Battle of the Books
This is an optional program for our upper elementary students. Students form a team of one to three people and then as a team, they read the books that are on the Battle of the Books list. In late spring, the grade level Book Battles take place. This involves a Jeopardy-style game with the categories of: plot, genre, tricky, character and setting. This friendly competition encourages students to explore books they might not otherwise read and builds community around shared reading experiences. The books for The Battle of the Books are available in the MCS library, on Sora, and through The Norwich Public Library.
4th & 5th Grade books
By Donna Barba Higuera
Thirteen-year-old Leandro Rivera and his 9-year-old sister, Gabi, brave the harsh reality of a segregated settlement in post-apocalyptic California.
Spanish-speaking Cascabeles like Leandro are forced to work the fields to provide for elite English-speaking Pocatelans or risk exile and certain death in the desolate and dangerous monster-filled outside world.
Science Fiction & Fantasy
By Adrianna Cuevas
When Rafa Alvarez and his two best friends decide to bring their favorite role-playing game into the real world, the consequences become just as real.
Between his father’s strict nature and his mother’s worsening illness, Cuban American Rafa has retreated into playing The Forgotten Age with Beto and Yesi.
Mystery & Thriller
By Rebecca E. F. Barone
Achronicle of the history and science behind the Mount St. Helens eruption.
In March 1980, Mount St. Helens in Washington state became active. Intermittent earthquakes and ash plumes baffled scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey and frustrated journalists as they sought concrete predictions on what would happen and when.
Nonfiction
By Chrystal D. Giles
After getting expelled from Andrew Jackson Middle School after getting in another fight with his bullies, 12-year-old Lawrence finds friendship, community, and healing in an unexpected space.
Social Themes/Children's Family
by Pedro Martin
Pedro is excited for the big family Mexican road trip with his family - all 8 siblings and his parent, squished into a camper and a pickup truck. He's NOT excited to meet his legendary crime-fighting abuelito, or bring him back to live in their already-cramped US home.
Graphic Novel
By Heather Fawcett
Grace, a 12-year-old witch, runs away from the orphanage to find a better life for herself.
With plenty of respectful nods to Anne of Green Gables, this delightful story set on Prince Edward Island features fledgling witch Grace. Escaping the orphanage she hates, Grace ventures with her familiar, a crow named Windweaver, to the cottage of Miss Puddlestone, a reputed witch who is rumored to eat children.
Science Fiction/Fantasy
By Saadia Faruqi
When their parents take away their phones, twins are forced to figure out how to be friends.
Children's Social Themes/Children's Family
edited by Ellen Oh
An incident at a TSA checkpoint snarls airport traffic, affecting 12 different Asian American kids traveling alone, with families, or with friends. Paths cross and collide as each kid finds the right spot to belong.
Realistic
By Kate O'Shaughnessy
Mo Gallagher’s life is upended when her beloved grandmother dies and she is thrust into foster care.
Children's Social Themes/Children's Family
By Beth Lincoln
Atreasure hunt and murder mystery with a family that’s rather eccentric (adjective: zany, whimsical, oddball).
Children's Mystery & Thriller
by Nicholas Day
100 years ago, the Mona Lisa wasn't that well-known...until she was stolen! Follow the heist, and the global hunt for DaVinci's masterpiece!
Nonfiction
By Michelle Cuevas
A story about the power of teamwork, dedication, and how dreams come to be.
Children's Science Fiction & Fantasy
6th Grade Books
By Emily Bowen Cohen
Mia is still getting used to living with her mom and stepfather, and to the new role their Jewish identity plays in their home. Feeling out of place at home and at her Jewish day school, Mia finds herself thinking more and more about her Muscogee father, who lives with his new family in Oklahoma. Her mother doesn’t want to talk about him, but Mia can’t help but feel like she’s missing a part of herself without him in her life.
Graphic Novel
By Hanna Alkaf
The day of Hamra’s 13th birthday begins without fanfare. Her mother is still at work at the hospital, her father is exhausted from delivering food to families isolated by the pandemic, she both worries about and is irritated by her aging grandfather and dementia-challenged grandmother, and she’s facing a day of remote school at the dining room table.
Fairy Tales/Folklore, Science Fiction/Fantasy
by Sally Pla
Maudie always loves summers with Dad. This year, though, wildfire forces them to stay in her dad's seaside hometown, and a secret about Maudie's new stepdad overshadows everything.
Realistic
By Katherine Marsh
Three compelling storylines move back and forth between the first months of the pandemic in 2020, and Ukraine and Brooklyn in 1932 and 1933. Matt, 12 (white), is an only child living with his mother and great-grandmother, Nadiya, known as GG, during lockdown. He’s lonely, bored, chafing at his mother’s rules, and alternately angry at and worried about his dad, a journalist based in Paris.
Historical Fiction
By Claire Swinarski
In this engrossing and inventive contemporary middle grade novel that's Where'd You Go, Bernadette with a #MeToo message, an eighth grader uses social media posts, passed notes, and other clues to find out why a formerly popular girl is now the pariah of her new school.
Mystery, Realistic Fiction
By Gordon Korman
Yash is a local sports legend, but a mistake in his credit means he has to attend summer school for, of all things, PE! Trapped for the summer with the other "slugs", Yash winds up building a new kind of team.
Realistic
by Natalie D. Richards
Four squabbling kids are sent to the Montana wilderness to learn survival skills and teamwork, but when their instructor disappears with a storm on its way, they must pull together to find him and survive the bitter cold.
Adventure
By Jessixa & Aaron Bagley
Sibling rivalry comes to a head when Lucy's older sister humiliates her on her first day of middle school, causing her to challenge Gigi to a fencing duel!
Graphic Novel
By Darcy Marks
Malachi and his friends are kids from Hell. (The suburbs, not the fiery pit part.). But when they accidentally let a soul escape, they have one night to find it and save the world. How hard can it be to find one evil soul? On Halloween? In Salem?
Fantasy/Scary
By Erin Brow
Simon has just moved to the National Quiet Zone, a place where the internet is banned! As he adjusts to life, his new friends, and the attack peacock that came with the house, the tragedy that sent his family to this town is just waiting to be revealed.
Realistic
by Nicholas Day
100 years ago, the Mona Lisa wasn't that well-known...until she was stolen! Follow the heist, and the global hunt for DaVinci's masterpiece!
Nonfiction
by Charles Waters & Traci Sorell
What if your school's mascot was considered racist, but not by anyone? A class assignment to debate the issue draws six middle school students into an increasingly ugly fight throughout town.
Realistic