realistic fiction

Feeling pulled between two cultures after a month with family in Pakistan, Amina shares her experiences with Wisconsin classmates through a class assignment and a songwriting project with new student Nico.

"After their victory in the Every Game Ever tournament, unstoppable video game duo and, now, IRL best friends Rhys and Miles are enjoying their last few weeks of sixth grade. Miles's successful streaming channel gives him popularity points at school. Rhys's skill in Mecha Melee attracts the attention of elite gamers from around the world. And the duo is competing to be the first ever to beat Mecha Quest 21. If life were a video game, they have definitely levelled up. But when the challenges of gaming at this level are compounded by shifting priorities, a mysterious online bully, and the academic demands of middle school, the pressure on the duo threatens to break them apart. In this graphic novel about friendship and loyalty, Rhys and Miles discover that sometimes you need to tap your squad to get the win." --Publisher.

Maggie, who struggles with anxiety and OCD, gets through her first year of middle school by making friends, finding the best after-school clubs, and using her twenty-sided dice to help her make desicions.

When Mia arrives at her new school, her goal is to be open to and friendly with everyone, but everyone at Park Street School fits into a clique. When the Popular Girls Club takes an interest in Mia's awesome fashion style and wants to recruit her, Mia must decide between them and her great new Cupcake Club friends. It's like choosing between her divorced mom and dad and her old house and new house. Is it always going to be Mia in the middle, or can she mix it up?.

"Katie is miserable when her best friend is invited to join the Popular Girls Club and Katie is left out. Is there an Unpopular Girls Club she can join? Luckily, Katie finds her way with a great new group of friends-Mia, Emma, and Alexis-and together they become the Cupcake Club. Sometimes starting from scratch turns out to be the icing on the cupcake"--.

Twelve-year-old Ellie, who has cerebral palsy, finds her life transformed when she moves with her mother to small-town Oklahoma to help care for her grandfather, who has Alzheimer's Disease.

Free is excited about a local poetry contest because of its cash prize, but when he and Dyamonde befriend a classmate who is homeless and living in a shelter, they rethink what it means to be rich or poor.

"Into the Wind is a middle-grade novel about the unlikely friendship between a boy and an elderly woman"--.

Thirteen-year-old Hannah Higgins is convinced her summer is ruined when she is forced to travel to Africa and work in a remote village in Kenya with her mom and uncle. Never having been to a developing country, she finds the food gross and the community filthy. She has to live without electricity or running water. Then she is told she must attend school. Just when she thinks nothing could make this trip any worse, she learns people there are dying of hunger and preventable disease. Hannah becomes frustrated and wants to help, but when poverty threatens the lives of people she loves, all she wants to do is go home.

A young boy describes what it is like to have a father who is a soldier and, especially, how difficult it is while Daddy is far away at war.