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The Seven Wonders of Sassafras Springs

Betty G. Birney · back to the book

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24 books with the same feel

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❤️

Onion John

Joseph Krumgold · 248 pages

His friendship with the town odd-jobs man, Onion John, causes a conflict between Andy and his father.

Middle GradeSmall TownCharmingHeartwarming
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A Season of Gifts

Richard Peck

Relates the surprising gifts bestowed on twelve-year-old Bob Barnhart and his family, who have recently moved to a small Illinois town in 1958, by their larger-than-life neighbor, Mrs. Dowdel.

Small TownMiddle GradeCharmingMale Lead
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The Small Adventure of Popeye and Elvis

Barbara O'Connor · 149 pages

In Fayette, South Carolina, the highlight of Popeye's summer is learning vocabulary words with his grandmother until a motorhome gets stuck nearby and Elvis, the oldest boy living inside, joins Popeye in finding the source of strange boats floating down the creek.

Middle GradeSmall TownCharmingMale Lead
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Frindle

Andrew Clements, Brian Selznick · 112 pages

From bestselling and award-winning author Andrew Clements, a quirky, imaginative tale about creative thought and the power of words that will have readers inventing their own words. Is Nick Allen a troublemaker? He really just likes to liven things up at school -- and he's always had plenty of great ideas. When Nick learns some interesting information about how words are created, suddenly he's

Middle GradeSmall TownMale LeadHeartwarming
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Waffle Hearts

Maria Parr · 237 pages

Lena is Trille’s best friend, even if she is a girl. And there is never an ordinary day when you’ve got a best friend like Lena. Hardly a day passes without Trille and Lena inventing some kind of adventure that often ends in trouble. Whether it’s coaxing a cow onto a boat or sledding down the steepest and iciest hill with a chicken, there is always a thrill—and sometimes an injury—to be had. Tril

Middle GradeSmall TownCharmingMale Lead
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Extra Credit

Andrew Clements · 183 pages

As letters flow back and forth--between the prairies of Illinois and the mountains of Afghanistan, across cultural and religious divides--sixth-grader Abby, ten-year-old Amira, and eleven-year-old Sadeed begin to speak and listen to each other.

Middle GradeSmall TownCharmingMale Lead
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Moon Over Manifest

Clare Vanderpool · 384 pages

Twelve-year-old Abilene Tucker is the daughter of a drifter who, in the summer of 1936, sends her to stay with an old friend in Manifest, Kansas, where he grew up, and where she hopes to find out some things about his past.

Middle GradeSmall TownCharmingHeartwarming
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Nightbird

Alice Hoffman · 208 pages

Twig lives in a remote area of town with her mysterious brother and her mother, baker of irresistible apple pies. A new girl in town might just be Twig's first true friend, and ally in vanquishing an ancient family curse. A spellbinding tale of modern folklore set in the Berkshires, where rumours of a winged beast draw in as much tourism as the town's famed apple orchards.

Small TownMiddle GradeCharmingHeartwarming
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The Higher Power of Lucky

Susan Patron · 144 pages

Fearing that her legal guardian plans to abandon her to return to France, ten-year-old aspiring scientist Lucky Trimble determines to run away while also continuing to seek the Higher Power that will bring stability to her life.

Middle GradeSmall TownCharmingHeartwarming
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Middle GradeSmall TownCharmingHeartwarming
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Me and My Little Brain

John D. Fitzgerald · 140 pages

Tom a.k.a. the Great Brain, is off to boarding school. Now his little brother, J.D., is free to follow in Tom's ingenious, conniving, and profitable footsteps. All of J.D.'s attempts at turning a profit fail miserably, and he soon realizes that he just doesn't have that crafty Great Brain knack. But when his younger brother is kidnapped, J.D. finds that his little brain may not be so ordinary a

Middle GradeSmall TownCharmingMale Lead
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The Way to Stay in Destiny

Augusta Scattergood · 179 pages

Sixth-grader Theo leaves everything behind to live with his Uncle Chester, a Vietnam War veteran and loner, in Destiny, Florida, but he is drawn to play the piano in Miss Sister's dance school and soon makes friends with the feisty Anabel, a baseball fanatic who invites Theo to help solve a mystery.

Middle GradeSmall TownHeartwarmingMale Lead
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Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill

Maud Hart Lovelace · 171 pages

Small TownMiddle GradeCharmingHeartwarming
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Encyclopedia Brown Takes the Case

Donald J. Sobol · 116 pages

Middle GradeSmall TownCharmingMale Lead
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Love, Ruby Lavender

Deborah Wiles · 200 pages

Ruby Lavender used to have a good life. She and her grandmother, Miss Eula, were inseparable--they even drove the getaway car together for chickens rescued from the slaughterhouse! But this summer, Miss Eula will be in Hawaii, and Ruby's sure it'll be a lonely, empty, horrible season without her. What happens instead? Ruby makes a new friend, saves the school play, writes plenty of letters to her

Middle GradeSmall TownCharmingHeartwarming
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True

Katherine Hannigan

Middle GradeSmall TownCharmingHeartwarming
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Mudville

Kurtis Scaletta · 272 pages

Welcome to Moundville, where it's been raining for longer than Roy McGuire has been alive. Most people say the town is cursed--right in the middle of their big baseball game against rival town Sinister Bend, black clouds crept across the sky and it started to rain. That was 22 years ago . . . and it's still pouring.Baseball camp is over, and Roy knows he's in for a dreary, soggy summer. But when h

Middle GradeSmall TownMale LeadHeartwarming
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Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm

Kate Douglas Wiggin · 337 pages

Talkative, ten-year-old Rebecca goes to live with her spinster aunts, one harsh and demanding, the other soft and sentimental, with whom she spends seven difficult but rewarding years growing up.

Middle GradeSmall TownHeartwarmingCharming
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Three Times Lucky

Sheila Turnage · 312 pages

Washed ashore as a baby in tiny Tupelo Landing, North Carolina, Mo LoBeau, now eleven, and her best friend Dale turn detective when the amnesiac Colonel, owner of a café and co-parent of Mo with his cook, Miss Lana, seems implicated in a murder.

Middle GradeSmall TownCharmingHeartwarming
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Rascal

Sterling North · 189 pages

The author's carefree life in a small midwestern town at the close of World War I, and his adventures with his pet raccoon, Rascal.

Middle GradeSmall TownHeartwarmingMale Lead
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The Wheel on the School

Meindert DeJong · 298 pages

Six students in a tiny Dutch sea town engage practically the whole population in an effort to attract storks to nest on the town's roofs again.

Middle GradeSmall TownCharmingHeartwarming
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A Snicker of Magic

Natalie Lloyd · 323 pages

✨️A Snicker of Magic ✨ Felicity Pickle has a gift: she sees words everywhere—fluttering above people’s heads, painted in the air, waiting to be collected. But when she and her family roll into the town of Midnight Gulch, Felicity discovers the place might still hold a snicker of magic—if she’s brave enough to believe in it. With quirky characters, small-town secrets, and heartwarming adventures

Middle GradeSmall TownCharmingHeartwarming
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The Underdogs

Mike Lupica

Small but fast twelve-year-old Will Tyler, an avid football player in the down-and-out town of Forbes, Pennsylvania, takes matters into his own hands to try and finance the city's football team, giving the whole community hope in the process.

Middle GradeSmall TownHeartwarmingMale Lead
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The Panda Puzzle

Ron Roy · 84 pages

P is for Panda. . . .There's pandemonium in Green Lawn! The town is building a new park for a panda and her baby. But as soon as the pandas arrive, the baby is stolen! All the panda-nappers want in return is a million dollars. . . . Can Dink, Josh, and Ruth Rose collar the culprits before Green Lawn has to cough up the cash?From the Trade Paperback edition.

Middle GradeSmall TownCharmingMale Lead

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