Middle School Adventure Book

Thirteen-year-old Brian is in a small bush plane on his way to visit his father, as this middle school book opens. As the plane flies over the forested wilderness of northern Canada, the pilot teaches him a few basics of flying, but then has a heart attack and dies. Brian crash lands in a lake and somehow manages to make it to shore.

His first days in the forest are a nightmare of shock, hunger, and blood-thirsty mosquitoes. He expects to be rescued at any moment, but then he remembers that when the pilot died, the plane veered off course.

The searchers won’t know where to look.

Now he’ll have to survive in the wilderness. He builds a makeshift shelter, finds berries and turtle eggs to eat, and even figures out how to start a fire by striking the hatchet against rock to make sparks. He survives encounters with a bear, a porcupine, and a moose. He climbs a ridge and builds a signal fire, ready to be lit if a plane ever flies over. But when he does see a plane, by the time he lights the fire the plane has turned back, bringing him to a low point of despair.

Brian is level-headed and resourceful, usually able to summon up the perseverance to keep going through all obstacles. He quickly learns that the first law of the wild is to find food; that and keeping a fire going take up most of each day. I especially liked the way he grew and changed through this experience, for one thing realizing he must take full responsibility for himself, and for another, becoming so attuned to the wilderness and the birds and animals he shares it with, that he sees himself as a part of nature.

Author Gary Paulsen lived through everything in the book, from a forced landing in a light plane to surviving in the woods with next to nothing. He even made himself to eat a raw turtle egg, which, he reports, “tasted something like old motor oil or tired Vaseline.”

Reading level: Twelve and up. Parent and teachers will have to decide whether or not these rather adult themes are right for their children or students: Brian makes a suicide attempt when he is feeling very low; he’s dealing with his parents’ divorce and the knowledge he has about his mother’s infidelity; the death of the pilot and seeing his remains later on down in the water is vividly written, so perhaps not for squeamish readers.

Published in 1987

185 pages

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Contemporary Middle School Book

Ten-year-old Mo has lived her whole life on Fox Street in Cleveland, Ohio. It’s a short street filled with friendly neighbors and it dead ends into a ravine, a glorious Green Kingdom where Mo, her friend Mercedes, and her red-haired little sister Dottie can roam and explore. Sometimes Mo goes there and sits quietly, hoping to glimpse the fox she’s certain lives nearby. She even finds a tuft of reddish fur in a bush one day—surely left by the fox!

But changes are looming. Mo’s friend Mercedes stays each summer with her grandma, but her grandma’s health problems will soon force her to move from Fox Street and Mercedes will be gone, too. And worse yet, Mo’s father thinks they should sell their house and live above a tavern in another neighborhood so he can open a sports bar.

Mo has already gone through enough changes—her mother died a few years earlier and life has never been the same. Her father is sad and Mo has to take care of five-year-old Dottie. Even with help from the neighbors, Mo feels weighed down.

To make matters worse, Dottie takes and then loses Mo’s precious wisps of fox fur, the one proof that her fox really existed. The sisters argue and later little Dottie disappears. All of Fox Street rallies to search for her. Mo herself hurries down into the ravine, sure that’s where her sister went. She’s afraid that Dottie, thoughtless but brave, could have tried something too daring and hurt herself. At first she’s frantic, but then she hears a calming voice inside—could it be the fox?

I would love to live in the close-knit community of Fox Street, especially with the Green Kingdom at the end of the street. Mo is lovable and believable, with a good heart, and she and several of the other characters change and grow as they live through the events of that summer on Fox Street. This wise and beautifully-written story ponders the changes life brings.

The book jacket says that author Tricia Springstubb “has a red-haired sister, lives on a really cool street, and loves quiet green places. She has seen a fox once in her life and will never forget it.”

Reading level: 10 and up. Mercedes’ mother has never had a husband until recently and Mercedes didn’t know who her father was. By the end of the book, she finds out—this is handled very discreetly.

Published in 2010

218 pages

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Classic Middle School Book

I’m an Anglophile and a dog-lover, so there really was no hope for me when I sat down to read Lassie Come-Home: I fell in love instantly. This classic book for middle school readers, written in 1940, has been published in 25 languages and has never been out of print. It inspired several movies, a radio show, and a long-running TV show.

Joe and his parents, who live in England, in the village of Greenall Bridge, have a beautiful collie named Lassie. Every day when school is about to let out, the collie trots over to wait for Joe. Their wealthy and powerful neighbor, the Duke of Rudling, wants to buy Lassie for a show dog, but Joe’s father won’t sell her.

However, the Great Depression has hit the village hard. Joe’s father, like most of the men there, used to work in the coal mine, but it recently closed. Now there’s barely enough money to feed the family, let alone a big, healthy dog. One day Joe gets out of school and Lassie isn’t waiting for him. He goes home and learns the terrible truth: his father had to sell her to the Duke because money was so short. Joe is heart-broken.

But a few days later Lassie is back outside the school, waiting for Joe. He’s thrilled, but soon learns that she must go back to the Duke’s kennels. The money the Duke paid for her has been spent and can’t be repaid. Lassie belongs to him.

Again Lassie escapes. Again she must go back.

Lassie gets out a third time, but after Joe and his father give her back to the Duke, she doesn’t return. Joe’s father explains that the Duke has taken her to his home in Scotland and plans to keep her there.

Lassie, who doesn’t realize how far from home she is, yearns to go find Joe. When she sees her chance to escape, she takes it, and now her long, dangerous journey begins.

This well-written book captured my heart, as it will that of anyone who loves dogs. Author Eric Knight portrays Lassie realistically, not with the thoughts of a human, but with the instincts, yearnings, and fears of a dog. Read more about Knight here and here.

Reading level: ten and up.  There are scenes of cruelty to Lassie and another dog that could be upsetting to younger readers. Also, much of the dialogue is in Yorkshire dialect and Scottish brogue, which I found charming and easy to understand, but which not everyone enjoys.

Published in 1940

248 pages

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Eleven-year-old Ansel has been mute since his mother’s death a few years earlier. His father, always eager to make money from his children, sends Ansel off with a man who needs a servant boy on his travels. Ansel soon learns that the man, who is named Brock, is a dragon-hunter. Every town they pass through gets treated to Brock’s stories of dragons he’s slain. One night when Brock is away, Ansel looks in the one bag he’s been forbidden to touch and finds…a dragon’s skull!

But Brock explains the next day that actually it’s the head of a giant newt. Whenever he’s hired to kill a dragon, he goes up on the mountain and brings back this head, covered with the brains and meat of a dead sheep. Ansel is both disappointed and relieved to find that the dragon tales are all lies.

Now they arrive at the town that has hired Brock to rid them of a dragon. They learn that before the villagers heard the word of Christ, they used to tether a young girl high up on the mountain to appease the dragon. Brock tells the townspeople his stories and Ansel, sick of hearing the lies, goes outside…where he hears a long, terrible sound that frightens the wolves into silence: the dragon’s cry!

Later he overhears the sobs of a woman and finds out that the townspeople, despite their newfound Christianity, took her daughter up on the mountain for the dragon.

Now the dragon seems all too real, and it’s time for Ansel and Brock to start up the mountain.

Ansel, Brock, and the other characters are very human. They’re likable but fallible: often admirable, sometimes not. Ansel starts feeling sorry for the dragon and made me feel sorry for him, too. This entertaining novel is not the typical good versus evil fantasy.

Reeve is better known for the “Mortal Engine” series of books, which one reviewer called post-apocalyptic steampunk. Apparently director Peter Jackson, of “Lord of the Rings” movie trilogy fame, plans to make a series of movies from the “Mortal Engine” books. Philip Reeve has a nifty website featuring a blog about his writing and artwork (he made beautiful drawings that appear at the beginning of each chapter of the “Dragons” book).

Reading Level: 10 and up.  Frightening scenes of the dragon killing a horse and a man, so it might be too much for sensitive younger readers.

Published 2009

209 pages

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Multicultural Middle School Book

Eleven-year-old Parvana lives in Kabul, Afghanistan, under the Taliban, and this multicultural middle school book shows us what life is like when they’re in power. She and her sisters can’t go to school. They’re not even supposed to go outside, and neither is their mother, unless accompanied by a man. Women and teenage girls must wear a burqa, which covers their entire body and face, except for the eyes.

Parvana and her family used to live in a big house, but the daily bombing, which has gone on for years, has destroyed almost everything they owned. Now they live in one room. Her father supports them by reading and writing letters for uneducated people. Even this existence is threatened when the Taliban break in and arrest her father for the crime of having gone to school in England. “Afghanistan doesn’t need your foreign ideas,” they tell him as they drag him off to prison.

Soon the family runs out of money and food, a desperate situation since Parvana, her mother, and her sisters can’t be outside unless they’re with a man. A neighbor woman comes up with an idea: Parvana can dress as a boy, because boys can come and go freely. She agrees, and wears the clothing of an older brother who died.  Since she knows how to read, she earns money the same way her father did and becomes the family breadwinner.

Then the family gets exciting news—Parvana’s older sister receives a proposal of marriage from the son of old family friends. They live in north Afghanistan, where there are no Taliban. A journey is quickly planned, but Parvana can’t go because the friends know she is a girl. Her family can’t let her secret get back to Kabul.

Parvana stays with the neighbor woman, but then bad news arrives: the Taliban have invaded the very city where Parvana’s family went for the wedding. Now what will she do?

This book was a fast and absorbing read. The writing style is simple but the story is so powerful I could hardly put it down, and the spirit and resilience of Parvana and her family were inspirational.

Author Deborah Ellis visited Afghan refugee camps and talked with many girls like Parvana. She is donating the royalties from this book to Women for Women in Afghanistan, dedicated to improving the lives of women there. Read about current conditions in Afghanistan in this article.

Reading level: 10 and up. Parvana, her mother, and her father receive beatings, but the description is minimal. The girl witnesses a public punishment where men convicted as thieves each have one hand chopped off. No gory details, but it is a shocking moment.

Published in 2000

170 pages

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Now more humble, he makes friends with the calm, enigmatic Rab, a boy a few years older than himself, who works for the Boston Observer. Soon Johnny gets a job delivering newspapers—on horseback. The publisher of the Observer is very political, and Johnny learns about the Whigs, who want freedom from England, and the Tories, who are loyal to England.

A secret group of Whigs regularly meets regularly in the newspaper offices. Before long Johnny is delivering coded messages to the members, including Paul Revere. The Whigs are incensed that England is charging the colonies a tax on tea, but the real issue is freedom. As one Whig leader says, “We give all we have, lives, property, safety, skills…we fight, we die, for a simple thing. Only that a man can stand up.” Johnny too is inspired by the cause of freedom.

The Whigs organize the Boston Tea Party in December of 1773: sixty young men dressed as Indians, including Johnny and Rab, board three British ships and dump the tea into Boston Harbor. By June of 1774, British soldiers and officers fill the streets, Boston is blockaded, and the air is filled with talk of war. On every village green in New England, men and boys are drilling, but with only ancient squirrel guns and flintlocks as weapons.

By early 1775, the Whigs suspect that the first British attacks will be at Lexington and Concord. Johnny’s friend Rab goes off to Lexington to fight, but insists that Johnny, who is part of Paul Revere’s spy network, must stay and report on British plans and troop movements. War is inevitable, but what will it bring for Johnny and Rab?

This book, which won the Newbery Medal for 1944, brings to vivid life the beginning of the American Revolutionary War as no history book ever could. Disney made a movie of “Johnny Tremain” in 1957. I haven’t seen it, but one reviewer felt it missed the mark, showing the war as a jolly adventure for boys, instead of a time when great sacrifices were made, “only that a man can stand up.”

Ages ten and up

Published in 1943

256 pages

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Middle School Book: Magical Realism

Keeper’s troubles begin when the crabs start talking to her. “Help us!” they say, somehow knowing they’re destined for a pot of boiling water. She does help them, and that’s when everything starts going wrong in this heart-warming middle school book.

Ten-year-old Keeper lives with Signe, because long ago Keeper’s mother, who always said she was a mermaid, swam away and never came back. Keeper and Signe have a warm and loving relationship and they live in an old house near a beach in Texas. One of their neighbors is Dogie, who loves Signe and has a surfboard shop down the beach. The other is elderly Mr. Beauchamp, who dreams of a lost love and is waiting for a special flower to bloom. We also get to know Keeper’s dog BD, Mr. Beauchamp’s one-eyed cat Sinbad, and Captain the seagull, BD the dog’s best friend.

The day that everything went wrong was supposed to be the most wonderful day ever, because Dogie, who stutters except when he sings, planned to sing a two-word song to Signe: “Marry me.” But then the day did go wrong: now Signe is mad at Keeper; old Mr. Beauchamp’s special flower is ruined, and Dogie’s guitar, which he needs in order to sing the “Marry me” song, is broken.

Keeper can only think of one solution: late at night she must take Dogie’s little rowboat, bringing her dog BD along, and row out under the blue moon to the sand bar. Once there, she’ll call to her mermaid mother and ask for her help. The trip doesn’t go as planned and soon she is drifting farther and farther from shore.

This sweet and touching example of magical realism is a great choice to read aloud, both because of its whimsical charm and because of the rhythms of the writing. I loved the characters and never wanted to leave their world, even though dark themes,  such as the mother who abandons her child, mingle with the sweetness.

Author Kathi Appelt spent time as a child on the beaches of Galveston, Texas, where her grandmother lived. Her grandmother once rescued an injured seagull, who then became best friends with her dog BD.

Reading level: 9 to 11, and adults who love magical realism. Sometimes Keeper seems younger than ten and I suspect readers twelve and up might not identify with her. Discreet mention is made of a homosexual relationship: Mr. Beauchamp and Jack loved each other long ago in France, never stopped missing each other, and are once seen holding hands–that’s as explicit as it gets.

399 pages

Published in 2010

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Multicultural middle school book

“We’re home,” Andy’s father says as the plane touches down at the Hanoi airport, but it isn’t home to Andy. Although his father was one of the “boat people” who made a dangerous escape from Vietnam, Andy lives in Australia, where his father settled. In this multicultural middle school book, he’s about to visit relatives he’s never met.

Culture shock sets in quickly: risking death to cross the street through insane traffic; vendors cooking on small charcoal fires on the sidewalk; street kids selling postcards for $5.00 apiece, loudspeakers broadcasting the news to the neighborhood before dawn. In addition, Andy has questions. Why is his father wearing a gold watch and diamond ring that Andy’s never seen before? And why was he told that the family owned a fancy restaurant when it’s just a hole in the wall? When Andy and his father hand out the gifts they brought, their relatives squabble and grab, even though most gifts are no more than shampoo or toothpaste. Andy feels they’re selfish and unappreciative.

It takes a while to learn who all of his relatives are, but he quickly notices that his thirteen-year-old cousin Minh is at the bottom of the food chain. She’s basically an unpaid servant, working hard in the restaurant for no pay. Later on, while she’s supposed to be at school, he sees her out in the streets, part of a group of street kids selling postcards and souvenirs to the tourists. He talks to her and she tells him why she does it.

The family restaurant may be barely the size of Andy’s bedroom at home, but he quickly discovers that the food is delicious and that Minh is a talented cook. However,  although the restaurant is busy with local customers, clearly it doesn’t make much money. He and Minh come up with a plan to help it bring in more income. The results of their plan and its reverberations in the family make for a touching and satisfying ending.

Andy is a likable, spunky, and humorous tour guide for our vicarious trip to Hanoi. I admired the enterprising way he and Minh carry out their plan. Andy’s father is a more complex and poignant character, happy to be back home, yet learning that “you can’t go home again.”

Author Ruth Starke includes some “extras” at the end: several easy recipes for Vietnamese dishes (yum!) and some info about Vietnamese street kids, including how we can help through an organization called KOTO.

Reading level: 10 and up

189 pages

American edition: 2010

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Classic Middle School Fantasy

A young rabbit named Fiver sees a vision of blood and death—danger is coming to the rabbit warren! Thus begins this classic fantasy book for middle school and teen readers. Fiver tells his brother Hazel and they flee, along with nine other rabbits.

The first several days of travel out in the open are harrowing, but they think their luck has changed when they happen upon another warren. Unlike the overcrowded warren they left behind, this one has plenty of room and they are invited to stay. Only Fiver senses that all is not as it seems. When one of their band almost loses his life, they learn the warren’s deadly secret and must leave.

Eventually they find the perfect spot for their own warren, a large hill called Watership Down. However, Hazel soon realizes they have a problem: without female rabbits to have babies, the warren won’t last long. They come up with a solution, but carrying it out will test Hazel’s leadership and the mettle of all of the rabbits to their limit.

This middle school book tells an exciting story and is beautifully written. The lovable characters range from Hazel, the thoughtful leader who learns not to overreach himself, to Bigwig, the aggressive fighter who faces death more than once, and Fiver, the gentle, otherworldly psychic whose visions guide the group. One great charm of Watership Down is that tales of a legendary rabbit hero are sprinkled throughout the story. Whenever the rabbits face a dilemma and need inspiration, they lift their spirits with tales of a rabbit’s courage, cleverness, and derring-do.

Richard Adams had a hard time finding someone to publish this book for middle school readers. Publishers thought that a story about rabbits was for babies, but that the writing style was for adults, so who would read it? Lots of people, it turned out. In 1972  a small publisher took a chance on the unusual novel and it’s still in print. I love Tolkien, but this is my favorite fantasy novel. I can’t count how many times I’ve read it.

Reading level: Ten and up. Good readers of 10-11 should do fine with it, unless the more adult writing style is off-putting. From comments I read online, many parents read this book aloud to their children and it is enjoyed and discussed by all.

476 pages

Published 1972

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This book WILL be at your library! But it isn’t? Ask the librarian for an interlibrary loan.

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Meanwhile, Catherine makes two new friends, Kristi and Jason. When Kristi moves in next door, Catherine is excited. But Kristi likes Ryan, a boy who enjoys teasing David and making him look foolish. Catherine hopes Kristi won’t turn out to be like Ryan.

The other new friend, Jason,  goes for occupational therapy at the same time as Catherine’s brother. Jason is confined to a wheelchair and can only communicate by pointing to words written on a set of cards, words like GO, HI, PLEASE. After Catherine gets to know him, she makes him some new words: AWESOME! GROSS! STINKS A BIG ONE! Jason loves them.

Catherine mentions Jason to Kristi but doesn’t tell her that Jason is disabled. She isn’t sure how Kristi will react and is afraid of losing her as a friend. When Kristi suggests that Catherine and Jason double-date with her and Ryan, Catherine struggles with her divided loyalties.

This Newbery Honor Book is well-written and entertaining. Lord writes with insight and humor and Catherine is very likable. I admired her attempts, mostly successful, to communicate with her brother and her friend Jason. The book helps the reader understand the challenges disabled people and their families face.

Autism is a timely topic, now that one in 110 children in the U.S. is on the autism spectrum. Cynthia Lord, as the mother of an autistic son, knows whereof she writes. I greatly admire the parents of autistic children because of their often heroic efforts to find help for their children. For anyone interested in reading non-fiction books about this topic, I loved Louder Than Words: A Mother’s Journey in Healing Autism by Jenny McCarthy (yes, that Jenny McCarthy) and The Horse Boy: A Father’s Quest to Heal His Son by Rupert Isaacson.

Reading level: 10 and up.

192 pages

Published 2006

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Or you could try your public library. If they don’t have it, ask the librarian about an Interlibrary Loan.

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