Recommended Reads
J FICtion: sad (but hopeful) books
J EVER, S
THE PROBABILITY OF EVERYTHING
Sarah Everett
When an asteroid has an 84.7% chance of colliding with the Earth in four days, elevenyear-old Kemi, who loves scientific facts and probability, assembles a time capsule to capture her family's truth as she tries to come to terms with saying goodbye.
J BAPT, K
ISAIAH DUNN IS MY HERO
Kelly J. Baptist
A coming-of-age tale about a boy named Isaiah who discovers a love of poetry after finding his late father's journal.
J BOWL, D
THE CANYON’S EDGE
Dusti Bowling
A year after the death of her mother in a restaurant shooting, Nora is left struggling to stay alive when a climbing trip with her father goes terribly wrong.
J
OSHA, K
LASAGNA MEANS I LOVE YOU
Kate O’Shaugnessy
When eleven-year-old foster kid Mo finds a handmade cookbook filled with someone else's family recipes, she collects the stories behind them and builds a website to share them, secretly hoping a long-lost relative will find her and give her a family recipe all her own.
THE REMARKABLE JOURNEY OF COYOTE SUNRISE
Dan Gemeinhart
Coyote and her dad have lived on the road in an old school bus for five years since she lost her mom and two sisters in a car crash. When she learns that the park in her old neighborhood is being demolished--the park where they buried a treasured memory box-Coyote devises an elaborate plan to get her dad to drive back in four days...without him realizing it.
J JORT, M
102 DAYS OF LYING ABOUT LAUREN
Maura Jortner
After being abandoned by her mother in an amusement park, twelve-year-old Mouse is determined to secretly live in the park on her own, even though getting caught could mean saving her life.
J SLOA, HCOUNTING BY 7S
Holly Goldberg Sloan
J ANDE, J
MS. BIXBY’S LAST DAY
John David Anderson
Twelve-year-old genius and outsider Willow Chance must figure out how to connect with other people and find a surrogate family for herself after her parents are killed in a car accident.
Three boys are dismayed when the teacher falls ill and leaves for the rest of the school year, a situation that compels them to share their stories while cutting class and journeying across town together on a fateful day.
J VENK, P
THE BRIDGE HOME
Padma Venkatraman
Four determined homeless children make a life for themselves in Chennai, India.
THE THING ABOUT JELLYFISH
Ali Benjamin
After her best friend dies in a drowning accident, Suzy is convinced that the true cause of the tragedy must have been a rare jellyfish sting--things don't just happen for no reason. Retreating into a silent world of imagination, she crafts a plan to prove her theory--even if it means traveling the globe, alone.
J DICA, K
THE MIRACULOUS JOURNEY OF EDWARD TULANE
Kate DiCamillo
Once, in a house on Egypt Street, there lived a china rabbit named Edward Tulane. The rabbit was very pleased with himself, and for good reason: he was owned by a girl named Abilene, who adored him completely. And then, one day, he was lost...
J WARG, J
THE SHAPE OF THUNDER
Jasmine Warga
Told in their alternating voices, twelve-year-old neighbors and former best friends Cora Hamed and Quinn McCauley begin working together to open a wormhole so they can travel through time to prevent the school shooting that resulted in the deaths of Cora's sister and Quinn's brother.
J ALLE, K
THE LINE TENDER
Kate Allen
Following a tragedy that further alters the course of her life, twelve-year-old Lucy Everhart decides to continue the shark research her marine biologist mother left unfinished when she died years earlier.
J KELL, T
WHEN YOU TRAP A TIGER
Tae Keller
When Lily, her sister Sam, and their mother move in with her sick grandmother, Lily traps a tiger and makes a deal with him to heal Halmoni.
J PATE, K
BRIDGE TO TERABITHIA
Katherine Paterson
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. The two become fast friends and spend most days in the woods behind Leslie's house, where they invent an enchanted land called Terabithia.