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Dead End in Norvelt

Jack Gantos · back to the book

What’s in it

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24 books with the same feel

Include books by the same author
❤️

The Witches

Roald Dahl · 208 pages

A young boy and his Norwegian grandmother, who is an expert on witches, together foil a witches' plot to destroy the world's children by turning them into mice.

Child NarratorMiddle GradeElderly ProtagonistFirst Person Narrator
❤️

The Great Brain

John D. Fitzgerald · 175 pages

Child NarratorNostalgicMiddle GradeFirst Person Narrator
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Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing

Judy Blume · 120 pages

Any fourth grader would agree that Peter Hatcher has a terrible problem—his little brother, Fudge. But the grown-ups in his life just can't see that there is something wrong with a two-year-old who breaks his front teeth try- ing to fly, decides that he is a dog, goes on a no-eat strike, and scribbles all over his brother's homework. Peter is always asked to perform so that Fudge will be less of

Child NarratorNostalgicMiddle GradeFirst Person Narrator
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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.

NostalgicSmall TownMiddle GradeFirst Person Narrator
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Soup & Me

Robert Newton Peck · 115 pages

The further adventures and misadventures of Rob and Soup, two boys growing up in a small Vermont town.

NostalgicChild NarratorMiddle GradeSmall Town
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Nicholas and the Gang

Rene Goscinny · 120 pages

Nicholas is invited to a birthday party by the girl next door, plays a very messy game of chess, and learns that walking on your hands is much harder than turning somersaults.

Child NarratorNostalgicFirst Person NarratorMiddle Grade
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The Adventures of Dennis

Victor Dragunsky

Child NarratorNostalgicMiddle GradeFunny
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Old Town in the Green Groves: Laura Ingalls Wilder's Lost Little House Years

Cynthia Rylant · 164 pages

After grasshoppers ruin the crops, eight-year-old Laura Ingalls and her family leave Plum Creek and move to Burr Oak, Iowa, where they experience life in a small town and help manage a hotel.

Child NarratorSmall TownNostalgicMiddle Grade
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Floating in My Mother's Palm

Ursula Hegi · 187 pages

"From an award winning author comes a deeply personal and powerful account of Hanna Malter, a young girl growing up in a small town in Germany in the 1950s. Hanna conjours up unforgettably the events of her youth: her magical bond to her unconventional mother; her friendship with an illegitmate son of an American GI; and the lessons in local lore that are served with tea and innuendo by the town's

Child NarratorNostalgicSmall TownFirst Person Narrator
❤️

Cold Sassy Tree

Olive Ann Burns · 395 pages

Had difficulty with the unfamiliar language spoken by the characters, but once I was able to figure it out I enjoyed the family dynamics. Upon finishing this book, I immediately borrowed "Leaving Cold Sassy".

NostalgicSmall TownFirst Person NarratorHistorical Fiction
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A Girl Named Zippy: Growing Up Small in Mooreland Indiana

Haven Kimmel · 288 pages

When Haven Kimmel was born in 1965, Mooreland, Indiana, was a sleepy little hamlet of three hundred people. Nicknamed "Zippy" for the way she would bolt around the house, this small girl was possessed of big eyes and even bigger ears. In this witty and lovingly told memoir, Kimmel takes readers back to a time when small-town America was caught in the amber of the innocent postwar period - people h

Child NarratorNostalgicSmall TownFirst Person Narrator
❤️

To Kill a Mockingbird

Harper Lee · 309 pages

One of the best-loved stories of all time, To Kill a Mockingbird has been translated into more than 40 languages, sold more than 30 million copies worldwide, served as the basis for an enormously popular motion picture, and voted one of the best novels of the 20th century by librarians across the United States. A gripping, heart-wrenching, and wholly remarkable tale of coming-of-age in a South poi

Child NarratorNostalgicSmall TownFirst Person Narrator
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Everything on a Waffle

Polly Horvath · 166 pages

Eleven-year-old Primrose living in a small fishing village in British Columbia recounts her experiences and all that she learns about human nature and the unpredictability of life in the months after her parents are lost at sea.

Child NarratorMiddle GradeSmall TownFirst Person Narrator
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The Wouldbegoods

E. Nesbit · 212 pages

After being sent to the country "to learn to be good", the Bastable children and their two friends form the Society of the Wouldbegoods, but continue to become involved in adventures.

Child NarratorNostalgicMiddle GradeFunny
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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

Child NarratorMiddle GradeSmall TownFirst Person Narrator
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Boy's Life

Robert McCammon · 541 pages

"Zephyr, Alabama, has been an idyllic home for eleven-year-old Cory Mackenson...a place where monsters swim in the belly of the river, and friends are forever. Then, on a cold spring morning in 1964, as Cory accompanies his father on his milk route, they see a car plunge into a lake some say is bottomless." -- Back cover.

Child NarratorSmall TownNostalgicFirst Person Narrator
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Owls in the Family

Farley Mowat · 103 pages

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

NostalgicChild NarratorMiddle GradeFirst Person Narrator
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The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Mark Twain · 330 pages

Child NarratorNostalgicFirst Person NarratorHistorical Fiction
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In Front of God and Everybody

K.D. McCrite · 301 pages

In the summer of 1986, eleven-year-old April Grace, who lives on a rural Arkansas farm with her family, across a field from her grandmother, has her sense of Christian charity tested when a snooty couple from San Francisco moves into a dilapidated house down the road and her grandmother takes up with a loud, obnoxious, and suspicious-acting Texan.

Child NarratorMiddle GradeNostalgicFirst Person Narrator
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Glory Be

Augusta Scattergood · 205 pages

In the summer of 1964 as she is about to turn twelve, Glory's town of Hanging Moss, Mississippi, is beset by racial tension when town leaders close her beloved public pool rather than desegregating it.

Child NarratorSmall TownMiddle GradeFirst Person Narrator
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Wishin' and Hopin'

Wally Lamb · 275 pages

It's 1964 and ten-year-old Felix is sure of a few things: the birds and the bees are puzzling, television is magical, and this is one Christmas he'll never forget.LBJ and Lady Bird are in the White House, Meet the Beatles is on everyone's turntable, and Felix Funicello (distant cousin of the iconic Annette!) is doing his best to navigate fifth grade-easier said than done when scary movies still gi

Child NarratorNostalgicFirst Person NarratorFunny
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Nicholas in Trouble

Jean-Jacques Sempe, Rene Goscinny · 132 pages

Child NarratorNostalgicFirst Person NarratorMiddle Grade
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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

Child NarratorMiddle GradeFirst Person NarratorFunny
🙂

The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips

Michael Morpurgo · 192 pages

When Boowie reads the diary that his grandmother sends him, he learns of her childhood in World War II England when American and British soldiers practiced for D-Day's invasion in the area of her home, and about her beloved cat, Adolphus Tip, and the cat's namesake.

Elderly ProtagonistNostalgicMiddle GradeSmall Town

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