Ruth’s Picks

	Clements, Andrew
	The Landry News
	Cara Landry thinks Mr. Larson is the worst teacher in her school, and tells everyone about him in her own fifth-grade classroom newspaper, "The Landry News," sparking a town-wide debate on the First Amendment.

	Collins, Suzanne
	Gregor the Overlander
	Gregor and his baby sister accidentally "slip" into an underground world where they befriend strange creatures, and fight others to the death.

	Creech, Sharon
	Love That Dog
	A young student comes to love poetry through a personal understanding of what different famous verses mean to him and surprises himself by writing his own inspired poem.

	Dowell, Frances O’Roark
	Chicken Boy
	When Tobin starts raising chickens with his seventh-grade classmate, Henry, his chaotic life begins falling into place.

	Eige, Lillian
	Dangling
	Eleven-year-old Ben recalls his relationship with his unusual friend Ring, who walked into the river and disappeared one day.

	Enright, Elizabeth
	Gone-Away Lake
	Portia and her cousin Julian discover summer adventure in a hidden colony of forgotten summer houses on the shores of a swampy lake.

	Funke, Cornelia
	Inkheart
	Meggie learns that her father, who repairs and binds books for a living, can "read" fictional characters to life when one of those characters abducts them.

	Giff, Patricia Reilly
	Pictures of Hollis Woods
	Twelve-year-old orphan Hollis Woods hopes that her foster placement with an elderly artist turns into the happy home she’s always wanted.

	Going, K. L.
	The Liberation of Gabriel King
	Frita is afraid of the KKK. Gabriel is afraid of everything. Together they set out to conquer their fears before the summer of 1976 comes to an end and 5th grade begins.

	Hannigan, Katherine
	Ida B : --and her plans to maximize fun, avoid disaster, and (possibly) save the world
	Fourth-grader Ida B spends happy hours being home-schooled and playing in her family’s apple orchard until her parents must sell part of the orchard and send her to public school.

	Heese, Karen
	Letters from Rifka
	In letters to her cousin, a young Jewish girl chronicles her family’s flight from Russia in 1919 and her own experiences when she is left in Belgium while the others emigrate to America.

	Hesse, Karen
	Witness
	Free verse poems from eleven points of view illuminate Ku Klux Klan problems in 1920s Vermont.

	Hiaasen, Carl
	Hoot
	Roy, new to his small Florida community, becomes involved in another boy’s attempt to save a colony of burrowing owls from a proposed construction site.

	Hoeye, Michael
	Time Stops for No Mouse
	Hermux Tantamoq is caught up in a world of dangerous search for eternal youth when jaunty mouse Linka Perflinger brings a watch into his shop to be repaired and then disappears.

	Jones, Diana Wynne
	Howl’s Moving Castle
	Eldest of three sisters, Sophie is resigned to her fate as a hat shop apprentice until a witch turns her into an old woman and she finds herself in the castle of the greatly feared Wizard Howl.

	Kendall, Carol
	The Gammage Cup
	A handful of Minnipins rise up against the Periods, the leading family of an isolated mountain valley, and are exiled to a mountain where they discover that the ancient enemies of their people are preparing to attack.

	Klise, Kate
	Regarding the Fountain
	Chaos ensues when the principal asks a fifth-grader to write a letter regarding the purchase of a new drinking fountain for their school.

	L’Engle, Madeleine
	A Wrinkle in Time
	When an atomic physicist disappears on a secret mission, his son, daughter and their friend embark on an interplanetary journey through time and space to find him.

	Martin, Ann M.
	A Corner of the Universe
	The summer that Hattie turns twelve, she meets the childlike uncle she never knew and becomes friends with a girl who works at the carnival that comes to Hattie’s small town.

	McKay, Hilary
	Saffy’s Angel
	Saffron’s relationship with her eccentric, artistic family turns upside down when she learns that she was adopted.

	Perkins, Lynne Rae
	All Alone in the Universe
	Debbie and Maureen will be best friends forever, until Glenna shows up, and ruins everything. This quiet, gentle story looks closely at what it means to have a good friend, and what it means to be one.

	Ryan, Pam Muñoz
	Becoming Naomi Leon
	When Naomi’s absent mother resurfaces to claim her, Naomi runs away to Mexico with her great-grandmother and younger brother in search of her father.

	Rylant, Cynthia
	In Aunt Lucy’s Kitchen
	While staying with their aunt for a year, three nine-year-old cousins keep busy baking, performing, and encouraging a budding romance between their aunt and one of their former customers.

	Speare, Elizabeth George
	The Witch of Blackbird Pond
	A high-spirited teenage girl rebels against the narrow-minded ways of Puritan Connecticut and befriends a lonely old woman accused of being a witch.

	Stroud, Jonathan
	Amulet of Samarkand
	Nathaniel, a magician’s apprentice, summons up the djinni Bartimaeus and instructs him to steal the Amulet of Samarkand from the powerful magician Simon Lovelace.

	Tolan, Stephanie
	Surviving the Applewhites
	Jake, a budding juvenile delinquent, is sent to the arty and eccentric Applewhite family’s Creative Academy, where he discovers talents and interests he never knew he had.

	Vande Velde, Vivian
	Smart Dog
	After escaping from a research laboratory, all Sherlock wants is to be an ordinary dog. But Sherlock is anything but ordinary: he can talk. And when he asks Amy for help, she says yes, reluctantly…

	Yep, Laurence
	Tiger’s Apprentice
	A tiger, a monkey, a dragon, and a twelve-year-old Chinese American boy fight to keep a magic talisman out of the hands of an enemy who would use its power to destroy the world.

	Yumoto, Kazumi
	The Friends
	Curious about death, three sixth-grade boys spy on an old man, waiting for him to die. Instead, they end up becoming his friends.