Surviving middle school
Dave McGrail
Book summary
Readers navigate friendship tensions, a shared crush, discomfort about body hair and an invitation to join a popular group that comes with a price. Their decisions determine how their story unfolds.
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Dave McGrail
Readers navigate friendship tensions, a shared crush, discomfort about body hair and an invitation to join a popular group that comes with a price. Their decisions determine how their story unfolds.
Mark Forman
A classic quest premise drives Alex from an unusual shop encounter towards a dragon's lair. The adventure is framed around courage, fear, friendship and choices that may change his life.
Kristen Simmons
The story centres on three characters whose lives connect through a factory town shaped by scarcity and hardship. It brings together friendship, family ambition and resistance to the town’s rules.
Tanita S. Davis
This is a family story about two sisters getting to know their unconventional grandmother through a shared journey and her recollections. Her earlier life includes leaving home as a teenager and military service during the Second World War.
Darcel Dimon Pledge
Laila shares journeys about character, with making good choices presented as a way to support positive lives for herself and others.
Jessica Day George
This fantasy brings a rescue adventure into the run-up to a wedding. Creel’s friendships and loyalties are central, alongside the possibility of peace between humans and dragons.
Lily Herne
A group of exiled teenagers face a survival choice in an undead-infested setting, while secrets among them complicate their search for safety and other survivors.
Mark Victor Hansen
A collection of true childhood stories, written by children and adults recalling their own childhoods. They touch on friendship, choices and qualities including honesty, kindness, forgiveness and perseverance, with cartoon strips featuring the Souper Kids.
Kathryn Smith
This historical romance centres on Anna’s uncertain engagement, family inheritance and growing attraction to Ewan. Her interest in poetry and doubts about love unfold alongside a plot against Ewan.
Rachel Wise
Sam’s attachment to print clashes with a proposed online school newspaper, and she learns her best friend supports the change. The story also follows Sam’s school-paper interests and her budding crush.
Monique Polak
A Holocaust novel centred on a teenager confronting camp life and her father’s involvement in Nazi propaganda. It also follows her thoughts about friendship, romance, family and religion.
Julie Cross
This science-fiction adventure centres on time travel, conflict with Eyewall and a choice between protecting loved ones and trying to avert a grim future.
Sharon Siamon
A horse-centred mystery adventure, with Sophie and Liv searching for a missing herd after their grandfather’s stallion is badly injured. The ranch setting brings encounters with rattlesnakes and a varied local cast.
Kathy Clark
Jakob’s disclosure puts his family at risk; his imprisonment at Auschwitz and belief that Ivan has abandoned him shape his drive for revenge. After liberation, a revelation about Ivan challenges Jakob’s understanding of what happened.
William Durbin
The central pressure is practical: Pierre takes on a long voyageur journey to earn money for his family after his father is injured. The trip is physically demanding and places him among older, teasing brigade members.
Erin Hunter
The journey brings four bears towards warmer lands, while Toklo weighs his friends’ company against the possibility of finding a place among brown bears.
Tom Palmer
A football story about a young player questioning whether he wants the future others expect for him. James’s wish to choose another path—and his worry about his father’s disappointment—sit alongside tournament action.
Gabrielle Zevin
A fantasy premise turns an expected future upside down: Liz must find her place in an afterlife where people grow younger. Her adjustment brings grief and frustration alongside friendship, love and personal choices.
Donna Jo Napoli
A historical coming-of-age story about Donata’s attempt to claim more freedom and learning within a noble family’s strict expectations. Her excursions bring her into contact with Venice’s Jewish community and poorer residents, as well as questions about her family’s future.
Kevin Panetta, Savanna Ganucheau
Ari wants a different future from the family bakery; meeting Hector brings baking and a developing romance into that conflict. The story also foregrounds decisions and the support loved ones may offer.
Megan Atwood
Ana’s choices are shaped by both her concern for Izzy and the risk of being separated from her. A secretive contest offers a possible route out, but also brings unknown consequences.
Paul Dowswell
An adventure that moves from Sam’s return journey to England towards his renewed naval service and preparation for Trafalgar.
Donna Perugini
A gentle Christian adventure combines a woodland search with a story about angels, prayer and friendship. Antrew’s separation from the others brings some suspense, while the search is supported by faith.
Julie Schumacher
The chain-letter mystery sits alongside a family complication: Livvie does not want Peter’s father to date her mother. Her work with Peter on a school project makes keeping the families apart difficult.
Francesca Flores
Expect a high-action fantasy about survival, loyalty and choosing what sort of person to become, rather than a romance-led story. Aina’s assassin role and the consequences of her choices are prominent.
Alissa Grosso
This is a turbulent story about a teenager facing legal consequences and a difficult choice involving a friend and an almost-boyfriend. Expect a plot that includes several crises and a fictional drug.
Melissa J. Morgan
This is a camp friendship story built around Gaby’s effort to attract attention and a lie that creates a difficult social predicament.
Marie Lu
A dark fantasy about a young outcast learning to use her powers, with belonging and loyalty competing against rage, fear and the pull towards harming others.
Cyn Balog
The central appeal is the clash between a long-standing relationship and a choice that affects more than the couple. Morgan also has an unusual ability to predict the future.
Alyson Noël
This instalment combines supernatural peril with a romantic dilemma: Ever’s efforts to help Damen unfold alongside an unexpected attraction to Jude.
Alex Cliff
This is a comic-sounding adventure built around friendship, changing superpowers and a deliberately unpleasant practical problem. Its appeal may lie in the boys’ imaginative challenge rather than realistic everyday situations.
B. A. Binns
At its centre is an unlikely friendship that brings together two teenagers facing loneliness and change. Their lives involve family troubles, romantic relationships and the effort to imagine a future on their own terms.
Anna Banks
This is a character-led romance about two teenagers challenging family expectations, with Carly’s efforts to reunite her family and Arden’s grief shaping their paths.
James Patterson, Christopher Tebbetts
This is a school-and-family story about coping with upheaval and trying to start afresh.
Deborah Cooke
This is a supernatural adventure shaped by Zoë’s feelings for two very different boys and her responsibility to lead young shifters against the returning Mages.
Enid Blyton
This is a lively circus adventure centred on Jimmy’s fascination with performing alongside tigers, a friendship at risk, and efforts to find a missing dog.
Jackson Pearce
This is a magical romance built around a choice with consequences: Viola has three wishes, while Jinn wants to return home. Their growing attachment makes the wishes emotionally complicated.
Kathy Sattem Rygg
A puzzle-led adventure combines geocaching and codes with friendship, secrecy and a race to respond to a dangerous crystal’s power.
Lucy Tempest
A familiar Cinderella framework is recast as a Faerie-court adventure, with Ornella bargaining for freedom while becoming involved in danger surrounding the Winter King.
Laurie Gray
This historical story puts Myrto’s limited choices at its centre: she is given in marriage by her brother and must consider whether to accept the life assigned to her or seek another path.
Jerry B. Jenkins
This instalment brings together friendship, Christian belief, end-times danger and an investigation into a relative’s reported death. Its conflicts include pressure to share the group’s faith as well as an external threat.
James Joyce
A reflective story about Eveline facing a consequential choice, where family ties and the hope of a different life pull in opposing directions.
Erin Bow
A dark fantasy about belonging and survival, with magic woven into a village’s superstitions. Kate’s carving skill and unusual appearance make her a target, while a bargain offers escape at a personal cost.
Erin Hunter
A perilous group journey drives the story, with the bears pursuing an imagined refuge while facing dangers, divided directions and a lasting change to their travelling group.
David Eddings
Expect a fantasy quest shaped by prophecy, magic and a long-standing struggle involving gods, rulers and people. Garion’s changing understanding of his origins is also central.
Elizabeth Wennick
This is a family-centred story shaped by a past killing and Jenna’s determination to confront the person responsible. Her search also raises questions about what she has been told.
Craig Simpson
This is a wartime secret-agent adventure, combining a sabotage mission with uncertainty about possible double agents. Its focus is action under pressure rather than a broad account of the war.
Amanda Ashby
Expect a comic zombie story built around a prom-night spell gone wrong, teenage romance and Mia’s unexpected position as leader of the infected class.
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