6th-Grade-Book-List
Annotated list of book suggestions for 6th graders.
Fiction
Fiction
The Tapper Twins Go to War (with Each Other)
An oral history that reports, through transcribed recordings, text messages, photographs, illustrations, screenshots, and more, an epic prank war between twelve-year-old twins Reese and Claudia Tapper of New York City.
Book 1, Tapper Twin series
Where to Find:
Fiction
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:
Fiction
Locker Hero
Questioning his resolve to attend public school after being homeschooled when he is targeted by a bully, Max aspires to become like his favorite comic book heroes and finds an unexpected opportunity to be the hero his middle school needs.
Book 1, The Misadventures of Max Crumbly series
Where to Find:
Fiction
Okay for Now
As a fourteen-year-old who just moved to a new town, with no friends, an abusive father, and a louse for an older brother, Doug Swieteck has all the stats stacked against him until he finds an ally in Lil Spicer--a fiery young lady. Together, they find a safe haven in the local library, inspiration in learning about the plates of John James Audubon's birds, and a hilarious adventure on a Broadway stage.
Where to Find:
Fiction
Peak
A fourteen-year-old boy attempts to be the youngest person to reach the top of Mount Everest.
Book 1, Peak series
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Fiction
Maniac Magee
After his parents die, Jeffrey Lionel Magee's life becomes legendary, as he accomplishes athletic and other feats which awe his contemporaries.
Where to Find:
Fiction
The Case of the Missing Marquess
Enola Holmes, much younger sister of detective Sherlock Holmes, must travel to London in disguise to unravel the disappearance of her missing mother.
Book 1, Enola Holmes Mystery series
Where to Find:
Fiction
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:
Fiction
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry
A black family living in Mississippi during the Depression of the 1930s is faced with prejudice and discrimination which its children do not understand.
Logan Family Saga series
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Fiction
Don't Vote for Me
Roped into running for class president against the most popular girl in school, sixth-grader David discovers another side to his opponent when they also get paired up for the spring musical recital.
Where to Find:
Fiction
Deadly Pink
Fourteen-year-old Grace must find a way to get her older sister out of a princess-filled virtual reality RPG (role playing game)--before it is too late.
Where to Find:
Fiction
Loot: How to Steal a Fortune
When Alfie McQuinn, the notorious jewel thief, is killed on a job, his last words to his son, March, are to "find jewels" and this instruction leads the boy to Jules, the twin sister he never knew he had--and the perfect partner to carry on the family business.
Book 1, Loot series
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Fiction
One Crazy Summer
In the summer of 1968, after travelling from Brooklyn to Oakland, California, to spend a month with the mother they barely know, eleven-year-old Delphine and her two younger sisters arrive to a cold welcome as they discover that their mother, a dedicated poet and printer, is resentful of the intrusion of their visit and wants them to attend a nearby Black Panther summer camp.
Book 1, One Crazy Summer series (Gaither Girls)
Where to Find:
Fiction
Bat 6
In a powerful book set in post-World War II Oregon, sixth graders from rival towns prepare for the 50th annual softball game. Two of the players--a Japanese American who spent the war in an internment camp and a girl whose father was killed at Pearl Harbor--collide with tragic results on the day of the big game.
Where to Find:
Fiction
Beyond the Bright Sea
Twelve-year-old Crow has lived her entire life on a tiny, isolated piece of the starkly beautiful Elizabeth Islands in Massachusetts. Abandoned and set adrift in a small boat when she was just hours old, Crow's only companions are Osh, the man who rescued and raised her, and Miss Maggie, their fierce and affectionate neighbor across the sandbar. Crow has always been curious about the world around her, but it isn't until the night a mysterious fire appears across the water that the unspoken question of her own history forms in her heart. Soon, an unstoppable chain of events is triggered, leading Crow down a path of discovery and danger.
Where to Find:
Fiction
Wolf Hollow
Twelve-year-old Annabelle must learn to stand up for what's right in the face of a manipulative and violent new bully who targets people Annabelle cares about, including a homeless World War I veteran.
Where to Find:
Fiction
Harbor Me
When six students are chosen to participate in a weekly talk with no adults allowed, they discover that when they're together, it's safe to share the hopes and fears they have to hide from the rest of the world.
Where to Find:
Nonfiction
Nonfiction
The Dark-Thirty : Southern Tales of the Supernatural
A collection of ten original spine-tingling tales inspired by African-American culture and history from the time of slavery through the civil rights era, and designed to be told during the Dark Thirty--the half hour before sunset--when ghosts seem all too believable......
Where to Find:
Nonfiction
A Light in the Attic
Here in the attic you will find Backward Bill, Sour Face Ann, the Meehoo with an Exactlywatt, and the Polar Bear in the Frigidaire. You will talk with Broiled Face, and find out what happens when Somebody steals your knees, you get caught by the Quick-Digesting Gink, a Mountain snores, and They Put a Brassiere on the Camel.
Where to Find:
Audiobooks
Audiobooks
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:
Audiobooks
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:
Audiobooks
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:
Audiobooks
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:
Audiobooks
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:
Audiobooks
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:
Audiobooks
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:
Audiobooks
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:
Audiobooks
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
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Audiobooks
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
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Audiobooks
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:
Audiobooks
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:
Audiobooks
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:
Audiobooks
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:
Audiobooks
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:
Audiobooks
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:
Audiobooks
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:
Audiobooks
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:
Audiobooks
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
Where to Find:
Audiobooks
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.
Where to Find:
Audiobooks
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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