6th-Grade-Book-List
Annotated list of book suggestions for 6th graders.
Graphic Novel
Graphic Novel
Be Prepared
A gripping and hilarious middle-grade summer camp memoir from the author of "Anya's Ghost" that tells a relatable story about navigating one's own culture, struggling to belong, and the value of true friendship.
Where to Find:
Graphic Novel
Awkward
After shunning Jaime, the school nerd, on her first day at a new middle school, Penelope Torres tries to blend in with her new friends in the art club, until the art club goes to war with the science club, of which Jaime is a member.
Where to Find:
Graphic Novel
New Kid
Seventh grader Jordan Banks loves nothing more than drawing cartoons about his life. But instead of sending him to the art school of his dreams, his parents enroll him in a prestigious private school known for its academics, where Jordan is one of the few kids of color in his entire grade. As he makes the daily trip from his Washington Heights apartment to the upscale Riverdale Academy Day School, Jordan soon finds himself torn between two worlds--and not really fitting into either one. Can Jordan learn to navigate his new school culture while keeping his neighborhood friends and staying true to himself?
Where to Find:
Graphic Novel
The City of Ember
In the year 241, twelve-year-old Lina trades jobs on Assignment Day to be a Messenger to run to new places in her decaying but beloved city, perhaps even to glimpse Unknown Regions.
Book 1, Ember series
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Graphic Novel
Fake Blood
In order to get the attention of Nia, the girl he likes, eleven-year-old A.J. pretends to be a vampire, unaware that she intends to be a slayer.
Where to Find:
Graphic Novel
Best Friends
When she becomes part of the in-crowd, Shannon begins to question whether she wants to remain there, in a story about popularity, first boyfriends, and finding a path in life.
Where to Find:
Graphic Novel
Roller Girl
A graphic novel adventure about a girl who discovers roller derby right as she and her best friend are growing apart.
Where to Find:
Graphic Novel
The Lightning Thief
Percy Jackson is about to be kicked out of boarding school...again. And that's the least of his troubles. Lately, mythological monsters and the gods of Mount Olympus seem to be walking straight out of the pages of Percy's Greek mythology textbook and into his life. And worse, he's angered a few of them. Zeus's master lightning bolt has been stolen, and Percy is the prime suspect.
Book 1, Percy Jackson and the Olympians series
Where to Find:
Graphic Novel
Smile
Raina just wants to be a normal sixth grader. But one night after Girl Scouts she trips and falls, severely injuring her two front teeth, and what follows is a long and frustrating journey with on-again, off-again braces, surgery, embarrassing headgear, and even a retainer with fake teeth attached.
Where to Find:
Large Print
Large Print
Bridge to Terabithia
Jess Aarons has been practicing all summer so he can be the fastest runner in the fifth grade. And he almost is, until the new girl in school, Leslie Burke, outpaces him. Leslie’s family is regarded with some curiosity - a family with so many books, and no television! Jess Aarons is disturbed by Leslie, who challenges his accepted order of things, but the two become fast friends and spend most days in the woods behind Leslie's house, where they invent an enchanted land called Terabithia. Then tragedy strikes.
Where to Find:
Large Print
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
Rescued from the outrageous neglect of his aunt and uncle, a young boy with a great destiny proves his worth while attending Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Book 1, Harry Potter series
Where to Find:
Spanish Language
Spanish Language
Diary of an Awesome Friendly Kid : Rowley Jefferson's Journal
In his first journal, middle schooler Rowley Jefferson, Greg Heffley's sidekick, records his experiences and misguided decision to write a biography of Greg, who, in his own mind, is destined to become rich and famous.
Where to Find:
Spanish Language
The Lightning Thief
Percy Jackson is about to be kicked out of boarding school...again. And that's the least of his troubles. Lately, mythological monsters and the gods of Mount Olympus seem to be walking straight out of the pages of Percy's Greek mythology textbook and into his life. And worse, he's angered a few of them. Zeus's master lightning bolt has been stolen, and Percy is the prime suspect.
Book 1, Percy Jackson and the Olympians series
Where to Find:
Spanish Language
Unicorn Power!
When challenge-loving April leads the girls on a hike up the TALLEST mountain they've ever seen, things don't go quite as planned. For one, they didn't expect to trespass into the lands of the ancient Cloud People, and did anyone happen to read those ominous signs some unknown person posted at the bottom of the mountain? Also, unicorns...
Book 1, Lumberjanes series
Where to Find:
Spanish Language
Smile
Raina just wants to be a normal sixth grader. But one night after Girl Scouts she trips and falls, severely injuring her two front teeth, and what follows is a long and frustrating journey with on-again, off-again braces, surgery, embarrassing headgear, and even a retainer with fake teeth attached.
Where to Find:
Fiction
Fiction
I Lived on Butterfly Hill
When her beloved country, Chile, is taken over by a militaristic, sadistic government, Celeste is sent to America for her safety and her parents must go into hiding before they "disappear."
Where to Find:
Fiction
Exit Strategy
When his father's illness prompts their frequently moving family to settle down in a permanent home, twelve-year-old Ross, a kid famed for pranks at his previous schools, tries to master the art of being funny to secure his popularity.
Where to Find:
Fiction
Fever 1793
In 1793 Philadelphia, sixteen-year-old Matilda Cook, separated from her sick mother, learns about perseverance and self-reliance when she is forced to cope with the horrors of a yellow fever epidemic.
Where to Find:
Fiction
Posted
When cell phones are banned at their school, students start communicating through sticky notes left all over the school, triggering a wave of bullying activities in the wake of a new girl's arrival.
Where to Find:
Fiction
The Strange Case of Origami Yoda
Meet Dwight, a sixth-grade oddball. Dwight does a lot of weird things, like wearing the same T-shirt for a month or telling people to call him "Captain Dwight." But Dwight does one cool thing. He makes origami. One day he makes an origami finger puppet of Yoda. And that's when things get mysterious. Origami Yoda can predict the future and suggest the best way to deal with a tricky situation. His advice actually works, and soon most of the sixth grade is lining up with questions...
Book 1, Origami series
Where to Find:
Fiction
The Night Gardener
Irish orphans Molly, fourteen, and Kip, ten, travel to England to work as servants in a crumbling manor house where nothing is quite what it seems to be, and soon the siblings are confronted by a mysterious stranger and secrets of the cursed house.
Where to Find:
Fiction
The Fairy-Tale Matchmaker
Defying her mother's wishes and the Tooth Fairy Guild, Cory quits her tooth fairy training to explore such things as babysitting an adventurous Humpty Dumpty and helping Suzy organize her seashells by the seashore until, at last, Cory discovers a power she never knew she had.
Book 1, Fairy-Tale Matchmaker series
Where to Find:
Fiction
Chasing Vermeer
When strange and seemingly unrelated events start to happen and a precious Vermeer painting disappears, eleven-year-olds Petra and Calder combine their talents to solve an international art scandal.
Where to Find:
Fiction
24 Hours in Nowhere
Welcome to Nowhere, Arizona, the least livable town in the United States. For Gus, a bright 13-year-old with dreams of getting out and going to college, life there is made even worse by Bo Taylor, Nowhere's biggest, baddest bully. When Bo tries to force Gus to eat a dangerously spiny cactus, Rossi Scott, one of the best racers in Nowhere, comes to his rescue--but in return she has to give Bo her prized dirt bike. Determined to buy it back, Gus agrees to go searching for gold in Dead Frenchman Mine, joined by his old friends Jessie Navarro and Matthew Dufort, and Rossi herself. As they hunt for treasure, narrowly surviving everything from cave-ins to mountain lions, they bond over shared stories of how hard life in Nowhere is--and they realize this adventure just may be their way out.
Where to Find:
Fiction
Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus
Aven Green was born without arms--so when her dad takes a job running a dying western theme park in Arizona, she knows she'll become the center of unwanted attention at her new school. But she bonds with Connor, a classmate with his own disability to conquer. Then they discover a room at the park that holds bigger secrets than Aven ever could have imagined. Can Aven face her fears, solve a mystery, and help her friend, too?
Where to Find:
Fiction
The Benefits of Being an Octopus
Seventh-grader Zoey Albro focuses on caring for three younger siblings and avoiding rich classmates at school until her fascination with octopuses gets her on the debate team and she begins to speak out.
Where to Find:
Fiction
Bearwalker
Although the shortest student in his class, thirteen-year-old Baron Braun calls upon the strength and wisdom of his Mohawk ancestors to face both man and beast when he tries to get help for his classmates, who are being terrorized during a school field trip in the Adirondacks.
Where to Find:
Fiction
Best Babysitters Ever
Mayhem ensues in their sleepy California beach town when three best friends, motivated by unlimited snacks, no parents, and earning money for an epic seventh-grade party, find an old copy of "The Babysitters Club" and decide to start their own babysitting business.
Book 1, Best Babysitters Ever series
Where to Find:
Fiction
Notes from a Liar and Her Dog
Eleven-year-old Ant, stuck in a family that she does not like, copes by pretending that her "real" parents are coming to rescue her, by loving her dog Pistachio, by volunteering at the zoo, and by bending the truth and telling lies.
Where to Find:
Fiction
The Wishing Spell
Through the mysterious powers of a cherished book of stories, twins Alex and Conner leave their world behind and find themselves in a foreign land full of wonder and magic where they come face-to-face with the fairy tale characters they grew up reading about.
Book 1, The Land of Stories series
Where to Find:
Fiction
Gregor the Overlander
When eleven-year-old Gregor and his two-year-old sister are pulled into a strange underground world, they trigger an epic battle involving men, bats, rats, cockroaches, and spiders while on a quest foretold by ancient prophecy.
Book 1, Underland Chronicles series
Where to Find:
Fiction
The Truth As Told by Mason Buttle
Mason Buttle is the biggest, sweatiest kid in his grade, and everyone knows he can barely read or write. Mason's learning disabilities are compounded by grief. Fifteen months ago, Mason's best friend, Benny Kilmartin, turned up dead in the Buttle family's orchard. An investigation drags on, and Mason, honest as the day is long, can't understand why Lieutenant Baird won't believe the story Mason has told about that day. Both Mason and his new friend, tiny Calvin Chumsky, are relentlessly bullied by the other boys in their neighborhood, so they create an underground club space for themselves. When Calvin goes missing, Mason finds himself in trouble again. He's desperate to figure out what happened to Calvin, and eventually, Benny.
Where to Find:
Fiction
The Boggart
After visiting the castle in Scotland which her family has inherited and returning home to Canada, twelve-year-old Emily finds that she has accidentally brought back with her a boggart, an invisible and mischievous spirit with a fondness for practical jokes.
Book 1, Boggart series
Where to Find:
Fiction
Aliens Ate My Homework
Rod is surprised when a miniature spaceship lands in his school science project and reveals five tiny aliens, who ask his help in apprehending an interstellar criminal.
Where to Find:
Fiction
The Watsons Go to Birmingham--1963
The ordinary interactions and everyday routines of the Watsons, an African American family living in Flint, Michigan, are drastically changed after they go to visit Grandma in Alabama in the summer of 1963.
Where to Find:
Fiction
Ballad of Lucy Whipple
In 1849, twelve-year-old California Morning Whipple, who renames herself Lucy, is distraught when her mother moves the family from Massachusetts to a rough California mining town.
Where to Find:
Fiction
Morning Girl
Morning Girl, who loves the day, and her younger brother Star Boy, who loves the night, take turns describing their life on an island in pre-Columbian America; in Morning Girl's last narrative, she witnesses the arrival of the first Europeans to her world.
Where to Find:
Fiction
Blended
Piano-prodigy Isabella, eleven, whose black father and white mother struggle to share custody, never feels whole, especially as racial tensions affect her school, her parents both become engaged, and she and her stepbrother are stopped by police.
Where to Find:
Fiction
Stella by Starlight
When a burning cross set by the Klan causes panic and fear in 1932 Bumblebee, North Carolina, fifth-grader Stella must face prejudice and find the strength to demand change in her segregated town.
Where to Find:
Fiction
It Ain't So Awful, Falafel
Zomorod is eleven and originally from Iran, but please, call her Cindy. From a New York Times bestselling memoirist, a humorous, voice-driven debut novel about growing up Iranian in Southern California during the Iranian Revolution and hostage crisis of the late 1970s.
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