Macaroni Boy
Katherine Ayres

In Pittsburgh in 1933, sixth-grader Mike Costa notices a connection between several strange occurrences, but the only way he can find out the truth about what's happening is to be nice to the class bully. Includes historical facts.
Chasing Vermeer
Blue Balliett

When seemingly unrelated and strange 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.
The Shakespeare Stealer
Gary Blackwood

A young orphan boy is ordered by his master to infiltrate Shakespeare's acting troupe in order to steal the script of "Hamlet," but he discovers instead the meaning of friendship and loyalty.
The Children of Green Knowe
L. M. Boston

Tolly comes to live with his great-grandmother at the ancient house of Green Knowe and becomes friends with three children who lived there in the seventeenth century.
The Sisters Grimm series
Michael Buckley

Orphans Sabrina and Daphne Grimm, two sisters seemingly abandoned by their parents, have been brought to live with a grandmother whom they thought was dead. Heartbroken and wary, the girls are immediately swept up in a mystery that includes giants, pixies, fairies, and witches.
A Week in the Woods
Andrew Clements*

The fifth grade's annual camping trip in the woods tests Mark's survival skills and his ability to relate to a teacher who seems out to get him.
Artemis Fowl
Eoin Colfer

When a twelve-year-old evil genius tries to restore his family fortune by capturing a fairy and demanding a ransom in gold, the fairies fight back with magic, technology, and a particularly nasty troll.
Dragon Rider
Cornelia Funke*

After learning that humans are headed toward his hidden home, Firedrake, a silver dragon, is joined by a brownie and an orphan boy in a quest to find the legendary valley known as the Rim of Heaven, encountering friendly and unfriendly creatures along the way, and struggling to evade the relentless pursuit of an old enemy.
The Homework Machine
Dan Gutman*

Four fifth-grade students--a geek, a class clown, a teacher's pet, and a slacker--as well as their teacher and mothers, each relate events surrounding a computer programmed to complete homework assignments.
Out of the Dust
Karen Hesse*

In a series of poems, fifteen-year-old Billie Jo relates the hardships of living on her family's wheat farm in Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl years of the Depression.
The Phantom Tollbooth
Norton Juster

A journey through a land where Milo learns the importance of words and numbers provides a cure for his boredom.
The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe
C. S. Lewis*

Four English school children 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.
Travel Team
Mike Lupica

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.
Boys Start the War
Phyllis Reynolds Naylor*

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.


The Borrowers
Mary Norton

Miniature people who live in an old country house by borrowing things from the humans are forced to emigrate from their home under the clock.
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH
Robert C. O'Brien

Having no one to help her with her problems, a widowed mouse visits the rats whose former imprisonment in a laboratory made them wise and long lived.
Harry Potter series
J. K. Rowling

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 Wizards and Witches.
Holes
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 Spiderwick Chronicles
Tony DiTerlizzi

When the Grace children go to stay at their Great Aunt Lucinda's worn Victorian house, they discover a field guide to fairies and other creatures and begin to have some unusual experiences.
Mysterious Benedict Society
Trenton Lee Stewart

After passing a series of mind-bending tests, four children are selected for a secret mission that requires them to go undercover at the Learning Institute for the Very Enlightened, where the only rule is that there are no rules.