Category Archives: Middle Grade & Children’s

This tag contains all books tagged as Middle Grade fiction and relevant non-fiction.

The Girls Before by Kate Alice Marshall

Audrey is a search and rescue expert who never stopped looking for her ex-best friend, Janie, who disappeared when they were teenagers. Janie used to love the local legend of a forest witch who saves girls from bad men, but Audrey knows now that for every one saved, there’s always another one lost. When she stumbles upon evidence in the forest that a teenage runaway might have actually been kidnapped from land belonging to the town’s most prominent family, she will have to dig through decades of secrets to reveal the biggest one of all: what happened to the girls before.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Kidnapping & confinement
  • Physical injury & body horror
  • Murder
  • Gun violence
  • Animal cruelty

The Door of No Return by Kwame Alexander

In his village in Upper Kwanta, 11-year-old Kofi loves his family, playing oware with his grandfather and swimming in the river Offin. He’s warned though, to never go to the river at night. His brother tells him ”There are things about the water you do not know.” “Like what?” Kofi asks. “The beasts,” his brother answers. One fateful night, the unthinkable happens, and in a flash, Kofi’s world turns upside down. Kofi soon ends up in a fight for his life and what happens next will send him on a harrowing journey across land and sea, and away from everything he loves.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Colonialism
  • Slavery
  • Sexual assault mentioned
  • Suicide by drowning (throwing self overboard)
  • Stillbirth
  • Death of a sibling
  • Murder
  • Torture
  • Shipwreck

How to Say Goodbye in Cuban by Daniel Miyares

The year is 1957. Carlos lives with his family in Ceiba Mocha, a small town in the Cuban countryside. He loves to play baseball with his best friend, Alvaro, and to shoot home-made slingshots with his abuelo. One day, a miracle Carlos’ father, his papi, wins the lottery! He uses the money to launch his growing furniture business and to move the family to a big house in the city. Carlos hates having to move – hates leaving Abuelo and Alvaro behind – and hates being called country kid at his new school. But the pains of moving and middle school turn out to be the least of his… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Gun violence
  • Cuban Revolution (theme)
  • Bullying

The Incredibly Human Henson Blayze by Derrick Barnes

In the small town of Great Mountain, Mississippi, all eyes are on Henson Blayze, a thirteen-year-old football phenom who many have wondered if he was super-human. The predominately white townsfolk have been waiting for Henson to play high-school ball, and now they’re overjoyed to finally possess an elite Black athlete of their own. Until a horrifying incident forces Henson to speak out about injustice. Until he says that he might not play football anymore. Until he quickly learns he isn’t as loved by the people as he thought. In that moment, Henson’s town is divided in… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Racism
  • Hospitalisation & medical content
  • Police brutality & lynching

Coraline by Neil Gaiman

The day after they moved in, Coraline went exploring…. In Coraline’s family’s new flat are twenty-one windows and fourteen doors. Thirteen of the doors open and close. The fourteenth is locked, and on the other side is only a brick wall, until the day Coraline unlocks the door to find a passage to another flat in another house just like her own. Only it’s different. At first, things seem marvelous in the other flat. The food is better. The toy box is filled with wind-up angels that flutter around the bedroom, books whose pictures writhe and crawl and shimmer, little dinosaur skulls that chatter… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Minor body horror
  • Animal death (rat, decapitated by a cat)

All the Blues in the Sky by Renée Watson

Sage’s thirteenth birthday was supposed to be about movies and treats, staying up late with her best friend and watching the sunrise together. Instead, it was the day her best friend died. Without the person she had to hold her secrets and dream with, Sage is lost. In a counseling group with other girls who have lost someone close to them, she learns that not all losses are the same, and healing isn’t predictable. There is sadness, loneliness, anxiety, guilt, pain, love. And even as Sage grieves, new, good things enter her life — and she just may find a way to know that she can feel it all.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Death from a heart attack mentioned
  • Hospitalisation for cancer & terminal illness discussed
  • Grief & loss depiction (theme)
  • Death of a child & best friend in a hit-and-run drunk-driving car accident
  • Police brutality

Ellie Engle Saves Herself by Leah Johnson

Ellie Engle doesn’t stand out. Not at home, where she’s alone with her pet fish since her dad moved away and her mom has to work around the clock. Not at the bakery, where she helps out old Mr. Walker on the weekends. And definitely not at school, where her best friend, Abby—the coolest, boldest, most talented girl in the world—drags Ellie along on her never-ending quest to “make her mark.” To someone else, a life in the shadows might seem boring, or lonely. But not to Ellie. As long as she has Abby by her side and a comic book in her hand, she’s quite content. Too bad life… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Parental abandonment
  • Anxiety (protagonist)
  • Grief & loss depiction
  • Death of a grandparent recounted
  • Earthquake
  • Animal death
  • Bullying

Bree Boyd is a Legend by Leah Johnson

7th grader Bree Boyd loves rules, order, and knowing what’s going to happen next. It’s why she likes reading the same books over and over; it’s why she’s the school’s reigning spelling bee champ; and, most importantly, it’s why she’s never minded the high expectations her father has always had for her and her sisters. After all, if you’re always the best, life can’t throw many surprises at you. But for the first time, Bree has no idea what the future holds. Because when a huge storm delivers a bolt of lightning straight into Bree, it leaves behind something she never prepared for: the power to move things with her mind… Read more.

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Anxiety (protagonist)

The Cartoonists Club by Raina Telgemeier & Scott McCloud

Makayla is bursting with ideas but doesn’t know how to make them into a story. Howard loves to draw, but he struggles to come up with ideas and his dad thinks comics are a waste of time. Lynda constantly draws in her sketchbook but keeps focusing on what she feels are mistakes, and Art simply loves being creative and is excited to try something new. They come together to form The Cartoonists Club, where kids can learn about making comics and use their creativity and imagination for their own storytelling adventures!

Goodreads • The Story Graph

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Death of a father from illness mentioned (secondary character)

Shine On, Luz Véliz! by Rebecca Balcárcel

Luz Véliz is a soccer star―or rather, she was a soccer star. With her serious knee injury, it’s unlikely she’ll be back on the field anytime soon. But without soccer, who is she? Even her dad treats her differently now—like he doesn’t know her or, worse, like he doesn’t even like her. When Luz discovers she has a knack for coding, it feels like a lifeline to a better self. If she can just ace the May Showcase, she’ll not only skip a level in her coding courses and impress Ms. Freeman and intriguing, brilliant Trevor—she’ll have her parents cheering her on from the sidelines, just the way she likes it… Read more.

Goodreads

Trigger and Content Warnings

  • Disappearance of a child recounted
  • Gang violence in Guatemala mentioned