Elementary Summer Reading 2023: Fiction

Twelve-year-old figure skater Ana strives to win competitions while learning about gender identity--Ana's own and that of a new friend--and how to navigate the best path forward.

When sixth-grader Mac discovers several words of his classroom copy of Jane Yolen's The Devil's Arithmetic are blacked out he is outraged, so he, his friends, and his eccentric family set out to do something about the censorship imposed by one teacher and the school board.

As tensions escalate in the Jewish community of Beacon with incidents of vandalism and a swastika carved into new concrete poured near the synagogue, so does the tension grow between Aviva and Kayla and the girls at their school, and so do the actions of the dybbuk grow worse. Could real harm be coming Aviva's way? And is it somehow related to the 'accident' that took her father years ago?

Morgan and Eli, two Indigenous children forced away from their families and communities, are brought together in a foster home in Winnipeg, Manitoba. They each feel disconnected, from their culture and each other, and struggle to fit in at school and at their new home--until they find a secret place, walled off in an unfinished attic bedroom. A portal opens to another reality, Askí, bringing them onto frozen, barren grounds, where they meet Ochek (Fisher). The only hunter supporting his starving community, Misewa, Ochek welcomes the human children, teaching them traditional ways to survive. But as the need for food becomes desperate, they embark on a dangerous mission. Accompanied by Arik, a sassy Squirrel they catch stealing from the trapline, they try to save Misewa before the icy grip of winter freezes everything--including them.

Ziva will do anything to save her twin brother Pesah from his illness--even facing the Angel of Death himself. Pesah has lived with leprosy for years, and the twins have spent most of that time working on a cure. Then Pesah has a vision: The Angel of Death will come for him on Rosh Hashanah, just one month away. So Ziva takes her brother and runs away to find doctors who can cure him. But when they meet and accidentally free a half-demon boy, he suggests paying his debt by leading them to the fabled city of Luz, where no one ever dies--the one place Pesah will be safe. They just need to run faster than The Angel of Death can fly.

From multiple perspectives, tells of a time capsule project and the middle schoolers who contribute, including future journalist Nora Tucker and newcomer Elidee Jones, whose brother is in the local prison.

Keet knows the only good thing about moving away from her Alabama home is that she'll live near her beloved grandfather. When Keet starts school, it's even worse than she expected, as the kids tease her about her southern accent. Now Keet, who can 'talk the whiskers off a catfish,'doesn't want to open her mouth. Slowly, though, while fishing with her grandfather, she learns the art of listening. Gradually, she makes her first new friend. But just as she's beginning to settle in, her grandfather has a stroke, and even though he's still nearby, he suddenly feels ever-so-far-away. Keet is determined to reel him back to her by telling him stories; in the process she finds her voice and her grandfather again.

Sara Martinez is facing years in the juvenile detention system for hacking into the foster care computer system to prove that her foster parents are crooks. But then she gets a second chance when a mysterious man offers her a chance to join a group of MI6 affiliated spies.

Seventh-grader Jack Reynolds loves making people laugh but he needs help to make his wacky MyTube channel take off, and making friends is not exactly his strong suit.

When Annabelle learns that her father shares something big--and surprising--in common with her new nonbinary friend, she begins to see herself, and her family, in a whole new light.

It's June's first day at Huey House, and...[she] can't bring her cherished viola inside. Before the accident last year, her dad saved tip money for a year to buy her viola, and she's not about to give it up now. Tyrell has been at Huey House for three years and gives June a glimpse of the good things about living there: friendship, hot meals, and a classical musician next door. Can he and June work together to oppose the government, or will families be forced out of Huey House before they are ready?

Ellen, an autistic thirteen-year-old, navigates a new city, shifting friendships, a growing crush, and her queer and Jewish identities while on a class trip to Barcelona, Spain.

Best friends Isaac and Marco--one athletically gifted and one academically gifted--have more in common than they realize when their goals intersect, forcing them to find a way to support each other so they don't fall short.

After fleeing the plantation where they were enslaved, siblings Ada and Homer discover the secret community of Freewater, and work with freeborn Sanzi to protect their new home from the encroaching dangers of the outside world.

Cam Walker, the 12-year-old son of the creators of a traveling theme park called Futureland, must stop an unknown enemy from stealing his parent's cutting-edge technology and using it for sinister purposes.

A biographical novel in verse of seven girls from different time periods who used math to explore the mysteries of the universe and grew up to do innovate work that changed history.

Eel, an orphan, and his best friend Florrie must help Dr. John Snow prove that cholera is spread through water, and not poisonous air, when an epidemic sweeps across their London neighborhood in 1854.

Elliott is not quite sure where he fits in, but when he's paired with the super-popular Maribel for a school-wide contest, they both learn what it means to be a good friend and how to be the person others can count on.

Eleven-year-old crafter Jubilee Johnson's assumptions about her vagabond life, her estranged mother, and her idol, television's perfect crafter Arletta Paisley, start to change after Jubi and her grandmother move to a small Texas town.

While her grandmother was alive, Emma's world was filled with enchantment. But now Gram is gone, and suddenly strange spots are appearing on Emma's skin. Soon, she's diagnosed with vitiligo-a condition that makes patches of her skin lose their color-and the magic in her world is suddenly replaced with school bullies and doctor appointments. But when Emma writes one last story in the journal she shared with Gram, something strange happens. Someone writes back toher, just like Gram used to. Who's writing to Emma? And just what is her story going to be, now that everything is so different?

In 1942, twelve-year-old Stick Lawson and her two best friends, Rain and Neb, set out to discover the Nazi spies they believe are helping orchestrate U-boat attacks on American ships off the coast of Hatteras Island.

When her new neighbor and alien-enthusiast Jennifer Chan goes missing, Mallory Moss must follow the clues to find her, and think about her own part in why Jennifer might have run away.

Kaleidoscope is a series of short stories,one includes two people who need each other very much, Selznick said, noting that the book was inspired in many ways by his experience during the first three months of the pandemic. I was alone in my apartment in New York. During that time, I started making abstract art, perhaps because it felt like the world was shattering, so my art needed to do something similar.

Joining an expedition to chart the southern seas, twelve-year-old mapmaker's assistant Sai, posing as a well-bred young lady with a glittering future, realizes she's not the only one on board harboring secrets when she discovers the ship's true destination.

In 1941, after Hitler declares war on the United States, unleashing U-boat submarines to attack American ships, Louisa June, with the waves outside her house carrying dangerous enemies, must help her mother after her father and brother are caught in the crossfire.

Eleven-year-old Maizy Chen visits her estranged grandparents, who own and run a Chinese restaurant in Last Chance, Minnesota; as her visit lengthens, she makes unexpected discoveries about her family's history and herself.

A family feud before the start of seventh grade propels Meilan from Boston's Chinatown to rural Ohio, where she must tap into her inner strength and sense of justice to make a new place for herself

Eleven-year-old Ella Durand is the first Conjuror to attend the Arcanum Training Institute, a magic school in the clouds where Marvellers from around the world practice their cultural arts. Despite her excitement, Ella discovers that being the first isn't easy--some Marvellers mistrust her magic. Eventually, she finds friends in elixirs teacher, Masterji Thakur, and fellow misfits Brigit and Jason. When a dangerous criminal escapes prison, supposedly with a Conjuror's aid, Ella becomes the target of suspicion. Worse, Masterji Thakur mysteriously disappears while away on a research trip. With the help of her friends and her own growing powers, Ella must find a way to clear her family's name and track down her mentor before it's too late.

Moon is convinced that she does not belong to this world: that most of the time she is invisible (unless she stays still too long), that she belongs to the stars, and wants to go back to them--she lives entirely in her imagination with an imaginary spirit guide who can appear in any shape and refuses to speak to anyone, lest her words tie her to a world she rejects.

When a child goes missing from the Orphan House in the town of Stone-in-the-Glen, the mayor suggests the kindly Ogress is responsible, but the orphans do not believe that and try to make their deluded neighbors see the real villain among them.

Twelve-year-old Quijana is a biracial girl, desperately trying to understand the changes that are going on in her life; her mother rarely gets home before bedtime, her father suddenly seems to be trying to get in touch with his Guatemalan roots (even though he never bothered to teach Quijana Spanish), she is about to start seventh grade in the Texas town where they live and she is worried about fitting in--and Quijana suspects that her parents are keeping secrets, because she is sure there is something wrong with her little brother, Memito, who is becoming increasingly hard to reach.

After thirteen-year-old Hattie Oh casts a dangerous spell so her adopted sister, Riley, will get a share of her inherited magic, Riley must undertake a near-impossible quest to save Hattie from death.

Middle schooler Natalie's year-long assignment to answer a question using the scientific process leads to truths about her mother's depression and her own cultural identity.

Evan Pao and his family move to Haddington, Virginia in hopes of keeping his father's notoriety a secret, but a small southern town is not an easy place for a Chinese-American boy to fit in, and one kid, Brady Griggs, seems determined to make things difficult.

Before she decides whether to accept her stepfather's proposal of adoption, twelve-year-old Adela Ramírez reaches out to her estranged biological father--who is in the midst of a career comeback as a luchador--and the eccentric extended family of wrestlers she has never met, bringing Adela closer to understanding the expansive definition of family.

Twelve-year-old Libby, born with Turner Syndrome, is determined to win a science contest and use the money to help her older sister's growing family, while surviving middle school.

After a chance encounter in a dark and stormy forest, two siblings are caught up in the dangerous underworld of fairies and must fight their way free. A storm is raging around the forests of Transylvania, where siblings Anna and Max are visiting with the Professor. Left alone to explore a creepy old inn, the children discover that something evil is lurking in the trees - and it just might have a taste for human blood. When Max goes missing, it's up to Anna and her new friend Isabella to rescue him. Setting out in the dead of night, with the storm howling around them, the girls will face peril after peril.

After eleven-year-old David Bravo wishes for a do-over of a disastrous day of middle school, he and a shapeshifting spirit guide try to right a wrong in his past.