Realistic Fiction for Kids

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 taunting and fear of his clasassmates as he struggles to be seen as just another student.

"In 1963, thirteen-year-old Arthur is sentenced to community service helping the neighborhood Junk Man after he throws a brick at the old man's head in a moment of rage, but the junk he collects might be more important than he suspects. Inspired by the work of American folk artist James Hampton"--

Charlie's simple and predictable life gets complicated when his war-journalist father gets injured in Afghanistan. Now he must live with Gram and take frequent trips to the hospital, and then must travel cross-country when his father moves to Virginia for better treatment. Along the way, Gram tells Charlie that people heal faster when they are happy, and Charlie thinks that if he can spot all the birds he and his father want to spot, then maybe, somehow,...

"Ghost, a naturally talented runner and troublemaker, is recruited for an elite middle school track team. He must stay on track, literally and figuratively, to reach his full potential"--Provided by the publisher.

"A story told in verse from multiple perspectives of the graduating fifth grade class of Emerson Elementary. The kids join together to try to save their school from being torn down to make way for a supermarket"--

Fifth grader Robbie is determined to stay out of trouble so that she does not worry her grandfather whose memory is failing and to make sure that she and her grandfather stay together as he is the only family she has left.

"Twelve-year-old June Harper, shocked when her parents go on a campaign to clear the Dogwood Middle School library of objectionable books, starts a secret banned books library in an empty locker"--Provided by publisher.

In the summer of 1968, after travelling from Brooklyn to Oakland, California, to spend a month with the mother they barely know, eleven-year-old Delphine and her two younger sisters arrive to a cold welcome as they discover that their mother, a dedicated poet and printer, is resentful of the intrusion of their visit and wants them to attend a nearby Black Panther summer camp.

Recent immigrants from China and desperate for work and money, ten-year-old Mia Tang's parents take a job managing a rundown motel in Southern California, even though the owner, Mr. Yao is a nasty skinflint who exploits them; while her mother (who was an engineer in China) does the cleaning, Mia works the front desk and tries to cope with demanding customers and other recent immigrants--not to mention being only one of two Chinese in her fifth grade...

After shunning Jaime, the school nerd, on her first day at a new middle school, Penelope Torres tries to blend in with her new friends in the art club, until the art club goes to war with the science club, of which Jaime is a member.