Airborn
Matt, a young cabin boy aboard an airship, and Kate, a wealthy young girl traveling with her chaperone, team up to search for the existence of mysterious winged creatures reportedly living hundreds of feet above the Earth's surface.
fantasy

A Mango-Shaped Space
 Afraid that she is crazy, thirteen-year-old Mia, who sees a special color with every letter, number, and sound, keeps this a secret until she becomes overwhelmed by school, changing relationships, and the death of her beloved cat, Mango.
realistic fiction

Alabama Moon
After the death of his father, ten-year-old Moon Blake is removed from the Alabama forest where he was raised and sent to a boy's home, where, for the first time, he has contact with the outside world and learns about friendship, love, and humanity.
realistic fiction/adventure

Among the Hidden
In a future where the Population Police enforce the law limiting a family to only two children, Luke has lived all his twelve years in isolation and fear on his family's farm, until another "third" convinces him that the government is wrong.

fantasy/dystopian

The Boy Who Dared
In October 1942, seventeen-year-old Helmuth Hubener, imprisoned for distributing anti-Nazi leaflets, recalls his past life and how he came to dedicate himself to bring the truth about Hitler and the war to the German people.
historical fiction

Avalon High
Having moved to Annapolis, Maryland, with her medievalist parents, high school junior Ellie enrolls at Avalon High School where several students may or may not be reincarnations of King Arthur and his court.
fantasy/realistic

Buddy
Twelve-year-old Li'l T and his family face great losses caused by Hurricane Katrina, including leaving Buddy, their very special, three-legged dog, behind when they must evacuate.
realistic fiction

Chew on This
The author of Fast Food Nation partners with Wilson to serve up a stinging, often startling expose on this country's pervasive, lucrative fast-food industry, for young people.
non-fiction

Cinder
Cinder, a gifted mechanic and a cyborg with a mysterious past, is blamed by her stepmother for her stepsister's illness while a deadly plague decimates the population of New Beijing, but when Cinder's life gets intertwined with Prince Kai's, she finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle. (Ms. Chessman's favorite book of the year!)
science fiction/fairytale retelling

Cold Case
When thirteen-year-old Oz Keillor finds a dead body in his family's Santa Fe, New Mexico, restaurant, he is determined to solve the mystery in which his older brother is implicated, but which also involves their long-dead father, who was accused of being a spy.
mystery

Cold Cereal
A boy who may be part changeling, twins involved in a bizarre secret experiment, and a clurichaun in a red tracksuit try to save the world from an evil cereal company whose ultimate goal is world domination. (Ms. Chessman's second favorite book of the year)
fantasy

Ender's Game
Young Ender Wiggin may prove to be the military genius Earth needs to fight a desperate battle against a deadly alien race that will determine the future of the human race.
science fiction

The Dirt Diary
Rachel can't believe she has to give up her Saturdays to scrub other people's toilets. So. Gross. But , as maid to some of the most popular kids in school, Rachel suddenly has all the dirt on the 8th grade in-crowd. Her boring diary is now filled with juicy secrets. And when her crush offers to pay her to spy on his girlfriend, Rachel has to decide if she's willing to get her hands dirty.
realistic fiction

Divergent 
 In a future Chicago, sixteen-year-old Beatrice Prior must choose among five predetermined factions to define her identity for the rest of her life, a decision made more difficult when she discovers that she is an anomaly who does not fit into any one group, and that the society she lives in is not perfect after all.
science fiction/dystopian

Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie
When his younger brother is diagnosed with leukemia, thirteen-year-old Steven tries to deal with his complicated emotions, his school life, and his desire to support his family.
realistic fiction

Eleven Seconds
Travis Roy recounts how his life has changed since a freak accident in 1995 in his first Boston University hockey game that left him paralyzed from the neck down.
non-fiction/sports

Elsewhere
After fifteen-year-old Liz Hall is hit by a taxi and killed, she finds herself in a place that is both like and unlike Earth, where she must adjust to her new status and figure out how to "live."
fantasy

Hatchet
After a plane crash, thirteen-year-old Brian spends fifty-four days in the wilderness, learning to survive with only the aid of a hatchet given him by his mother, and learning also to survive his parents' divorce.
realistic fiction/survival

Hunger Games
Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen accidentally becomes a contender in the annual Hunger Games, a grave competition hosted by the Capitol where young boys and girls are pitted against one another in a televised fight to the death.
science fiction/dystopian

Middle School: the worst years of my life
When Rafe Kane enters middle school, he teams up with his best friend, "Leo the Silent," to create a game to make school more fun by trying to break every rule in the school's code of conduct.
realistic fiction/humour

James and the Giant Peach
Wonderful adventures abound after James escapes from his fearsome aunts by rolling away inside a giant peach.
fantasy/fairytale

Last Shot
After winning a basketball reporting contest, eighth graders Stevie and Susan Carol are sent to cover the Final Four tournament, where they discover that a talented player is being blackmailed into throwing the final game.
mystery/sports

Legend
In a dark future, when North America has split into two warring nations, fifteen-year-olds Day, a famous criminal, and prodigy June, the brilliant soldier hired to capture him, discover that they have a common enemy.
science fiction/dystopian

Life as We Knew It 
Through journal entries sixteen-year-old Miranda describes her family's struggle to survive after a meteor hits the moon, causing worldwide tsunamis, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions.
science fiction

Trapped : how the world rescued 33 miners from 2,000 feet below the Chilean desert
Provides an account of rescue efforts to save thirty-three miners, who got trapped in a mine in Chile, examining the factors influencing the course of the rescue, and describing the efforts of experts from around the world--drillers, astronauts, submarine specialists, and others--came together in response to the crisis.
non-fiction

Moxie and the Art of Rule Breaking: a 14 day mystery 
Instead of spending a carefree summer exploring downtown Boston with best friend Ollie, thirteen-year-old Moxie must solve a famous art heist in order to protect those she loves from her ailing grandfather's gangster past. Includes facts about the 1990 Gardner Museum art theft.
realistic fiction

Number the Stars
In 1943, during the German occupation of Denmark, ten-year-old Annemarie learns how to be brave and courageous when she helps shelter her Jewish friend from the Nazis.
historical fiction

The One and Only Ivan
When Ivan, a gorilla who has lived for years in a down-and-out circus-themed mall, meets Ruby, a baby elephant that has been added to the mall, he decides that he must find her a better life.
fantasy

Peak
After fourteen-year-old Peak Marcello is arrested for scaling a New York City skyscraper, he's left with a choice: wither away in juvenile detention or fly to Kathmandu with his long-lost father. Peak quickly learns that his father's renewed interest in him has strings attached. As owner of Peak Expeditions, he wants his son to be the youngest person to reach the Everest summit. 
realistic fiction/adventure

Very Bad Poetry
Writing very bad poetry requires talent. It helps to have a wooden ear for words, a penchant for sinking into a mire of sentimentality, and an enviable confidence that allows one to write despite absolutely appalling incompetence.
non-fiction

The Prince of Fenway Park
In the fall of 2004, twelve-year-old Oscar Egg is sent to live with his father in a strange netherworld under Boston's Fenway Park, where he joins the fairies, pooka, banshee, and other beings that are trapped there, waiting for someone to break the eighty-six-year-old curse that has prevented the Boston Red Sox from winning a World Series.
fantasy/sports

The Running Dream
When a school bus accident leaves sixteen-year-old Jessica an amputee, she returns to school with a prosthetic limb and her track team finds a wonderful way to help rekindle her dream of running again.
realistic fiction/sports

Smile
The author relates, in graphic form, her experiences after she injured her two front teeth and had to have surgeries and wear embarrassing braces and headgear, all while also dealing with the trials and tribulations of middle school.
realistic fiction
graphic novel
213p.

So B. It
After spending her life with her mentally disabled mother and agoraphobic neighbor, twelve-year-old Heidi sets out from Reno, Nevada, to New York to find out who she is.
realistic fictions
245p.

The Boy on the Porch
 One day John and Martha, a young couple, find a boy asleep on their porch. The boy is unable to speak and explain who he is, so they choose to care for the boy and embrace his exuberant spirit and talents.
realistic fiction

Swindle 
After unscrupulous collector S. Wendell Palomino cons him out of a valuable baseball card, sixth-grader Griffin Bing puts together a band of misfits to break into Palomino's heavily guarded store and steal the card back, planning to use the money to finance his father's failing invention, the Smart Pick fruit picker.
adventure/crime
252p.

Uglies
Tally is faced with a difficult choice when her new friend Shay decides to risk life on the outside rather than submit to the forced operation that turns sixteen year old girls into gorgeous beauties, and realizes that there is a whole new side to the pretty world that she doesn't like.
science fiction/dystopian

The Westing Game
The mysterious death of an eccentric millionaire brings together an unlikely assortment of heirs who must uncover the circumstances of his death before they can claim their inheritance.
mystery

Wonder
Ten-year-old Auggie Pullman, who was born with extreme facial abnormalities and was not expected to survive, goes from being home-schooled to entering fifth grade at a private middle school in Manhattan, which entails enduring the taunts and fear of his classmates as he struggles to be seen as just another student.
realistic fiction

I, Q: Independence Hall
Quest and his stepsister Angela are thrust into the dangerous world of the American Secret Service and the Israeli Mossad when they learn Angela's real mother was a former Secret Service agent who was killed by a terrorist group.
realistic fiction/adventure