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ZUC
Callie's Rules (age 9-12)
by Naomi Zucher
realistic ... growing up ... traditions ... school
Publisher comments: Callie Jones is excited about her first day of sixth grade, but from the moment she arrives and is greeted by dirty looks (apparently, you don't ride your bike to middle school), she realizes that there are a set of unwritten rules that everyone seems to know—everyone except her. So Callie decides she'll write a list of the rules, and she'll never go wrong again. At home, Callie's close-knit family is making big Halloween plans, until the parents of snotty Valeri Van Dine convince the Town Council to cancel Halloween and replace it with Autumn Fest, a celebration of wholesome "American" values. Callie doesn't think their arguments make much sense, and the Council keeps making rules so they don't have to listen. So Callie decides it's time to make some rules of her own.
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KOR
On the Run Series (age 9-12)
by Gordon Korman
realistic ... mystery ... adventure ... action
Publisher comments: Aidan and Meg Falconer are their parents' only hope. The Falconers are facing life in prison -- unless Aidan and Meg can follow a trail of clues to prove their innocence. The problem? Right now they're trapped in a juvenile detention center. Until they escape one night -- and find themselves on the run, both from the authorities and from a sinister attacker t who has his own reason to stop them. The Falconers must use their wits to make it across the country ... with plenty of tests along the way.
title: Chasing the Falconers
title: The Fugitive Factor
title: Now You See Them, Now You Don't
title: The Stowaway Solution
title: Public Enemies
title: Hunting the Hunter
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MYR
Ten (age 9-12)
by Lauren Myracle
school ... realistic ... humor ... friendship ... growing up
Publisher comments: Winnie Perry is turning ten and ten is BIG. It means double digits, more responsibility, and being an almost-middle-schooler. Ten means that Winnie can handle anything, even a three-year-old baby brother and a practically teenage (and acting like it) older sister. And with her best friend, Amanda, by her side, Winnie plans on enjoying every last second of her last year in grade school.
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MYR
Eleven (age 9-12)
by Lauren Myracle
realistic ... humor ... friendship ... growing up
Publisher comments: Eleven-year-old Winnie knows that change isn't all it's cracked up to be, especially when it means her best friend might be dropping her for someone else and her crush may have a nasty case of pinkeye.
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GIF
Eleven (age 9-12)
by Patricia Reilly Giff
realistic ... growing up ... family ... mystery ... identity
Publisher comments: Sam is almost 11 when he discovers a locked box in the attic above his grandfather Mack’s room, and a piece of paper that says he was kidnapped. There are lots of other words, but Sam has always had trouble reading. He’s desperate to find out who he is, and if his beloved Mack is really his grandfather. At night he’s haunted by dreams of a big castle and a terrifying escape on a boat. Who can he trust to help him read the documents that could unravel the mystery? Then he and the new girl, Caroline, are paired up to work on a school project, building a castle in Mack’s woodworking shop. Caroline loves to read, and she can help. But she’s moving soon, and the two must hurry to discover the truth about Sam.
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GRE
This Island Isn't Big Enough for the Four of Us! (age 9-12)
by Gery Greer
realistic ... friendship ... humor
Peter and Scott excitedly plan a camping trip to a deserted island, only to arrive and discover that two girls with zany senses of humor are already in residence.
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PAR
Liza, Bill and Jed Mysteries (age 9-12)
by Peggy Parish
action ... adventure ... realistic ... mystery
Who or what is taking the kitchen scraps from the garbage every night? What starts out as a puzzle becomes a mystery. Every night Grandma leaves table scraps in a wrapped plastic bag in the garbage can where, according to plan, the McNellis children pick them up to feed their kittens. But the plan changes when the bag is gone in the morning. The twins, Liza and Bill, and brother Jed decide to investigate the matter. First the children discover Liza's missing red sweater in a part of the woods she hadn't been to before, next they read about runaway children in the newspaper, and then their new puppy is lost. Finally they find a teepee in the woods with what seems to be Indians in warpaint dancing and shooting arrows! The young detectives must put all the clues together and solve the mystery.
title: Key to the Treasure
title: Clues in the Woods
title: Haunted House
title: Key to the Treasure
title: Pirate Island Adventure
title: The Ghosts of Cougar Island
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KON
About the B'nai Bagels (age 9-12)
by E. L. Konigsburg
realistic ... family ... sports ... growing up
Mark Seltzer thought he had enough aggravation studying for his Bar Mitzvah and losing his best friend. It's the last straw when his mother becomes the new manager of his Little League baseball team and drags his older brother, Spencer, along as the coach. No one knows what to expect with a mother for a manager, but soon Mark and the other players are surprised to see how much they're improving due to coach Spencer's strategy and helpful hints from "Mother Bagel." It looks like nothing can stop them from becoming champs--until Mark hears some startling news!
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NAY
Being Danny's Dog (age 9-12)
by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
realistic ... family ... friendship
Uprooted by his newly divorced mother from Chicago to a suburban development with few trees, fewer kids, and loads of strictly enforced rules, ten-year-old T. R. doesn't know what to do with himself anymore. So he starts trotting after his older brother, Danny, hoping to be included in activities and, at the same time, keeping a close watch over Danny's increasingly worrisome friendship with another boy. It's as if T. R. is becoming his brother's dog!
sequel: Danny's Desert Rats
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SHA
Getting Something on Maggie Marmelstein (age 9-12)
by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat
school ... realistic ... humor ... friendship
After Thad embarrasses Maggie and she retaliates by embarrassing him even more, he plots revenge.
sequel: Maggie Marmelstein For President
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KON
T-backs, T-shirts, Coat, and Suit (age 9-12)
by E. L. Konigsburg
realistic ... humor ... identity ... friendship
Going to Peco, Florida, for the summer to stay with Bernadette is not Chloe's first choice. Or her second or her third. It's her only choice. So it's off to Bernadette's for the summer. Bernadette is Chloe's stepfather's sister. Who gives the unexpected a chance. Just what that means Chloe discovers right away. Everything about Bernadette is unexpected: her dog; her job driving a commissary van that serves sandwiches, hot dogs, hamburgers, and junk food to shipyard and dock workers; her way of teaching Chloe to swim; her ability to skate on Rollerblades; and especially the fact that the unexpected is never unexpected to her, not even the events that follow when some commissary drivers begin wearing T-back swimsuits to work (a way of increasing business) and other groups in Peco decide T-backs should be banned forever.
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BYA
The Not-Just-Anybody Family (age 9-12)
by Betsy Cromer Byars
humor ... realistic ... family ... friendship
When Junior Blossom wakes up in the hospital, his last memory is of crouching on the barn roof with cloth wings tied to his arms, and of Maggie and Vern in the yard below, urging him to fly. That had been just before Junior spotted a police car approaching the farm in a cloud of dust. Meanwhile Pap, the children's grandfather, sits in disgrace in the city jail. He was arrested for disturbing the peace after his pickup truck accidentally dumped 2,147 beer and soda cans (worth $107.35) on Spring Street. With their mother away on the rodeo circuit, it's up to Maggie and Vern to find a way to rescue Pap and Junior. How will they solve their family problems?
sequel: The Blossoms and the Green Phantom
sequel: The Blossoms Meet the Vulture Lady
sequel: A Blossom Promise
sequel: Wanted: Mud Blossom
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MOW
The Dog Who Wouldn't Be (age 9-12)
by Farley Mowat
humor ... family ... realistic ... animals
Farely Mowat's best loved book tells the splendidly entertaining story of his boyhood on the Canadian prairies. Mutt's pedigree was uncertain, but his madness was indisputable. He climbed tress and ladders, rode passenger in an open car wearing goggles and displaying hunting skills that bordered on sheer genius. He was a marvelous dog, worthy of an unusual boy growing up a raw, untamed wilderness.
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FIT
Harriet the Spy (age 9-12)
by Louise Fitzhugh
brilliant protagonist ... growing up ... realistic ... friendship
Harriet M. Welsch is a spy. In her notebook, she writes down everything she knows about everyone, even her classmates and her best friends. Then Harriet loses track of her notebook, and it ends up in the wrong hands. Before she can stop them, her friends have read the always truthful, sometimes awful things she's written about each of them. Will Harriet find a way to put her life and her friendships back together?
sequel: The Long Secret
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STO
The Noonday Friends (age 9-12)
by Mary Stolz
humor ... school ... friendship ... realistic
Eleven-year-old Franny Davis and her best friend share school and family problems in this realistic, often humorous story set in New York's Greenwich Village.
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MUR
The Slightly True Story of Cedar B. Hartley (age 9-12)
by Martine Murray
humor ... friendship ... realistic
Cedar B. Hartley is exasperating and potentially infamous. She steps on cracks. She plans to live an unusual life. She is the winner of her school's Bat Pole Championship (which she made up). She misses her brother Barnaby, who ran away, and who sends her postcards from all over. And she's definitely a hopeless winker. But Cedar B. Hartley has potential. She knows the long distance between an idea and the real thing. And she has a green thumb for people, which will come in handy as she discovers truths about her friends, her family, and her life.
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LOW
Anastasia Series (age 9-12)
by Lois Lowry
growing up ... realistic ... humor ... family
To Anastasia Krupnik, being ten is very confusing. For one thing, she has this awful teacher who can't understand why Anastasia doesn't capitalize or punctuate her poems. Then, there's Washburn Cummings, a very interesting sixth-grade boy who doesn't even know she is alive. Even her parents have become difficult. On top of that, they're going to have a baby, at their age! It's enough to make a kid want to do something terrible. Anastasia knows that if she didn't have her secret green notebook to write in, she would never make it to her eleventh birthday. Fans of Anastasia will enjoy this author's books about her little brother Sam as well.
title: Anastasia Krupnik
title: Anastasia Again!
title: Anastasia, Absolutely
title: Anastasia at This Address
title: Anastasia at Your Service
title: Anastasia Has the Answers
title: Anastasia, Ask Your Analyst
title: Anastasia on Her Own
title: Anastasia's Chosen Career
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NAY
The Alice Prequels (age 9-12)
by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
friendship ... school ... identity ... realistic ... growing up
Well, a pet and pierced ears and really long hair would be nice, too ¿ and most of all, Alice wishes she still had a mother. But starting third grade in a new school in a new town can be lonely, especially if the closest thing you have to a friend is weird Donald Sheavers from next door. But even making new friends can't solve all of Alice's problems. Somehow she manages to get into trouble for a stupid lie, and to get on the wrong side of a bullying crossing guard and three snooty girls whom Alice calls "the Terrible Triplets." Will Alice ever feel at home in Takoma Park? This series introduce the younger Alice, leading up to the older series The Agony of Alice.
title: Starting With Alice
title: Lovingly Alice
title: Alice in Blunderland
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KON
From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (age 9-12)
by E. L. Konigsburg
realistic ... the arts ... mystery ... adventure
Claudia knew that she could never pull off the old-fashioned kind of running away...so she decided not to run FROM somewhere, but TO somewhere. And so, after some careful planning, she and her younger brother, Jamie, escaped right into a mystery that made headlines!
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ROB
Henry Reed Adventures (age 9-12)
by Keith Robertson
realistic ... adventure ... humor ... enterprise
Henry Reed has a talent for making things happen, and with his neighbor Midge in on the action, there's nothing they can't do.
title: Henry Reed, Inc.
title: Henry Reed's Baby-sitting Service
title: Henry Reed's Think Tank
title: Henry Reed's Big Show
title: Henry Reed's Journey
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NAY
Boys Versus Girls Series (age 9-12)
by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
war ... realistic ... humor ... friendship
Disgusted that a family with three girls moves into the house across the river, nine-year-old Wally and his three brothers declare a practical joke war on the girls.
title: The Boys Start the War and The Girls Get Even
title: The Boys Start the War
title: The Girls Get Even
title: The Boys Return
title: The Girls' Revenge
title: A Traitor Among the Boys
title: A Spy Among the Girls
title: Boys In Control
title: The Girls Take Over
title: Boys Against Girls
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MCK
The Exiles (age 9-12)
by Hilary McKay
realistic ... family
The four Conroy sisters spend a wild summer at the seaside with Big Grandma, who tries to break them of their reading habit by substituting fresh air and hard work for books and gets unexpected results.
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KON
Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William, McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth (age 9-12)
by E. L. Konigsburg
realistic ... identity ... friendship
Elizabeth is an only child, new in town, and the shortest kid in her class. She's also pretty lonely, until she meets Jennifer. Jennifer is...well, different. She's read Macbeth. She never wears jeans or shorts. She never says ``Please'' or ``thank you.'' And she says she is a witch.
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BLU
Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing (age 9-12)
by Judy Blume
realistic ... humor ... family
Living with his little brother, Fudge, makes Peter feel like a fourth grade nothing. Fudge is never far from trouble. He's a two-year-old terror who gets away with everything, and Peter's had enough.
sequel: Superfudge
sequel: Double Fudge
sequel: Fudge-a-mania
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AND
Wild at Heart: American Girl Series (age 9-12)
by Laurie Halse Anderson
animals ... realistic ... growing up
There is never a dull moment for the volunteers at Dr. Mac's Wild at Heart Veterinary Clinic.
sequel: Fight for Life
sequel: Homeless
sequel: The Trickster
sequel: Manatee Blues
sequel: Say Good-bye
sequel: Teacher's Pet
sequel: Storm Rescue
sequel: Fear of Falling
sequel: Time to Fly
sequel: Masks
sequel: End of the Race
sequel: Trapped

Sat Aug 25 11:55:25 2012
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