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  Grades 6-8 Reading List  
The Hunger Games

Suzanne Collins - Scholastic Inc.
Format: eBook

Winning means fame and fortune. Losing means certain death. The Hunger Games have begun. . . . In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts...
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The Maze Runner

James Dashner - Delacorte Press
Format: Paperback

Book one in the blockbuster Maze Runner series that spawned a movie franchise and ushered in a worldwide phenomenon! And don't miss The Fever Code, the highly-anticipated series conclusion that finally reveals the story of how the maze was built! When Thomas wakes up in the lift,...
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The House of the Scorpion

Nancy Farmer
Format: Hardcover

In a future where humans despise clones, Matt enjoys special status as the young clone of El Patron, the 142-year-old leader of a corrupt drug empire nestled between Mexico and the United States--Resume de l'editeur.
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Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer

John Grisham - Dutton Children's Books
Format: Hardcover

A perfect murder A faceless witness A lone courtroom champion knows the whole truth . . . and he's only thirteen years old Meet Theodore Boone In the small city of Strattenburg, there are many lawyers, and though he's only thirteen years old, Theo Boone thinks he's one of them. Theo knows...
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Fly by Night

Frances Hardinge - HarperCollins; First Edition edition
Format: Audiobook

Twelve-year-old Mosca Mye hasnt got much Her cruel uncle keeps her locked up in his mill and her only friend is her pet goose Saracen wholl bite anything that crosses his path But she does have one small rare thing the ability to read She doesnt know it yet but in a world where books are dangerous...
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Seraphina

Rachel Hartman - Random House Books for Young Readers
Format: Hardcover

Lyrical, imaginative, and wholly original, this New York Times bestseller with 8 starred reviews is not to be missed. Rachel Hartman's award-winning debut will have you looking at dragons as you've never imagined them before ... In the kingdom of Goredd, dragons and humans live...
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Chomp

Carl Hiaasen - Alfred A. Knopf
Format: Paperback

Wahoo Cray lives in a zoo. His father is an animal wrangler, so he's grown up with all manner of gators, snakes, parrots, rats, monkeys, snappers, and more in his backyard. The critters he can handle. His father is the unpredictable one. When his dad takes a job with a reality TV show...
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Alex Rider: The Gadgets (Alex Rider Adventure)

Anthony Horowitz - Philomel
Format: Hardcover

As fans of teen spy Alex Rider know, nothing is more fun or mind-boggling than the gadgets that time and again help free him from tight spots, such as the Game Boy that doubled as a Geiger counter in Skeleton Key. Or the CD player with the fast-spinning saw blade in Point Blank that helped...
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Mayday

Karen Harrington - Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Format: Hardcover

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Doll Bones

Holly Black - Margaret K. McElderry Books
Format: Hardcover

Discover the Newbery Honor winner Doll Bones, from Holly Black, the cocreator of the Spiderwick Chronicles. A Kirkus Reviews Best Book. A School Library Journal Best Book. A BOOKLIST Editor's Choice Books for Youth. A Publishers Weekly Best Children's Book. A NYPL "100 Titles...
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Wolf Hollow

Lauren Wolk - Dutton Books for Young Readers
Format: Hardcover

A 2017 Newbery Honor BookNew York Times BestsellerA young girl's kindness, compassion, and honesty overcome bullying. * An NPR Best Book of the Year* A BOOKLIST Best Book of the Year* An Entertainment Weekly Best Middle Grade Book of the Year* A Kirkus Reviews...
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When You Reach Me

Rebecca Stead - Wendy Lamb Books
Format: Audiobook

Winner of the 2010 John Newbery MedalFour mysterious letters change Miranda's world forever.By sixth grade, Miranda and her best friend, Sal, know how to navigate their New York City neighborhood. They know where it's safe to go, like the local grocery store, and they know whom to avoid,...
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Evil Genius

Catherine Jinks - ‎HMH Books for Young Readers; First edition
Format: Hardcover

Cadel Piggott has a genius IQ and a fascination with systems of all kinds. At seven, he was illegally hacking into computers. Now hes fourteen and studying for his World Domination degree, taking classes like embezzlement, forgery, and infiltration at the institute founded by criminal...

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Rise of the Wolf

Jennifer A. Nielsen - Scholastic Press, 2016.
Format: Print book

Nic may have escaped enslavement in the mines outside of Rome, but his troubles are far from over. The Praetor War -- the battle to destroy Rome from within -- is in full force, and Nic is caught in the crossfire. The secretive Praetors are determined to unlock a powerful amulet -- one sure...
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Airborn

Kenneth Oppel
Format: Print book

Sailing toward dawn, and I was perched atop the crow's nest, being the ship's eyes. We were two nights out of Sydney, and there'd been no weather to speak of so far. I was keeping watch on a dark stack of nimbus clouds off to the northwest, but we were leaving it far behind, and it looked...
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Wonder

R J Palacio - Knopf Books for Young Readers
Format: Hardcover

NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING JULIA ROBERTS, OWEN WILSON, AND JACOB TREMBLAY!Over 6 million people have read the #1 New York Times bestseller WONDER and have fallen in love with Auggie Pullman, an ordinary boy with an extraordinary face. The book that inspired the Choose Kind...
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The Angel Experiment

James Patterson - Little
Format: Hardcover

In James Patterson's blockbuster series, fourteen-year-old Maximum Ride, better known as Max, knows what it's like to soar above the world. She and all the members of the "flock"--Fang, Iggy, Nudge, Gasman and Angel--are just like ordinary kids--only they have wings and can fly....
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The Golden Compass

Philip Pullman - Listening Library
Format: Audio CD

Read by the author and a full cast10 hours, 49 minutes9 CDsWhen Lyra and her daemon Pantalaimon decide to spy on a presentation her uncle, the commanding Lord Asriel, is making to the elders of Jordan College they have no idea that they will become witnesses to an attempted murder - and even...
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Steelheart

Brandon Sanderson - ‎Ember; Reprint edition
Format: Paperback

The #1 New York Times bestseller from Brandon Sanderson, the author of Oathbringer

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The Red Pyramid

Rick Riordan - Disney-Hyperion
Format: Hardcover

Since their mother's death, Carter and Sadie have become near strangers. While Sadie has lived with her grandparents in London, her brother has traveled the world with their father, the brilliant Egyptologist, Dr. Julius Kane. One night, Dr. Kane brings the siblings together for a "research...
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The Lost Hero

Rick Riordan - Disney-Hyperion
Format: Hardcover

After saving Olympus from the evil Titan lord, Kronos, Percy and friends have rebuilt their beloved Camp Half-Blood, where the next generation of demigods must now prepare for a chilling prophecy of their own:Seven half-bloods shall answer the call,To storm or fire the world must fall.An...
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Splendors and Glooms

Laura Amy Schlitz - Candlewick; 1 edition
Format: Hardcover

WINNER OF A 2013 NEWBERY HONOR!Newbery Medalist Laura Amy Schlitz brings her sorcery to a Victorian gothic thriller an enthralling, darkly comic tale that would do Dickens proud.The master puppeteer, Gaspare Grisini, is so expert at manipulating his stringed puppets that they appear alive....
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Threatened

Eliot Schrefer - Scholastic, Incorporated
Format: Hardcover

*A 2014 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST* When he was a boy, Luc's mother would warn him about the "mock men" living in the trees by their home -- chimpanzees whose cries would fill the night. Luc is older now, his mother gone. He lives in a house of mistreated orphans, barely...
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Love, Stargirl

Jerry Spinelli - Knopf Books for Young Readers; First Edition edition
Format: Hardcover

LOVE, STARGIRL picks up a year after Stargirl ends and reveals the new life of the beloved character who moved away so suddenly at the end of Stargirl. The novel takes the form of the worlds longest letter, in diary form, going from date to date through a little more than a years time....
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Faeries of Dreamdark: Blackbringer

Laini Taylor - Putnam Juvenile
Format: Hardcover

When the ancient evil of the Blackbringer rises to unmake the world, only one determined faerie stands in its way. However, Magpie Windwitch, granddaughter of the West Wind, is not like other faeries. While her kind live in seclusion deep in the forests of Dreamdark, she’s devoted...
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The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making

Catherynne M. Valente - Feiwel & Friends
Format: Hardcover

welve-year-old September lives in Omaha, and used to have an ordinary life, until her father went to war and her mother went to work. One day, September is met at her kitchen window by a Green Wind taking the form of a gentleman in a green jacket, who invites her on an adventure, implying...
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Uglies (Uglies Trilogy, Book 1)

Scott Westerfeld - Simon Pulse
Format: Paperback

In Tally's world, everyone gets to be transformed from ugly to gorgeous on their sixteenth birthday, but Tally's friend Shay would rather risk life on the outside than be operated on, and when she runs away, the authorities make Tally find her friend and turn her in. Original.
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Leviathan

Scott Westerfeld - Simon & Schuster Audio
Format: eAudiobook

It is the cusp of World War I, and all the European powers are arming up. The Austro-Hungarians and Germans have their Clankers, steam-driven iron machines loaded with guns and ammunition. The British Darwinists employ fabricated animals as their weaponry. Their Leviathan is a whale...
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I Am the Messenger

Markus Zusak - Knopf Books for Young Readers
Format: Print book

By the author of the extraordinary international bestseller The Book Thief, this is a cryptic journey filled with laughter, fists, and love. Ed Kennedy is an underage cabdriver without much of a future. He's pathetic at playing cards, hopelessly in love with his best friend, Audrey,...
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NERDS: National Espionage, Rescue, and Defense Society

Michael Buckley - Amulet Books
Format: eBook

NERDS combines all the excitement of international espionage with all the awkwardness of elementary school, and the results are hilarious. A group of unpopular fifth graders run a spy network from inside their school. With the help of cutting-edge science, they transform their nerdy...
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The Warrior Heir: The Heir Chronicles, Book 1

Cinda Williams Chima - Recorded Books
Format: Audiobook

When 16-year-old Jack forgets to take his medicine one morning, he soon learns what the medicine is really for. Its a suppressant for his magical powers....Hes a Warrior Heir. He soon finds out that his parents were waiting for his wizard to come and begin his training for a tournament...
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Ready Player One

Ernest Cline - Crown
Format: Hardcover

Nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American ReadThe bestselling cult classic - now a major motion picture directed by Steven Spielberg.At once wildly original and stuffed with irresistible nostalgia, READY PLAYER ONE is a spectacularly genre-busting,...
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Al Capone Does My Shirts

Gennifer Choldenko
Format: Book

Determined to find the knight responsible for the terrible deaths of her mother and the Jewish peddler who had given them a home, thirteen-year-old Sarah is helped in her quest by a strange old woman, a magical sword, a young faery, and an unkempt knight with little armor and no horse.
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Artemis Fowl (Artemis Fowl, Book 1)

Eoin Colfer - Disney-Hyperion
Format: Book

Twelve year old Artemis Fowl is not your typical Irish kid.  He is the most ingenious criminal mastermind in history. With two trusty sidekicks in tow, he hatches a cunning plot to divest the fairy folk of their pot of gold.  Fantastic stuff from beginning to end, the Artemis...
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Booked

Kwame Alexander - HMH Books for Young Readers
Format: Hardcover

National Book Award Long ListNew York Times Bestseller Like lightning/you strike/fast and free/legs zoom/down field/eyes fixed/on the checkered ball/on the goal/ten yards to go/can't nobody stop you/can't nobody cop you ... In this follow-up to the Newbery-winning novel...
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The Boys Who Challenged Hitler: Knud Pedersen and the Churchill Club

Phillip Hoose - Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Format: Hardcover

A Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Honor WinnerAt the outset of World War II, Denmark did not resist German occupation. Deeply ashamed of his nation's leaders, fifteen-year-old Knud Pedersen resolved with his brother and a handful of schoolmates to take action against the Nazis if the adults...
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Dead to Me

Mary McCoy - Disney-Hyperion
Format: Hardcover

"Don't believe anything they say."
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Fatal Fever: Tracking Down Typhoid Mary

Gail Jarrow - Calkins Creek
Format: Hardcover

In March 1907, the lives of three remarkable people collided at a New York City brownstone where Mary Mallon worked as a cook. They were brought together by typhoid fever, a dreaded scourge that killed tens of thousands of Americans each year. Fatal Fever: Tracking Down Typhoid Mary is the first...
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Fearsome Creatures of the Lumberwoods: 20 Chilling Tales from the Wilderness

Hal Johnson - Workman Publishing Company
Format: Hardcover

Just for kids, twenty bone-chilling tales about the most dangerous fantastical beasts in American folklore. Meet the Snoligoster, who feeds on the shadows of its victims. The Hodag, like a spiny-backed bull-horned rhinoceros. The Hoop Snake, which can chase prey at speeds of up to 60 miles...
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Fatal Fever: Tracking Down Typhoid Mary

Gail Jarrow - Calkins Creek
Format: Hardcover

In March 1907, the lives of three remarkable people collided at a New York City brownstone where Mary Mallon worked as a cook. They were brought together by typhoid fever, a dreaded scourge that killed tens of thousands of Americans each year. Fatal Fever: Tracking Down Typhoid Mary is the first...
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Fish in a Tree

Lynda Mullaly Hunt - Nancy Paulsen Books
Format: Hardcover

A New York Times Bestseller!The author of the beloved One for the Murphys gives readers an emotionally-charged, uplifting novel that will speak to anyone who's ever thought there was something wrong with them because they didn't fit in. "Everybody is smart in different...
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The Great Greene Heist

Varian Johnson - Scholastic
Format: Hardcover

Jackson Greene swears he's given up scheming. Then school bully Keith Sinclair announces he's running for Student Council president, against Jackson's former friend Gaby de la Cruz. Gaby wants Jackson to stay out of it -- but he knows Keith has "connections" to the principal,...
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Hour of the Bees

Lindsay Eagar - Candlewick
Format: Hardcover

What does it mean to be fully alive? Magic blends with reality in a stunning coming-of-age novel about a girl, a grandfather, wanderlust, and reclaiming your roots.Things are only impossible if you stop to think about them. . . .While her friends are spending their summers having...
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The Iron Trial

Holly Black - Scholastic Pr
Format: Book

From NEW YORK TIMES bestselling authors Holly Black and Cassandra Clare comes a riveting new series that defies what you think you know about the world of magic. Most kids would do anything to pass the Iron Trial. Not Callum Hunt. He wants to fail. All his life, Call has been warned by his father...
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Lost in the Sun

Lisa Graff - Philomel Books
Format: Hardcover

From the author of A Tangle of Knots and Absolutely Almost, a touching story about a boy who won't let one tragic accident define him. Everyone says that middle school is awful, but Trent knows nothing could be worse than the year he had in fifth grade, when a freak accident...
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The Mark of the Dragonfly (World of Solace Series)

Jaleigh Johnson - Yearling
Format: Paperback

For fans of Wrinkle in Time and The School of Good and Evil, the New York Times bestseller The Mark of the Dragonfly is a fast-paced adventure story about a mysterious girl and a fearless boy, set in a magical world that is both exciting and dangerous. Piper has never seen the Mark of the Dragonfly...
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Mark of the Thief

Jennifer A. Nielsen - Scholastic Press
Format: Hardcover

When Nic, a slave in the mines outside of Rome, is forced to enter a sealed cavern containing the lost treasures of Julius Caesar, he finds much more than gold and gemstones: He discovers an ancient bulla, an amulet that belonged to the great Caesar and is filled with a magic once reserved...
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Masterminds

Gordon Korman - Balzer + Bray
Format: Hardcover

The first book in the action-packed series from New York Times bestselling author Gordon Korman is perfect for young fans of James Patterson and John Grisham. Eli Frieden lives in the most perfect town in the world: Serenity, New Mexico. Honesty and integrity are valued above all else....
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The Night Gardener

Jonathan Auxier - Harry N. Abrams
Format: Hardcover

A New York Times bestseller, The Night Gardener is a Victorian ghost story with shades of Washington Irving and Henry James. More than just a spooky tale, it's also a moral fable about human greed and the power of storytelling.The Night Gardener follows two abandoned...
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Serafina and the Black Cloak

Robert Beatty - Disney-Hyperion
Format: Hardcover

"Never go into the deep parts of the forest, for there are many dangers there, and they will ensnare your soul. " Serafina has never had a reason to disobey her pa and venture beyond the grounds of the Biltmore estate. There's plenty to explore in her grand home, although she must...
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Some Kind of Courage

Dan Gemeinhart - Scholastic Press
Format: Hardcover

Joseph Johnson has lost just about everyone he's ever loved. He lost his pa in an accident. He lost his ma and his little sister to sickness. And now, he's lost his pony-fast, fierce, beautiful Sarah, taken away by a man who had no right to take her.Joseph can sure enough get her back,...
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