6th-Grade-Book-List
Annotated list of book suggestions for 6th graders.
Fiction
Fiction
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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Fiction
Inkheart
Twelve-year-old Meggie learns that her father Mo, a bookbinder, can "read" fictional characters to life when an evil ruler named Capricorn, freed from the novel "Inkheart" years earlier, tries to force Mo to release an immortal monster from the story.
Book 1, Inkheart series.
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Fiction
Belly Up
Twelve-year-old Teddy investigates when a popular Texas zoo's star attraction--Henry the hippopotamus--is murdered.
Book 1, FunJungle series
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Fiction
Spy School
Twelve-year-old Ben Ripley leaves his public middle school to attend the CIA's highly secretive Espionage Academy, which everyone is told is an elite science school.
Book 1, Spy School series
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Fiction
The Red Umbrella
In 1961 after Castro has come to power in Cuba, fourteen-year-old Lucia and her seven-year-old brother are sent to the United States when her parents, who are not in favor of the new regime, fear that the children will be taken away from them as others have been.
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Fiction
Lost in the Sun
As Trent Zimmerman struggles to move past a traumatic event that took place several months earlier, he befriends class outcast Fallon Little, who helps him understand that he can move on and not let one tragic accident define him.
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Fiction
Kid Owner
Ryan never knew his dad, nor the fact that he owned the Dallas Cowboys. But when his father dies unexpectedly, Ryan is given a rare and amazing opportunity to be the owner of the NFL team. Not only is this a dream come true, but it gives Ryan a chance to make it in middle school without being a total social misfit. It may also help him rise up off the bench of his football team and break into the starting lineup.
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Fiction
Honus & Me
Joey, who loves baseball but is not very good at it, finds a valuable 1909 Honus Wagner card and travels back in time to meet Honus.
Book 1, Baseball Card Adventure series
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Fiction
Among the Hidden
In a future where the Population Police enforce the law limiting a family to only two children, Luke has lived all his twelve years in isolation and fear on his family's farm, until another "third" convinces him that the government is wrong.
Book 1, Shadow Children series
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Fiction
Hoot
Roy, who is new to his small Florida community, becomes involved in another boy's attempt to save a colony of burrowing owls from a proposed construction site. New to Florida, Roy is on the school bus when he spots the running boy--running away from the bus, carrying no books and wearing no shoes. Sensing a mystery, Roy sets himself on the boy's trail, which leads him to potty-trained alligators, a fake-fart champion, and a renegade eco-avenger.
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Fiction
The Night Diary
Shy twelve-year-old Nisha, forced to flee her home with her Hindu family during the 1947 partition of India, tries to find her voice and make sense of the world falling apart around her by writing to her deceased Muslim mother in the pages of her diary.
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Fiction
Turtle in Paradise
In 1935, when her mother gets a job housekeeping for a woman who does not like children, eleven-year-old Turtle is sent to stay with relatives she has never met in far away Key West, Florida.
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Fiction
One for the Murphys
Carley uses humor and street smarts to keep her emotional walls high and thick. But the day she becomes a foster child, and moves in with the Murphys, she's blindsided. This loving, bustling family shows Carley the stable family life she never thought existed, and she feels like an alien in their cookie-cutter-perfect household.
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Fiction
The Mighty Odds
A bus crash gives four very different middle schoolers odd super powers, and although they wouldn't normally be caught dead together, they must pool their powers to find out what happened to them.
Book 1, Mighty Odds series
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Fiction
The Parker Inheritance
Twelve-year-old Candice Miller is spending the summer in Lambert, South Carolina, in the old house that belonged to her grandmother, who died after being dismissed as city manager for having the city tennis courts dug up looking for buried treasure--but when she finds the letter that sent her grandmother on the treasure hunt, she finds herself caught up in the mystery and, with the help of her new friend and fellow book-worm, Brandon, she sets out to find the inheritance, exonerate her grandmother, and expose an injustice once committed against an African American family in Lambert.
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Fiction
Kira-Kira
Chronicles the close friendship between two Japanese-American sisters growing up in rural Georgia during the late 1950s and early 1960s, and the despair when one sister becomes terminally ill.
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Fiction
Blackbird Fly
Bullied at school, eighth-grader Apple, a Filipino American who loves the music of the Beatles, decides to change her life by learning how to play the guitar.
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Fiction
OCDaniel
A thirteen-year-old boy's life revolves around hiding his obsessive compulsive disorder until a girl at school, who is unkindly nicknamed Psycho Sara, notices him for the first time and he gets a mysterious note that changes everything.
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Fiction
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Wrecking Ball
When an unexpected inheritance gives Greg Heffley's family a chance to make big changes to their house, they soon discover that renovations may not be worth the effort.
Book 14, Diary of a Wimpy Kid series
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Fiction
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.
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Fiction
Big Red
Danny, a trapper's son, knows that Red is the perfect dog for him. An Irish setter, Red is strong, smart, and beautiful. The two become inseparable. But their bond of friendship is tested as they encounter the many perils of the harsh Wintapi wilderness.
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Fiction
Silent to the Bone
Connor is sure his best friend, Branwell, couldn't have hurt Branwell's baby half sister, Nikki. But Nikki lies in a coma, and Branwell is in a juvenile behavioral center, suspected of a horrible crime and unable to utter the words to tell what really happened. Connor is the only one who might be able to break through Branwell's wall of silence. But how can he prove Branwell didn't commit the unspeakable act of which he's accused -- when Branwell can't speak for himself?
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Fiction
Masterminds
Eli Frieden lives in the most perfect town in the world: Serenity, New Mexico. In this idyllic place, every lawn is perfectly manicured and everyone has a pool and a tree house. Honesty and integrity are valued above all else. The thirty kids who live there never lie-they know it's a short leap from that to the awful problems of other, less fortunate places. Eli has never left Serenity . . . why would he ever want to? Then one day he bikes to the edge of the city limits and something so crazy and unexpected happens, it changes everything.
Book 1, Masterminds series
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Fiction
Inside Out & Back Again
Through a series of poems, a young girl chronicles the life-changing year of 1975, when she, her mother, and her brothers leave Vietnam and resettle in Alabama. Age: 8-12.
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Fiction
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Four English schoolchildren find their way through the back of a wardrobe into the magic land of Narnia and assist Aslan, the golden lion, to triumph over the White Witch, who has cursed the land with eternal winter.
This is the book that was published first and made The Chronicles of Narnia one of the most beloved series of all time! However, some consider this Book 2 in the series, because the events in “The Magician’s Nephew”, which was published later, actually happened before “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”. Whichever book you start with, get ready for a wonderful ride!
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Fiction
Travel Team
After he is cut from his travel basketball team--the very same team that his father once led to national prominence--twelve-year-old Danny Walker forms his own team of cast-offs that might have a shot at victory.
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Fiction
A Mango-Shaped Space
Afraid that she is crazy, thirteen-year-old Mia, who sees a special color with every letter, number, and sound, keeps this a secret until she becomes overwhelmed by school, changing relationships, and the loss of something important to her.
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Fiction
A Year in the Life of a Complete and Total Genius
Seventh-grader Arthur Bean, soon-to-be a rich and famous author, has set two goals for himself: to win the school writing contest and to win the heart of his secret crush, Kennedy, but his life has had some major twists and turns lately, and the recent loss of his mother definitely complicates things.
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Fiction
Indian No More
When Regina's Umpqua tribe is legally terminated and her family must relocate from Oregon to Los Angeles, she goes on a quest to understand her identity as an Indian despite being so far from home.
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Fiction
The Borrowers
Miniature people who share an old country house with normal size humans, “borrow” things from the humans to furnish their tiny home and put food on their table. Borrowing expeditions are exciting, but staying out of sight of the big humans and avoiding the full-size cat also makes them terrifying and dangerous! Should they stay in their beloved old home under the kitchen clock, or is it time to leave home and find a new place?
Book 1, Borrowers series
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Fiction
At the Bottom of the World
Traveling to Antarctica for a prestigious science competition, twelve-year-old Jack and his genius foster siblings, Ava and Matt, become caught up in a mystery involving a missing scientist.
Book 1, Jack and the Geniuses series
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Fiction
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.
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Fiction
Family Ties
"I'm the greatest family member you'll ever meet." Kevin Spencer has a history of big ideas going completely awry. This time around, it's personal--suddenly he's kind of in charge of a double wedding in his backyard, and a whole tribe of wacky relatives is crowding him out of his own house.
Kevin Books series
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Fiction
Field Trip
Ben and his twin classmates, Charlotte and Jacob, are missing a school field trip so Ben's father takes them, his new apprentice Brig, and the dogs on an adventure. Ben manages to try out for a hockey academy against his parents' wishes and the twins turn the road trip into a learning experience.
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Fiction
Hatchet
When the pilot of his small plane has a heart attack and the plane crashes, thirteen-year-old Brian spends fifty-four days in the Canadian wilderness, learning to survive with only the aid of a hatchet given him by his mother, and learning also to survive his parents' divorce.
Book 1, Brian series
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Fiction
A Long Way from Chicago
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. August 1931: Joey and Mary Alice help Grandma trespass, poach, catch the sheriff in his underwear, and feed the hungry--all in one day. And there's more, as Joey and Mary Alice make seven summer trips to Grandma's--each one funnier than the year before!
if you enjoy this book, try "A Year down Yonder" and "A Season of Gifts" for more adventures with Grandma Dowdel!
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Fiction
Freak the Mighty
At the beginning of eighth grade, learning disabled Max and his new friend Freak, whose birth defect has affected his body but not his brilliant mind, find that when they combine forces they make a powerful team.
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Fiction
The Westing Game
The mysterious death of an eccentric millionaire brings together an unlikely assortment of heirs who must uncover the circumstances of his death before they can claim their inheritance.
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Fiction
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
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Fiction
Freaky Friday
Thirteen-year-old Annabel woke up to the ultimate surprise. It was the rollers in her hair that first tipped her off--she had turned into her mother! Follow the events of a hilarious day in the life of Annabel as she develops a healthy respect for her mother and a new angle on her own life.
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