Just for Girls
Roxie and the Hooligans (by Phyllis Reyn Naylor)
Reading Level: Age 8+
What do you do if you're buried in an avalanche? -
Roxie Warbler knows what to do in all kinds of situations. And she's learned it all from her favorite book: Lord Thistlebottom's Book of Pitfalls and How to Survive Them. But there's one situation Roxie doesn't know how to handle and that's dealing with Helvetia's Hooligans, the meanest band of bullies in school.
Then Roxie and the hooligans are stranded together on a desert island, the hideout of a couple of criminals on the lam. Can five kids, armed with only a load of survival tactics and a little bit of teamwork, vanquish the villains and find their way home?
- Do not panic. Dig a hole around yourself and spit. The saliva will fall downward, telling you which direction is up.
Ida B. and Her Plans to Maximize Fun, Avoid Disaster, and (Possibly) Save the World (by Katherine Hannigan)
Reading Level: Age 8+
Who is Ida B. Applewood? She is a fourth grader like no other, living a life like no other, with a voice like no other, and her story will resonate long after you have put this book down. How does Ida B cope when outside forces—life, really—attempt to derail her and her family and her future? She enters her Black Period, and it is not pretty. But then, with the help of a patient teacher, a loyal cat and dog, her beloved apple trees, and parents who believe in the same things she does (even if they sometimes act as though they don't), the resilience that is the very essence of Ida B triumph...and Ida B. Applewood takes the hand that is extended and starts to grow up.
The Doll People (by Laura Godwin and Ann Matthews Martin)
Reading Level: Age 7+
Annabelle Doll is eight years old-she has been for more than a hundred years. Not a lot has happened to her, cooped up in the dollhouse, with the same doll family, day after day, year after year. . . until one day the Funcrafts move in.
Ruby Holler (by Sharon Creech)
Reading Level: Age 8+
Dallas and Florida have been dubbed the "trouble twins." They have been shuffled between foster families and orphanages all their lives, longing only for a loving place to call home, though mistrustful that one exists for the likes of them.
Tiller and Sairy are an eccentric, older couple whose children are grown and long gone, and they're each restless for one more big adventure while their bodies are still spry enough to paddle a river or climb a mountain.
Ruby Holler is the beautiful, mysterious place that changes all of their lives forever. When Tiller and Sairy invite Dallas and Florida to stay with them and keep them company on their adventures, the magic of the Holler takes over, and the two kids begin to think that maybe, just maybe the old folks aren't so bad....
Pippi Longstocking (by Astrid Lindren)
Reading Level: Age 8+
Tommy and his sister Annika have a new neighbor, and her name is Pippi Longstocking. She has crazy red pigtails, no parents to tell her what to do, a horse that lives on her porch, and a flair for the outrageous that seems to lead to one adventure after another!
The Fairy's Return and Other Princess Tales (by Gail Carson Levine)
Reading Level: Age 8+
Ever since Newbery Honor author Gail Carson Levine introduced the magical village of Snettering-on-Snoakes in the faraway Kingdom of Biddle, young readers have been laughing their way through her hilarious retellings of famous and not-so-famous fairy tales.
Now, for the first time, the six beloved Princess Tales are together in one magnificent volume:
The high jinks begin in The Fairy's Mistake, which pokes fun at a meddlesome fairy whose plans for good go terribly awry. In The Princess Test, the author spoofs the notion that a pea can prove a person's pedigree. Princess Sonora and the Long Sleep features a genius of a princess, a hundred years of snooze, two princes, and a flock of balding sheep! Cinderella is a boy in Cinderellis and the Glass Hill, and the glass slipper is a glass hill. In For Biddle's Sake, Parsley tries to forget her beloved prince and get used to life as a Biddlebum Toad. The road to happily-ever-after isn't easy when a baker's son and a princess fall in love in The Fairy's Return.
Elements of the classics are woven into these not-so-typical retellings of "Toads and Diamonds," "The Princess and the Pea," "Sleeping Beauty," "The Princess on the Glass Hill," "Puddocky," and "The Golden Goose." The fresh and funny twists on favorite fairy tales will win the hearts and capture the imaginations of young readers everywhere.
Emma Jean Lazarus Fell Out of a Tree (by Lauren Tarshis)
Reading Level: Age 8+
Emma-Jean Lazarus is the smartest and strangest girl at William Gladstone Middle School. Her classmates don't understand her, but that's okay because Emma-Jean doesn't quite get them either. But one afternoon, all that changes when she sees Colleen Pomerantz crying in the girl's room. It is through Colleen that Emma-Jean gets a glimpse into what it is really like to be a seventh grader. And what she finds will send her tumbling out of a tree and questioning why she ever got involved in the first place.
Clementine (by Sarah Pennypacker)
Reading Level: Age 8+
Clementine is having not so good of a week.
Okay, fine. Clementine is having a DISASTROUS week.
Gooney Bird Greene (by Lois Lowry)
Reading Level: Age 8+
Two-time Newbery Medalist Lois Lowry introduces a new girl in class who loves being the center of attention and tells the most entertaining “absolutely true” stories.
There’s never been anyone like Gooney Bird Greene at Watertower Elementary School. What other new kid comes to school wearing pajamas and cowboy boots one day and a polka-dot t-shirt and tutu on another? Gooney Bird has to sit right smack in the middle of the class because she likes to be in the middle of everything. She is the star of story time and keeps her teacher and classmates on the edge of their seats with her “absolutely true” stories. But what about her classmates? Do they have stories good enough to share?
Love, Ruby Lavender (by Deborah Wiles)
Reading Level: Age 8+
When Ruby's grandmother, Miss Eula goes to visit her new grandbaby in Hawaii, Ruby is sure that she will have a lonely, empty, horrible summer without her in boring old Halleluia, Mississippi. What happens instead? She makes a new friend, saves the school play, writes plenty of letters to her favorite (and only) grandmother . . . and finally learns to stop blaming herself for her grandfather's death. Not too bad, for a nine-year-old.