8 middle grade books so good your kid might actually ignore their iPad
The books below are middle grade novels that your kid just might choose over their iPad (gasp 😮) !
If you decide to purchase them online, we recommend Bookshop.org because they support local bookstores and authors ❤️. Also, we earn a few cents if you use our links!
Kwame Crashes the Underworld
Twelve-year-old Kwame Powell isn't ready to deal with losing his grandmother, even as he and his family head to Ghana for her celebration of life.
He's definitely not ready when he's sucked into a magical whirlpool that leads straight to Asamando, the Ghanaian underworld. There, he comes face to face with his grandmother, who is very much alive, and somehow still...a kid? Together with his best friend, Autumn, and a talkative aboatia named Woo, Kwame must battle angry nature gods, and stop the underworld from destroying the land of the living.
But there's an even bigger problem: Only living souls can leave Asamando. In order to save the mortal world and return home, Kwame will need to find the courage to do the bravest thing of all -- learn how to say goodbye.
Lei and the Fire Goddess
Curses aren't real.
At least, that's what twelve-year-old, part-Hawaiian Anna Leilani Kamaʻehu thinks when she listens to her grandmother's folktales about sacred flowers and family guardians. Anna's friends back home in Colorado don't believe in legends, either. They're more interested in science and sports—real, tangible things that stand in total contrast to Anna’s family’s embarrassing stories.
So when Anna goes back to Hawaiʻi to visit her Tūtū, she has no interest in becoming the heir to her family’s history; she’s set on having a touristy, fun vacation. But when Anna accidentally insults Pele the fire goddess by destroying her lehua blossom, a giant hawk swoops in and kidnaps her best friend, and she quickly learns just how real these moʻolelo are. In order to save her friends and family, Anna must now battle mythical creatures, team up with demigods and talking bats, and evade the traps Pele hurls her way.
For if Anna hopes to undo the curse, she will have to dig deep into her Hawaiian roots and learn to embrace all of who she is.
Camp Twisted Pine
Eleven-year-old Naomi loves all things outdoors—birds and beetles, bats and bunnies—in theory. She explores nature in the best possible way: the cold, hard facts in books. So when her parents’ announcement of their impending divorce comes hand in hand with sending Naomi and her younger twin brothers to summer camp while they figure things out, it’s salt in the wound for Naomi and her avoidance of hands-on experience.
Camp Twisted Pine could be worse. The counselors are nice, and Naomi likes her cabinmates, especially Jackie, whose blunt personality and frank dislike of the camp draw Naomi in quickly. Jackie is also hard of hearing and uses a hearing aid, and the girls quickly develop a routine of sign language lessons in their free time, which Naomi sees as a welcome break when all the s’mores-making and nature walks get to be a bit much.
But the campers aren’t the only ones who roam the grounds of Camp Twisted Pine. When people start to go missing, including Jackie, Naomi has to find a way to save everyone—and herself. Her practical knowledge of the outdoors may still be rudimentary at best, but she has years of studying and the scientific method to fall back on. Can Naomi identify and stop the dangerous predator before it’s too late?
A Split Second
That clock can’t be right. When Elise wakes up the morning after her birthday celebration, she’s surprised to find herself in her bedroom. Last she can remember, she had fallen asleep next to her best friends at her slumber party in her basement, and it was October. But now she’s alone, and her phone says it’s April 8. Elise doesn’t understand. How could she have woken up six months later?
No one else is acting like anything strange has happened, yet Elise can't remember the last half year. To make matters worse, her friends refuse to talk to her and Elise doesn't know why. She also has no idea how she got signed up for photography club or why her former best friend, Cora, is talking to her again. Is it a memory problem? Could it be magic? Every day that passes takes Elise further from the world she knew. Thankfully, Elise has Cora to lean on in this new reality, and the two come together to investigate why Elise woke up in the future—and, more important, how to get her back to her past and away from this nightmare.
Ophie’s Ghosts
Ophelia Harrison used to live in a small house in the Georgia countryside. But that was before the night in November 1922, and the cruel act that took her home and her father from her. Which was the same night that Ophie learned she can see ghosts.
Now Ophie and her mother are living in Pittsburgh with relatives they barely know. In the hopes of earning enough money to get their own place, Mama has gotten Ophie a job as a maid in the same old manor house where she works.
Daffodil Manor, like the wealthy Caruthers family who owns it, is haunted by memories and prejudices of the past—and, as Ophie discovers, ghosts as well. Ghosts who have their own loves and hatreds and desires, ghosts who have wronged others and ghosts who have themselves been wronged. And as Ophie forms a friendship with one spirit whose life ended suddenly and unjustly, she wonders if she might be able to help—even as she comes to realize that Daffodil Manor may hold more secrets than she bargained for.
The Enchanted Life of Valentina Mejía
Twelve-year-old Valentina wants to focus on drawing the real world around her and hopefully get into art school in Bogotá one day, but Papi has spent his life studying Colombia’s legendary creatures and searching for proof of their existence. So when Papi hears that a patasola—a vampire woman with one leg—has been sighted in the Andes, Valentina and her younger brother Julián get dragged along on another magical creature hunt.
While they’re in the Andes, a powerful earthquake hits. Valentina and Julián fall through the earth…and find an alternate Colombia where, to Valentina’s shock, all the legends are real.
To get home, Valentina and Julián must make a treacherous journey to reach this land’s ruler: the madremonte, mother and protector of the earth. She controls the only portal back to the human world—but she absolutely hates humans, and she’ll do anything to defend her land.
Kareem Between
Seventh grade begins, and Kareem’s already fumbled it.
His best friend moved away, he messed up his tryout for the football team, and because of his heritage, he was voluntold to show the new kid—a Syrian refugee with a thick and embarrassing accent—around school. Just when Kareem thinks his middle school life has imploded, the hotshot QB promises to get Kareem another tryout for the squad. There’s a catch: to secure that chance, Kareem must do something he knows is wrong.
Then, like a surprise blitz, Kareem’s mom returns to Syria to help her family but can’t make it back home. If Kareem could throw a penalty flag on the fouls of his school and home life, it would be for unnecessary roughness.
Kareem is stuck between. Between countries. Between friends, between football, between parents—and between right and wrong. It’s up to him to step up, find his confidence, and navigate the beauty and hope found somewhere in the middle.
Amil and the After
At the turn of the new year in 1948, Amil and his family are trying to make a home in India, now independent of British rule.
Both Muslim and Hindu, twelve-year-old Amil is not sure what home means anymore. The memory of the long and difficult journey from their hometown in what is now Pakistan lives with him. And despite having an apartment in Bombay to live in and a school to attend, life in India feels uncertain.
Nisha, his twin sister, suggests that Amil begin to tell his story through drawings meant for their mother, who died when they were just babies. Through Amil, readers witness the unwavering spirit of a young boy trying to make sense of a chaotic world, and find hope for himself and a newly reborn nation.
Looking for more? Check out more of our book recommendations and our printable novel studies!
