When children read the age of 11 or 12 years, they ready for literature with themes, underlying concepts and multi-layered plots. Middle school is the transition period from child to teenager, where they need something a little more challenging without having too mature content.
The books featured below are specially selected. Each one contains more literary elemtns of lot, character development and underlying themes. They are age-appropriate and do not contain content that children may not be ready for.
In more simplistic children’s books, the story is usually focused entirely on the main character and has a one way plot with one main moral intended to be taught. In these novels though, kids will find that there are many factors to the story line and how every decision the character makes has consequences, good or bad. With a much larger vocabulary and a more complicated grammar structure, a middle school reader will enjoy the challenge these books present and take another step toward becoming an life-long reader.
T
he Fire Within (The Last Dragon Chronicles #1): The first installment in a 7 book series. It’s about a young man who moves into the home of mother, Elizabeth, and daughter, Lucy. He soon becomes apart of the small quirky family and starts helping Lucy and her quest to save the squirrel next door. But during his stay he finds clay dragons that seemingly come to life.
Stargirl: A story about a girl named Stargirl, from a classmate’s, Leo’s, perspective. In th
e beginning everyone enjoyed the former homes-chooled girl’s odd tendencies, until later it became annoying and ‘weird’. Leo tries to convince this girl he’s come to care about to be like the rest of them- ‘normal’.
The Angel Experiment (Maximum Ride #1): A fantastical and unique story about a literal flock of kids with genetically altered wings and their leader Max. In this first book of the series Max and her friends are being chased by “Erasers” while trying to discover the secret of the School, the institution responsible for their mutations.
Into the Wild (Warriors #1): A series with cats as main characters, but with much more in depth concepts than you might expect. This book is about a house cat who is tired of being a house cat and wants to go into the wild. The whole series, and there are a lot of them, is about the four clans fighting to stay alive and also trying to be friends with the other clans.
The Capture (Guardians of Ga’Hoole #1): (Has been adapted into a movie) Another animal based book, although this time it’s owls. Its about a barn owl called Soren who gets kidnapped and gets taken to an ‘orphanage’. Soren notices that things are not what they may seem in the orphanage, and soon discovers the corruption behind it.
