The Year of Billy Miller

Bud, Not Buddy

Christopher Paul Curtis · 249 pages

It's 1936, in Flint, Michigan. Times may be hard, and ten-year-old Bud may be a motherless boy on the run, but Bud's got a few things going for him: 1. He has his own suitcase filled with his own important, secret things. 2. He's the author of Bud Caldwell's Rules and Things for Having a Funner Life and Making a Better Liar Out of Yourself. 3. His momma never told him who his father was, but

Pinocchio

Carlo Collodi · 205 pages

"First published in serial form from 1881 to 1883 in Il Giornale dei bambini, the many adventures of Pinocchio, Geppetto's wooden puppet who came to life to laugh, cry, and dance like a real boy, garnered immediate acclaim as a children's story. Today Italians consider the novel, along with The Divine Comedy and The Decameron, one of their most important works of literature. Readers familiar only

The Trumpet of the Swan

E.B. White · 211 pages

Louis, a romantic swan, is in love with the angelic Serena, but he can't tell her how he feels; he has no voice. When he meets eleven-year-old Sam Beaver, a human friend, he goes to school with him to learn how to read and write. Louis' father also helps out; he steals a brass trumpet for his son. In the end, Louis learns to play, wins Serena's heart, and repays the music shop owner for his stolen

Danny the Champion of the World

Roald Dahl · 206 pages

Can Danny and his father outsmart the villainous Mr. Hazell? Danny has a life any boy would love—his home is a gypsy caravan, he's the youngest master car mechanic around, and his best friend is his dad, who never runs out of wonderful stories to tell. But one night Danny discovers a shocking secret that his father has kept hidden for years. Soon Danny finds himself the mastermind behind the most

Onion John

Joseph Krumgold · 248 pages

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

All-of-a-Kind Family

Sydney Taylor · 189 pages

The life of a Jewish family with seven children growing up on New York's Lower East Side in the early twentieth century is the subject of this series. It includes All-of-a-Kind Family Downtown, All-of-a-Kind Family Uptown, Ella of All-of-a-Kind Family, and others.

Schooled

Gordon Korman · 208 pages

Thirteen year old Anderson has never watched t.v., or never had pizza or even heard of a wedgie. The only thing he has ever done is been home schooled by his hippie grand mother, Rain. When she broke her hip after she fell out of a tree picking plums, he is forced to stay in a foster home. Will this be his only chance to try to stop from going to a real school? Or will his bananas go rotton?

The World According to Humphrey

Betty G. Birney · 124 pages

Humphrey, a pet hamster at Longfellow School, learns that he has an important role to play in helping his classmates and teacher.

Owls in the Family

Farley Mowat · 103 pages

Describes the many adventures of a family that adopts two owls.

Dragon Rider

Cornelia Funke · 532 pages

After learning that humans are headed toward his hidden home, Firedrake, a silver dragon, is joined by a brownie and an orphan boy in a quest to find the legendary valley known as the Rim of Heaven, encountering friendly and unfriendly creatures along the way, and struggling to evade the relentless pursuit of an old enemy.

Little House on the Prairie

Laura Ingalls Wilder · 335 pages

When Laura Ingalls and her family leave their little house in the Big Woods of Wisconsin, they head west for the open prairie skies of Kansas Territory. They travel for many days in their covered wagon until they find the perfect spot for Pa to build them a new home. Soon they are planting and plowing, hunting wild ducks and turkeys, and gathering grass for their cows. But just when they begin to

The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy

Jeanne Birdsall · 262 pages

The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy is a children's novel by Jeanne Birdsall, published by Knopf in 2005. This was Birdsall's first book published and it inaugurated the Penderwicks series, whose fifth and final volume was published in 2018. Both The Penderwicks and its sequel The Penderwicks on Gardam Street (Knopf, April 2008) were New York Tim

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

Helen Simonson · 394 pages

You are about to travel to Edgecombe St. Mary, a small village in the English countryside filled with rolling hills, thatched cottages, and a cast of characters both hilariously original and as familiar as the members of your own family. Among them is Major Ernest Pettigrew (retired), the unlikely hero of Helen Simonson's wondrous debut. Wry, courtly, opinionated, and completely endearing, Major P

Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill

Maud Hart Lovelace · 171 pages

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

Five Little Peppers and How They Grew

Margaret Sidney · 226 pages

A fatherless family, happy in spite of its impoverished condition, is befriended by a very rich gentleman.

A Long Way from Chicago

Richard Peck · 160 pages

What happens when Joey and his sister, Mary Alice -- two city slickers from Chicago -- make their annual summer visits to Grandma Dowdel's seemingly sleepy Illinois town? August 1929: They see their first corpse, and he isn't resting easy. August 1930: The Cowgill boys terrorize the town, and Grandma fights back with a dead mouse and a bottle of milk. August 1931: Joey and Mary Alice help Grandma

Dragon of the Red Dawn

Mary Pope Osborne · 108 pages

Merlin the magician will not eat or sleep or speak to anyone in Camelot. What can be done? The enchantress Morgan knows who to ask for help: young Jack and Annie of Frog Creek, Pennsylvania! The brother-and-sister team quickly head off in the magic tree house on another magical and historical adventure.

Cosmic

Frank Cottrell Boyce · 311 pages

Liam has always felt a bit like he's stuck between two worlds. This is primarily because he's a twelve-year-old kid who looks like he's about thirty. Sometimes it's not so bad, like when his new principal mistakes him for a teacher on the first day of school or when he convinces a car dealer to let him take a Porsche out on a test drive. But mostly it's just frustrating, being a kid trapped in an

Babe: The Gallant Pig

Dick King-Smith · 118 pages

A piglet comes to Farmer Hogget's farm, where he is adopted by an old sheepdog and accomplishes amazing things.

Ramona Quimby, Age 8

Beverly Cleary · 190 pages

Ramona Quimby, Age 8 (1981) is a novel by Beverly Cleary in the Ramona series. Ramona Quimby is in the third grade, now at a new school, and making some new friends. With Beezus in Jr. High and Mr. Quimby going back to college, Ramona feels the pressure with everyone counting on her to manage at school by herself and get along with Willa Jean after school every day. Ramona Quimby, Age 8 was named

Flora and Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures

Kate DiCamillo · 240 pages

It begins, as the best superhero stories do, with a tragic accident that has unexpected consequences. The squirrel never saw it coming - the vacuum cleaner, that is. As for self-described cynic Flora Belle Buckman, she has read every issue of the comic book 'Terrible Things Can Happen to You!' so she is just the right person to step in and save him. What neither can predict is that Ulysses (the sq

Mary Anne Saves the Day

Ann M. Martin · 167 pages

Mary Anne has never been a leader of the Baby-sitters Club. She's left that up to Kristy... or Claudia... or Stacey. But now there's a big fight among the four friends, and Mary Anne doesn't have them to depend on anymore. It's bad enough when she's left alone at the lunch table at school. But when she has to baby-sit a sick child without any help from the club members, Mary Anne knows it's tim

The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir

Bill Bryson · 288 pages

Bill Bryson on his most personal journey yet: into his own childhood in America's Mid-West.Some say that the first hint that Bill Bryson was not of Planet Earth came when his mother sent him to school in lime-green Capri pants. Others think it all started with his discovery, at the age of six, of a woollen jersey of rare fineness. Across the moth-holed chest was a golden thunderbolt. It may have l