond over donuts, comic books, and camping on the Cape. Until one summer when everything changes. Did Eric cause the accident that leaves Dani unable to do the one thing in the world she most cares about? The question plagues him, and he will do anything to get answers about the explosion that injured her. But Dani is hurting too much to want Eric to pursue the truth—she just wants to shut him out and move on. Besides, Eric has a history of dropping things he starts.

Meet Clementine. She's quippy, sarcastic, and dramatic. And the overwhelming guilt of her sister's death weighs on her so heavily that she no longer feels like living. As Clementine and her mother attempt to continue their lives after Halley's death, the world around them changes. Clementine's best friend now feels like a stranger. Her new school is full of spoiled, carefree kids. She kisses boys just to feel something. She tries to live in the moment. But ultimately, Clementine feels trapped in a snow globe.

Autumn is looking forward to summer vacation. She and her best friend plan on going to all the best ice cream places their stomachs can handle—and in NYC, the possibilities can’t get any sweeter. Linnea is still not over the fact that her dad has found love after her parents' divorce. Luckily, she can take out all her feelings on the tennis courts for a winning summer. But then Autumn and Linnea discover the news: their parents are getting married. Devastated, the two of them come up with an idea: if they can split up their parents, their lives can go back to normal.