Firegirl
by Tony Abbott

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.

On My Honor
by Marion Dane Bauer

When his best friend drowns while they were swimming in a dangerous river that they had promised never to go near, Joel is terrified at having to tell both sets of parents.

The Not-Just-Anybody Family
by Betsy Byars

With a young brother in the hospital, a grandfather in jail, and their mother traveling with a rodeo, Maggie and Vern try to settle family problems.

Dear Mr. Henshaw
by Beverly Cleary

In his letters to his favorite author, ten-year-old Leigh reveals his problems in coping with his parents' divorce, being the new boy in school, and finding his own place in life.
(Available in MP3 Playaway, CD and Braille.)

Walk Two Moons
by Sharon Creech

After her mother leaves home suddenly, thirteen-year-old Sal and her grandparents take a car trip retracing her mother's route. Along the way, Sal talks about her friend whose mother also left. (Available in MP3 Playaway, CD, downloadable audio and Large Print.)

The Watsons Go to Birmingham - 1963
by Christopher Paul Curtis

The ordinary interactions of the Watsons, an African American family living in Flint, Michigan, are drastically changed after they go to visit Grandma in Alabama in the summer of 1963.

Because of Winn Dixie
by Kate DiCamillo

Ten-year-old India Opal Buloni describes her first summer in the town of Naomi, Florida, and all the good things that happen to her because of her big ugly dog Winn-Dixie. 

The Broken Bike Boy and the Queen of 33rd Street
by Sharon G. Flake

Ten-year-old Queen, a spoiled and conceited African American girl who is disliked by most of her classmates, learns a lesson about friendship from an unlikely "knight in shining armor."

Seedfolks
by Paul Fleischman

People of varying ages and backgrounds transform a trash-filled inner-city lot into a productive and beautiful garden, and in doing so, the gardeners are themselves transformed.

The View from Saturday
by E.L. Konigsburg

Four students, with their own individual stories, develop a special bond and attract the attention of their teacher, a paraplegic, who choses them to represent their sixth-grade class in the Academic Bowl competition.

After a mean collector named Swindle cons him out of his most valuable baseball card, Griffin Bing must put together a band of misfits to break into Swindle's compound and recapture the card. Their adventure includes a menacing guard dog, a high-tech security system, a very secret hiding place, and their general inability to drive..

Paint the Wind by Pam Muñoz Ryan

After her overprotective grandmother has a stroke, Maya, an orphan, leaves her extremely restricted life in California to stay with her mother's family on a remote Wyoming ranch, where she discovers a love of horses and encounters a wild mare that her mother once rode.

Holes
by Louis Sachar

His family's bad fortune continues as Stanley Yelnats is sent to a hellish correctional camp in the Texas desert where he finds his first real friend, a treasure, and a new sense of himself.

Keeping the Night Watch
by Hope Anita Smith

A thirteen-year-old African American boy chronicles what happens to his family when his father, who temporarily left, returns home and they all must deal with their feelings of anger, hope, abandonment, and fear.

A Taste of Blackberries
by Doris Buchanan Smith

A prank ends in tragedy, and a boy must learn to live not only with the loss of a friend, but with the feeling that he could have prevented it.

Taking Sides
by Gary Soto

Fourteen-year-old Lincoln Mendoza, an aspiring basketball player, feels divided loyalties when he moves from the Hispanic inner city to a white suburban neighborhood.

After his parents die, Jeffrey Lionel Magee's life becomes legendary, as he accomplishes athletic and other feats which awe his contemporaries.

      Realistic Fiction: Stories about people and events that could happen in the real world.