Steven Jenkins.  Actual Size

Discusses and gives examples of the size and weight of various animals and parts of animals.

Judy Schachner.  Skippyjon Jones

Skippyjon Jones is a Siamese cat with an overactive imagination who would rather be El Skippito, his Zorro-like alter ego.

Judy Sierra.  Wild About Books

A librarian named Mavis McGrew introduces the animals in the zoo to the joy of reading when she drives her bookmobile to the zoo by mistake.

Ursula K. LeGuin.  Catwings

Four young cats with wings leave the city slums in search of a safe place to live, finally meeting two children with kind hands.  Catwings series

Mary Pope Osbourne.  Dinosaurs Before Dark

Eight-year-old Jack and his younger sister Annie find a magic treehouse, which whisks them back to an ancient time zone where they see live dinosaurs.

Magic Tree House series

Cynthia Rylant.  Henry and Mudge

Henry, feeling lonely on a street without any other children, finds companionship and love in a big dog named Mudge.  Henry and Mudge series

Megan McDonald.  Judy Moody

Third grader Judy Moody is in a first day of school bad mood until she gets an assignment to create a collage all about herself and begins creating her masterpiece, the Me collage.  Judy Moody series

John Peterson.  The Littles

The Littles are a family of tiny people who live in the Bigg family's house. Mr. Little is only six inches tall, and he is big for a Little. The Littles develop a plan to get rid of the mice in the Bigg's house.  The Littles series

Geronimo Stilton.  Lost Treasure of the Emerald Eye

When Geronimo's sister, Thea, discovers an old, mysterious map showing a secret treasure hidden on a faraway island, the gang of the "Rodent's gazette" is dragged into a treasure hunt. 

Geronimo Stilton series

Marc Brown.  Buster on the Town

On his visit to Chicago, Buster makes a new friend and sends postcards back home.

Postcards from Buster series

James Howe.  It Came from Beneath the Bead!

With help from his Uncle Harold, who wrote books about Bunnicula, Howie the wire-haired dachshund writes a story in which he saves the world from a science experiment gone awry.

Tales From the House of Bunnicula series

Pam Munoz Ryan.  Becoming Naomi Leon

When Naom 's absent mother resurfaces to claim her, Naomi runs away to Mexico with her great-grandmother and younger brother in search of her father.

Blue Balliet.  Chasing Vermeer

When strange and seemingly unrelated events start to happen and a precious Vermeer painting disappears, eleven-year-olds Petra and Calder combine their talents to solve an international art scandal.

P. B. Kerr.  The Akhenaten Adventure

When twelve-year-old twins Philippa and John discover that they are descended from a long line of djinn, their mother sends them away to their Uncle Nimrod, who takes them to Cairo where he starts to teach them about their extraordinary powers.

Cornielia Funke.  Dragon Rider

After learning that humans are headed toward his hidden home, Firedrake, a silver dragon, is joined by a brownie and an orphan boy in a quest to find the legendary valley known as the Rim of Heaven, encountering friendly and unfriendly creatures along the way, and struggling to evade the relentless pursuit of an old enemy.

Kathryn Lasky.  The Capture

In the first book in the Guardians of Ga'Hoole series, readers meet Soren, a barn owl who discovers a great evil in the owl kingdom which he must work to vanquish.  Guadians of Ga'Hoole series

J. K. Rowling.  Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

Rescued from the outrageous neglect of his aunt and uncle, a young boy with a great destiny proves his worth while attending Hogwarts School for Wizards and Witches.  Harry Potter series

Cornelia Funke.  Inkheart

Twelve-year-old Meggie learns that her father, who repairs and binds books for a living, can "read" fictional characters to life when one of those characters abducts them and tries to force him into service.

Erin Hunter.  Into the Wild

For generations, four clans of wild cats have shared the forest. When their warrior code is threatened by mysterious deaths, a house cat named Rusty may turn out to be the bravest warrior of all.

Warriors series

Zizou Corder.  Lion Boy

In the near future, a boy with the ability to speak the language of cats sets out from London to seek his kidnapped parents and finds himself on a Paris-bound circus ship learning to train lions.

Lion Boy series

Erin Hunter.  Midnight

Called by StarClan to fulfill a new prophecy, a group of young cats sets out on a long and dangerous journey, knowing only that trouble threatens the forest, as the adventures of the warrior clans continue. 

Warriors:   The New Prophecy series

Jenny Nimmo.  Midnight for Charlie Bone

Charlie Bone 's life with his widowed mother and two grandmothers undergoes a dramatic change when he discovers that he can hear people in photographs talking. 

Karen Hesse.  Music for Dolphins

After rescuing an adolescent girl from the sea, researchers learn she has been raised by dolphins and attempt to rehabilitate her to the human world.

Patricia Reilly Giff.  Pictures of Hollis Woods

A troublesome twelve-year-old orphan, staying with an elderly artist who needs her, remembers the only other time she was happy in a foster home, with a family that truly seemed to care about her.

Andrew Clements.  The Report Card

Fifth-grader Nora Rowley has always hidden the fact that she is a genius from everyone because all she wants is to be normal, but when she comes up with a plan to prove that grades are not important, things begin to get out of control.

Anthony Horowitz.  Stormbreaker

After the death of the uncle who had been his guardian, fourteen-year-old Alex Rider is coerced to continue his uncle's dangerous work for Britain's intelligence agency, MI6.  Alex Rider series

Cornielia Funke.  The Thief Lord

Two brothers, having run away from the aunt who plans to adopt the younger one, are sought by a detective hired by their aunt, but they have found shelter with--and protection from--Venice's "Thief Lord."

Eoin Colfer.  Artemis Fowl

When a twelve-year-old evil genius tries to restore his family fortune by capturing a fairy and demanding a ransom in gold, the fairies fight back with magic, technology, and a particularly nasty troll.

Artemis Fowl series

Ann M. Martin.  A Corner of the Universe

The summer that Hattie turns twelve, she meets the childlike uncle she never knew and becomes friends with a girl who works at the carnival that comes to Hattie's small town.

Christopher Paolini.  Eragon

In Aagaesia, a fifteen-year-old boy of unknown lineage called Eragon finds a mysterious stone that weaves his life into an intricate tapestry of destiny, magic, and power, peopled with dragons, elves, and monsters.  Inheritance series

Carl Hiaasen.  Hoot

Roy, who is new to his small Florida community, becomes involved in another boy's attempt to save a colony of burrowing owls from a proposed construction site.

Joan Bauer.  Hope was Here

When sixteen-year-old Hope and the aunt who has raised her move from Brooklyn to Mulhoney, Wisconsin, to work as waitress and cook in the Welcome Stairways diner, they become involved with the diner owner's political campaign to oust the town's corrupt mayor.

Nancy Farmer.  The House of Scorpion

In a future where humans despise clones, Matt enjoys special status as the young clone of El Patrón, the 142-year-old leader of a corrupt drug empire nestled between Mexico and the United States.

Jennifer Donnelly.  A Northern Light

In 1906, sixteen-year-old Mattie, determined to attend college and be a writer against the wishes of her father and fiance, takes a job at a summer inn where she discovers the truth about the death of a guest. Based on a true story.

Kevin Henkes.  Olive's Ocean

On a summer visit to her grandmother's cottage by the ocean, twelve-year-old Martha gains perspective on the death of a classmate, on her relationship with her grandmother, on her feelings for an older boy, and on her plans to be a writer.

Richard Peck.  The River Between Us

During the early days of the Civil War, the Pruitt family takes in two mysterious young ladies who have fled New Orleans to come north to Illinois.

Jerry Spinelli.  Stargirl

In this story about the perils of popularity, the courage of nonconformity, and the thrill of first love, an eccentric student named Stargirl changes Mica High School forever.

Richard Peck.  The Teacher's Funeral:  A Comedy in Three Parts

In rural Indiana in 1904, fifteen-year-old Russell's dream of quitting school and joining a wheat threshing crew is disrupted when his older sister takes over the teaching at his one-room schoolhouse after mean, old Myrt Arbuckle "hauls off and dies."