Realistic Fiction

Abbott, Tony - Firegirl.

A middle school boy's life is changed when Jessica, a girl disfigured by burns, starts attending his Catholic school while receiving treatment at a local hospital.

Anderson, Laurie Halse  Storm Rescue: Vet Volunteer series

After a hurricane hits her town and all the veterinarians are busy on other emergencies, Sunita must face her fears in order to help Lucy, a stranded diabetic cat with a broken leg.

Bauer, Joan – Hope was Here.

When sixteen-year-old Hope and the aunt who has raised her move from Brooklyn to Mulhoney, Wisconsin, to work as waitress and cook in the Welcome Stairways diner, they become involved with the diner owner's political campaign to oust the town's corrupt mayor.

Birdsall, Jeanne The Penderwicks

While vacationing with their widowed father in the Berkshire Mountains, four lovable sisters, ages four through twelve, share adventures with a local boy, much to the dismay of his snobbish mother.

Birney, Betty - The Seven Wonders of Sassafras Springs.                                               Eben McAllister searches his small town to see if he can find anything comparable to the real Seven Wonders of the World.

Bloor, Edward – Tangerine.

Twelve-year-old Paul, who lives in the shadow of his football hero brother Erik, fights for the right to play soccer despite his near blindness and slowly begins to remember the incident that damaged his eye sight.

Choldenko, Gennifer – Notes from a Liar and her Dog.

Eleven-year-old Ant, stuck in a family that she does not .like, copes by pretending that her "real" parents are coming to rescue her, by loving her dog Pistachio, by volunteering at the zoo, and by bending the truth and telling lies.

Dowell, Frances O'Roark - Where I'd Like to be.   

A group of foster children build a home of their own.

Edwards, Julie Andrews – Mandy.

Lonely for a place of her own, a ten-year-old orphan creates a secret home in a deserted cottage.

Estes, Eleanor – Ginger Pyle.

When the Pyle’s family puppy, Ginger, disappears on Thanksgiving Day, the children are convinced that he has been abducted by a stranger in a yellow hat. 

Fox, Paula – One-Eyed Cat.

An eleven-year-old shoots a stray cat with his new air rifle, subsequently suffers from guilt, and eventually assumes responsibility for it.

Gantos, Jack - Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key.

To the constant disappointment of his mother and his teachers, Joey has trouble paying attention or controlling his mood swings when his prescription meds wear off and he starts getting worked up and acting wired.

Gauthier, Gail - Happy Kid.

After his mother bribes him into reading a self-help book on how to form satisfying relationships and enjoy a happy life, cynical eighth-grader Kyle finds there may be more to the book than he realized.

Giff, Patricia Reilly – Pictures of Hollis Woods.

A troublesome twelve-year-old orphan, staying with an elderly artist who needs her, remembers the only other time she was happy in a foster home, with a family that truly seemed to care about her.

Grogan, John  Marley & Me

The author presents a tender story of his family's love for their yellow Labrador retriever, Marley, and recalls how he grew from a mischievous puppy into a nearly impossible adult that no amount of obedience school training could correct, and of the love they felt for him.

Hallowell, Tommy - Last Chance Quarterback.

Sam tries to build his football team's confidence in his abilities as quarterback and finally gets a chance to prove himself at the end of the season.

Hannigan, Katherine - Ida B-- : and her Plans to Maximize Fun, Avoid Disaster, and (Possibly) Save the World.

In Wisconsin, fourth-grader Ida B spends happy hours being home-schooled and playing in her family's apple orchard, until her mother begins treatment for breast cancer and her parents must sell part of the orchard and send her to public school.

Hiassan, Carol – Hoot.

Roy, who is 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.

Horvath, Polly – Everything on a Waffle.

Eleven-year-old Primrose, who lives in a small fishing village in British Columbia, recounts her experiences and all that she learns about human nature and the unpredictability of life in the months after her parents are lost at sea.

Jones, Kimberly Sand Dollar Summer

When twelve-year-old Lise spends the summer on an island in Maine with her self-reliant mother and bright--but oddly mute--younger brother, her formerly safe world is complicated by an aged Indian neighbor, her mother's childhood friend, and a hurricane.

Kinney, Jeff - Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Greg Heffley's Journal.

Greg records his sixth grade experiences in a middle school where he and his best friend, Rowley, undersized weaklings amid boys who need to shave twice daily, hope just to survive, but when Rowley grows more popular, Greg must take drastic measures to save their friendship.

First in a series. 

Kinsey-Warnock, Natalie – The Canada Geese Quilt.

Worried that the coming of a new baby and her grandmother’s serious illness will change the warm familiar life on her family’s Vermont farm, ten-year-old Ariel combines her artistic talent with her grandmother’s knowledge to make a very special quilt.

Konigsburg, E. L. – From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.

Two suburban children run away from their Connecticut home and go to New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, where their ingenuity enables them to live in luxury.

Lord, Cynthia - Rules.

Frustrated at life with an autistic brother, twelve-year-old Catherine longs for a normal existence but her world is further complicated by a friendship with an young paraplegic.

MacLachlan, Patricia – Baby.

Taking care of a baby left with them at the end of the tourist season helps a family come to terms with the death of their own infant son.

Mikaelsen, Ben - Petey.

In 1922 Petey, who has cerebral palsy, is misdiagnosed as an idiot and institutionalized; sixty years later, still in the institution, he befriends a boy and shares with him the joy of life.

Mikaelsen, Ben – Touching Spirit Bear.

After his anger erupts into violence, fifteen year-old Cole, in order to avoid going to prison, agrees to participate in a sentencing alternative based on the Native American Circle Justice, and he is sent to a remote Alaskan Island where an encounter with a huge Spirit Bear changes his life.

Namioka, Lensey – Half and Half.

At Seattle's annual Folk Fest, twelve-year-old Fiona and her older brother are torn between trying to please their Chinese grandmother and making their Scottish grandparents happy.

Park, Barbara – Junie B. Jones series

Various situations find Junie B. Jones misunderstanding her world as she passes through kindergarten into first grade.

Snyder, Zilpha Keatley - The Egypt Game.

Melanie and April turn a deserted lot into an imaginary Egypt where they spend many hours enacting rituals and consulting oracles, but there are real dangers and problems lurking outside their make-believe world that almost bring their game to a disastrous end.

Soto, Gary – Baseball in April and Oher Stories

A collection of eleven short stories focuses on the everyday adventures of Hispanic young people growing up in Fresno, California.

Tolan, Stephanie - Listen

During her solitary convalescence from a crippling accident, twelve-year-old Charley finds a wild dog, and the arduous process of training him leads her to explore her feelings about her mother's death two years earlier.

Wiles, Deborah - Each Little Bird that Sings.

Comfort Snowberger is well acquainted with death since her family runs the funeral parlor in their small southern town, but even so the ten-year-old is unprepared for the series of heart-wrenching events that begins on the first day of Easter vacation with the sudden death of her beloved great-uncle Edisto.