| Beauty by Robin McKinley. Kind Beauty grows to love the Beast at whose castle she is compelled to stay and through her love releases him from the spell which had turned him from a handsome prince into an ugly beast. |
| Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo. Ten-year-old India Opal Buloni describes her first summer in the town of Naomi, Florida, and all the good things that happen to her because of her big ugly dog Winn-Dixie. |
| The BFG by Roald Dahl. Kidsnatched from her orphange by a BFG (Big Friendly Giant), who spends his life blowing happy dreams to children, Sophie concocts with him a plan to save the world from nine other man-gobbling cannybull giants. |
| The Borrowers by Mary Norton. Miniature people live in an old country house and provide for themselves by "borrowing" things from the humans until they are forced to emigrate from their home under the clock. |
| Bud not Buddy by Christopher P. Curtis. Ten-year-old Bud, a motherless boy living in Flint, Michigan, during the Great Depression, escapes a bad foster home and sets out in search of the man he believes to be his father--the renowned bandleader, H.E. Calloway of Grand Rapids. |
| Charlotte?s Web by E.B. White. Wilbur, the pig, is desolate when he discovers that he is destined to be the farmer's Christmas dinner until his spider friend, Charlotte, decides to help him. |
| Coraline by Neil Gaiman. Looking for excitement, Coraline ventures through a mysterious door into a world that is similar, yet disturbingly different from her own, where she must challenge a gruesome entity in order to save herself, her parents, and the souls of three others. |
| Dealing with Dragons by Patricia Wrede. Bored with traditional palace life, a princess goes to live with a group of dragons and soon becomes involved with fighting against some disreputable wizards who want to steal away the dragons' kingdom. |
| Esperanza Rising by Pam Mu~noz Ryan. Esperanza and her mother are forced to leave their life of wealth and privilege in Mexico to go work in the labor camps of Southern California, where they must adapt to the harsh circumstances facing Mexican farm workers on the eve of the Great Depression. |
| Frindle by Andrew Clements. When he decides to turn his fifth grade teacher's love of the dictionary around on her, clever Nick Allen invents a new word and begins a chain of events that quickly moves beyond his control. |
| From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil by E.L. Konigsburg. Having run away with her younger brother to live in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, twelve-year-old Claudia strives to keep things in order in their new home and to become a changed person and a heroine to herself. |
| Holes by Louis Sachar. As further evidence of his family's bad fortune which they attribute to a curse on a distant relative, Stanley Yelnats is sent to a hellish correctional camp in the Texas desert where he finds his first real friend, a treasure, and a new sense of himself. |
| The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes. In winning a medal she is no longer there to receive, a tight-lipped little Polish girl teaches her classmates a lesson. |
| Joey Pigza Swallows the Key by Jack Gantos. To the constant disappointment of his mother and his teachers, Joey has trouble paying attention or controlling his mood swings when his prescription medications wear off and he starts getting worked up and acting wired. |
| Journey to the River Sea by Eva Ibbotson. Sent with her governess to live with the dreadful Carter family in exotic Brazil in 1910, Maia endures many hardships before fulfilling her dream of exploring the Amazon River. |
| Kira Kira by Cynthia Kadohata. 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. |
| Lizzie Bright and the Buckmister Boy by Gary Schmidt. In 1911, Turner Buckminster hates his new home of Phippsburg, Maine, but things improve when he meets Lizzie Bright Griffin, a girl from a poor, nearby island community founded by former slaves that the town fathers--and Turner's--want to change into a tourist spot. |
| Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli. After his parents die, Jeffrey Lionel Magee's life becomes legendary, as he accomplishes athletic and other feats which awe his contemporaries. |
| Mouse and the Motorcycle by Beverly Cleary. A reckless young mouse named Ralph makes friends with a boy in room 215 of the Mountain View Inn and discovers the joys of motorcycling. |
| Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert O?Brien. Having no one to help her with her problems, a widowed mouse visits the rats whose former imprisonment made them wise and long lived. |
| Phantom Tollbooth by Russell Hoban. A journey through a land where Milo learns the importance of words and numbers provides a cure for his boredom. |
| Poppy by Avi & Brain Floca. Poppy the deer mouse urges her family to move next to a field of corn big enough to feed them all forever, but Mr. Ocax, a terrifying owl, has other ideas. |
| Saffy?s Angel by Hillary McKay. After learning that she was adopted, thirteen-year-old Saffron's relationship with her eccentric, artistic family changes, until they help her go back to Italy where she was born to find a special memento of her past. |
| Sahara Special by Esme Raji Codell. Struggling with school and her feelings since her father left, Sahara gets a fresh start with a new and unique teacher who supports her writing talents and the individuality of each of her classmates. |
| Shiloh by Phyllis R. Naylor. When he finds a lost beagle in the hills behind his West Virginia home, Marty tries to hide it from his family and the dog's real owner, a mean-spirited man known to shoot deer out of season and to mistreat his dogs. |
| The Sister Grimm by Michael Buckley. This first book in the Sisters Grimm series introduces two orphaned sisters, Sabrina and Daphne, who are sent to live with their mysterious grandmother. When they learn they are descendants of the Brothers Grimm, they soon discover it is the Grimm family's legacy to keep the Everafters in line--and the two sisters are the sole heirs to this challenge. |
| Skeleton Man by Joseph Bruchac. After her parents disappear and she is turned over to the care of a strange "great-uncle," Molly must rely on her dreams about an old Mohawk story for her safety and maybe even for her life. |
| The Thief Lord by Cornelia Caroline Funke. Two brothers, having run away from the aunt who plans to adopt the younger one, are sought by a detective hired by their aunt, but they have found shelter with--and protection from--Venice's "Thief Lord?. |
| Three Terrible Trins by Dick King-Smith. Three mice brothers, ignoring the class system separating the four clans of rodents in their farmhouse, befriend a lower class mouse and form a team to fight cats. |
| Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt. The Tuck family is confronted with an agonizing situation when they discover that a ten-year-old girl and a malicious stranger now share their secret about a spring whose water prevents one from ever growing any older. |
| The View from Saturday by E.L. Konigsburg. Four students, each with their own individual stories, develop a special bond and attract the attention of their teacher, a paraplegic, who chooses them to represent their sixth-grade class in the Academic Bowl competition. |
| Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech. After her mother leaves home suddenly, thirteen-year-old Sal and her grandparents take a car trip retracing her mother's route. Along the way, Sal recounts the story of her friend Phoebe, whose mother also left. |
| The Whipping Boy by Sid Fleischman. A bratty prince and his whipping boy have many adventures when they inadvertently trade places after becoming involved with dangerous outlaws. |
| The Wright 3 by Brett Request. In the midst of a series of unexplained accidents and mysterious coincidences, sixth-graders Calder, Petra, and Tommy lead their classmates in an attempt to keep Frank Lloyd Wright's famous Robie House from being demolished. |
| A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle. Meg Murry and her friends become involved with unearthly strangers in a search for Meg's father, who has disappeared while engaged in secret work for the government. |
