Clean Reads

Books that won’t make you blush!


CLEAN READ SERIES

Y All Gilda Joyce, psychic investigator by Jennifer Allison (mystery)
During the summer before ninth grade, intrepid Gilda Joyce invites herself to the San Francisco mansion of distant cousin Lester Splinter and his thirteen-year-old daughter, where she uses her purported psychic abilities and detective skills to solve the mystery of the mansion's boarded-up tower.

Y Bry Beacon Street Girls by Annie Bryant
Charlotte Ramsey is the new girl in 7th grade and ready to make friends and stay in one place. After causing the biggest cafeteria blunder in the history of Abigail Adams Junior High School, Charlotte's assigned lunch partners, Katani, Avery and Maeve, can't wait to dump her. Can it get any worse?


Y Col Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer (suspense/adventure)
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.

J Col Gregor the Overlander (Underland Chronicles)
by Suzanne Collins (fantasy)
When eleven-year-old Gregor and his two-year-old sister are pulled into a strange underground world, they trigger an epic battle involving men, bats, rats, cockroaches, and spiders while on a quest foretold by ancient prophecy.

J Fun Inkheart by Cornelia Caroline Funke (fantasy)
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.

Y Gre Baseball Great by Tim Green (sports)
All twelve-year-old Josh wants to do is play baseball but when his father, a minor league pitcher, signs him up for a youth championship team, Josh finds himself embroiled in a situation with potentially illegal consequences.

Y Gre Football Genius by Tim Green (sports)
Troy, a sixth-grader with an unusual gift for predicting football plays before they occur, attempts to use his ability to help his favorite team, the Atlanta Falcons, but he must first prove himself to the coach and players.


Y Gri Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer by John Grisham (mystery)
With two attorneys for parents, thirteen-year-old Theodore Boone knows more about the law than most lawyers do. But when a high profile murder trial comes to his small town and Theo gets pulled into it, it's up to this amateur attorney to save the day.

Y Had Among The Hidden: Shadow Children Book 1 (mystery/suspense) by Margaret Peterson Haddix
In a future where the Population Police enforce the law limiting a family to only two children, Luke has lived all his twelve years in isolation and fear on his family's farm, until another "third" convinces him that the government is wrong.

Y Hig SilverFin(Young James Bond series)
by Charles Higson (mystery)
This prequel to the adventures of James Bond, 007, introduces us to the young James when he's just started boarding school in England and is about to become involved in his first adventure.

Y Hor Stormbreaker (Alex Rider Series) by Anthony Horowitz (suspense, adventure)
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.


Y Kim School Spirit (Suddenly Supernatural #1)
by Elizabeth Cody Kimmel (fantasy)
Like her mother, a professional medium, Kat has been able to see dead people since turning thirteen, and although they would prefer to be normal, Kat and her best friend come to terms with their own talents while helping free the spirit of a girl trapped at their middle school.

Y Mar Boys are Dogs by Leslie Margolis
When her mother gets a new boyfriend, sixth-grader Annabelle gets to cope with a new town, a new school, and a new puppy and, while training her puppy, she decides to apply some of the same techniques to tame the unruly boys that are making her middle-school life miserable.

Y Mon Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery (classic)
Anne, an eleven-year-old orphan, is sent by mistake to live with a lonely, middle-aged brother and sister on a Prince Edward Island farm and proceeds to make an indelible impression on everyone around her.

J Nix Mister Monday (Keys to the Kingdom #1) by Garth Nix (fantasy)
Arthur Penhaligon is supposed to die at a young age, but is saved by a key that is shaped like the minute hand of a clock. The key causes bizarre creatures to come from another realm, bringing with them a plague. A man named Mister Monday will stop at nothing to get the key back. Arthur goes to a mysterious house that only he can see, so that he can learn the truth about himself and the key.


Y Pao Eragon (fantasy)
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.

Y Rio The Lightning Thief (fantasy)
Twelve-year-old Percy Jackson learns he is a demigod, the son of a mortal
woman and Poseidon, god of the sea. His mother sends him to a summer camp for demigods where he and his new friends set out on a quest to prevent a war between the gods.

Y Rus Dork Diaries by Rachel Renee Russell (humorous)
Fourteen-year-old Nikki Maxwell writes in her diary of her struggle to be popular at her exclusive new private school, then of finding her place after she gives up on being part of the elite group.

J San Alcatraz versus the Evil Librarians by Brandon Sanderson
On his thirteenth birthday, foster child Alcatraz Smedry receives a bag of sand which is immediately stolen by the evil Librarians who are trying to take over the world, and Alcatraz is introduced to his grandfather and his own special talent, and told that he must use it to save civilization.

Y Sco The Alchemyst (Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas
Flamel series) by Michael Scott (fantasy)
While working at pleasant but mundane summer jobs in San Francisco, fifteen-year-old twins, Sophie and Josh, suddenly find themselves caught up in the deadly, centuries-old struggle between rival alchemists, Nicholas Flamel and John Dee, over the possession of an ancient and powerful book holding the secret formulas for alchemy and everlasting life.

Y Sha Cirque du Freak by Darren Shan (scary)
Two boys who are best friends visit an illegal freak show, where an encounter with a vampire and a deadly spider forces them to make life-changing choices.

Y Spr The Case of the Missing Marquess (Enola Holmes series)
by Nancy Springer (mystery)
Enola Holmes, much younger sister of detective Sherlock Holmes, must travel to London in disguise to unravel the disappearance of her missing mother.

Y Wes Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld (science fiction)
In an alternate 1914 Europe, fifteen-year-old Austrian Prince Alek, on the run from the Clanker Powers who are attempting to take over the globe using mechanical machinery, forms an uneasy alliance with Deryn who, disguised as a boy to join the British Air Service, is learning to fly genetically-engineered beasts.

Y Win Adam Canfield of the Slash by Michael Winerip (mystery)
While serving as co-editors of their school newspaper, middle-schoolers Adam and Jennifer uncover fraud and corruption in their school and in the city's government.


STAND ALONE BOOKS :: CLEAN READS FOR MIDDLE SCHOOLERS

Y Bry Pieces of Georgia by Jennifer Bryant
In journal entries to her mother, a gifted artist who died suddenly, thirteen-year-old Georgia McCoy reveals how her life changes after she receives an anonymous gift membership to a nearby art museum.


Y Cle Things Not Seen by Andrew Clements
When fifteen-year-old Bobby wakes up and finds himself invisible, he and his parents and his new blind friend Alicia try to find out what caused his condition and how to reverse it. Sequels – Things Hoped For & Things That Are


Y Col Half Moon Investigations by Eoin Colfer (mystery)
Twelve-year-old private investigator Fletcher Moon, nicknamed "Half Moon" because of his shortness, must track down a conspiracy or be framed for a crime he did not commit.

Y Cur The Watsons go to Birmingham – 1963
by Christopher Paul Curtis (historical fiction)
The ordinary interactions and everyday routines 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. A hilarious, touching, and tragic novel about civil rights and the impact of violence on one African American family. Narrated by Kenny, 9, the story tells about his middle-class black family, the Watsons of Flint, Michigan, and their trip to Birmingham, Alabama, to visit Grandma. They happen to be in Birmingham when Grandma's church is bombed.

Y Dio Models Don’t Eat Chocolate Cookies by Erin Dionne
Overweight thirteen-year-old Celeste begins a campaign to lose weight in order to make sure she does not win the Miss HuskeyPeach modeling challenge, in which her mother and aunt have entered her--against her wishes.

Y Dio The Total Tragedy of a Girl Named Hamlet by Erin Dionne (humorous)
Hamlet's attempts to be a "normal" eighth grader become increasingly difficult when her genius seven-year-old sister and her eccentric Shakespeare scholar parents both begin to attend her school.


Y Fix Saint Training by Elizabeth Fixmer
During the turbulent 1960s, sixth-grader Mary Clare O'Brian makes a deal with God: she will try to become a saint if He provides for her large, cash-strapped family.


Y Fer Once Upon a Marigold by Jean Farris
A young man with a mysterious past and a penchant for inventing things leaves the troll who raised him, meets an unhappy princess he has loved from afar, and discovers a plot against her and her father. Sequel – Twice Upon a Marigold

Y Fra Rule to Rock By by Josh Farrar
Annabella Cabrera tries to start a rock band at her new middle school in Providence, Rhode Island, but has trouble when the members of a rival band bully her and she develops a case of writer's block.

J Gai Coraline by Neil Gainman (scary)
Looking for excitement, Coraline ventures through a mysterious door into a world that is similar, yet disturbingly different from her own. Coraline must challenge a gruesome entity in order to save herself, her parents, and the souls of three others.


Y Gai The Graveyard Book by Neil Gainman (scary)
Nobody Owens is a normal breathing boy whose home is a graveyard, raised by a guardian who belongs neither to the mortal world nor the realm of the dead. Among the mausoleums and headstones of his home, Bod experiences things most mortals can barely imagine. But real, flesh-and-blood danger waits just outside the cemetery walls: the man who murdered the infant Bod’s family will not rest until he finds Nobody Owens and finishes the job he began many years ago.

Y Gif Pictures of Hollis Woods by Patricia Reilly Giff
(Newberry Honor book)
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


Y Gre Football Hero by Tim Green (sports)
When twelve-year-old Ty's brother Thane is recruited out of college to play for the New York Jets, their Uncle Gus uses Ty to get insider information for his gambling ring, landing Ty and Thane in trouble with the mafia.

Y Hig Black Book of Secrets by F.E. Higgins (mystery)
When Ludlow Fitch runs away from his thieving parents in the City, he meets up with the mysterious Joe Zabbidou, who calls himself a secret pawnbroker, and who takes Ludlow as an apprentice to record the confessions of the townspeople of Pagus Parvus, where resentments are many and trust is scarce. Sequels – The Bone Magician & The Eyeball Collector


J Kim Lily B. on the Brink of Love by Elizabeth Cody Kimmel
Aspiring author and eighth-grader Lily Blennerhassett hones her writing skills as her school newspaper's advice columnist while also trying to get her first crush, The Boy, to notice her. Sequel – Lily B. on the Brink of Paris

Y Kos The Girls by Amy Goldman Koss
Each of the girls in a middle-school clique reveals the strong, manipulative hold one of the group exerts on the others, and the hurt and self-doubt that it causes them.

Y Han Shug by Jenny Han
A twelve-year-old girl learns about friendship, first loves, and self-worth in a small town in the South.

Y Hem Runaround by Helen Hemphill
In Kentucky in the 1960s, partly as revenge against her older sister for publicly embarrassing her, eleven-year-old Sassy decides to make the handsomest boy in the neighborhood her boyfriend, but first she has to find out what makes a boy like a girl, and how to know when he does.

J Hen Olive’s Ocean by Kevin Henkes
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.

Y Hep The Cupcake Queen by Heather Hepler
While longing to return to life in New York City, thirteen-year-old Penny helps her mother and grandmother run a cupcake bakery in Hog's Hollow, tries to avoid the beastly popular girls, to be a good friend to quirky Tally, and to catch the eye of enigmatic Marcus.

Y How The Misfits by James Howe
Four students who do not fit in at their small-town middle school decide to create a third party for the student council elections to represent all students who have ever been called names.

Y Kim The Reinvention of Moxie Roosevelt by Elizabeth Cody Kimmel
On her first day of boarding school, a thirteen-year-old girl who feels boring and invisible decides to change her personality to match her unusual name.

Y Len Questors by Joan Lennon (sci-fi/fantasy)
Three confused children are brought together then, with little training, sent off to save three worlds that were held in perfect balance until a cataclysmic disruption in the space-time continuum threatened their existence, which is just what their enemy desires.

Y Lon White Fang and Call of The Wild by Jack London (classic)
Rescued from a life of fear and abuse, a part dog, part wolf finds man can be be a friend and companion.

The adventures of an unusual dog, part St. Bernard, part Scotch shepherd, that is forcibly taken to the Klondike gold fields where he eventually becomes the leader of a wolf pack.


Y Law Hattie Big Sky by Kirby Lawson (Newberry Honor book)
After inheriting her uncle's homesteading claim in Montana, orphan Hattie Brooks travels from Iowa in 1917 to make a home for herself and encounters some unexpected problems related to the war being fought in Europe. Her backbreaking quest for a home is lightened by her neighbors, the Muellers. Despite everything, Hattie's determined to stay until a tragedy causes her to discover the true meaning of home.

Y Lev Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine (fantasy)
Ella, brought to the castle to prepare for her marriage to the prince, finds that she does not really want to marry him after all.


Y Lev Fairest by Gail Carson Levine (fantasy)
In a land where beauty and singing are valued above all else, Aza eventually comes to reconcile her unconventional appearance and her magical voice, and learns to accept herself for who she truly is.

J Lor Rules by Cynthia Lord
Frustrated at life with an autistic brother, twelve-year-old Catherine longs for a normal existence but her world is further complicated by a friendship with a young paraplegic.


Y Mas Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life by Wendy Mass
Just before his thirteenth birthday, Jeremy Fink receives a keyless locked box--set aside by his father before his death five years earlier--that purportedly contains the meaning of life.


Y Mas A Mango-Shaped Space by Wendy Mass
Afraid that she is crazy, thirteen-year-old Mia, who sees a special color with every letter, number, and sound, keeps this a secret until she becomes overwhelmed by school, changing relationships, and the loss of something important to her.

Y Mil Miss Spitfire: reaching Helen Keller by Sarah Elizabeth Miller (historical fiction)
At age twenty-one, partially-blind, lonely but spirited Annie Sullivan travels from Massachusetts to Alabama to try and teach six-year-old Helen Keller, deaf and blind since age two, self-discipline and communication skills.


Y Nie Dear George Clooney, Please Marry My Mom (humorous)
by Susin Nielsen-Ferlund
Violet's TV-director dad has traded a job in Vancouver for one in Los Angeles, their run-down house for a sleek ranch-style home complete with a pool, and, worst of all, Violet's mother for a trophy wife, a blonde actress named Jennica. Violet's younger sister reacts by bed-wetting, and her mother ping-pongs from one loser to another, searching for love. As for Violet, she gets angry in ways that are by turns infuriating, shocking, and hilarious. When her mother takes up with the unfortunately named Dudley Wiener, Violet and her friend Phoebe decide that they need to take control. If Violet's mom can't pick a decent man herself, they will help her snag George Clooney.


Y Pat Middle School, the Worst Years of My Life by James Patterson
When Rafe Kane enters middle school, he teams up with his best friend, "Leo the Silent," to create a game to make school more fun by trying to break every rule in the school's code of conduct.

Y Sac Holes by Louis Sachar
As further evidence of his family's bad fortune which they attribute to a curse on a distant relative, 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.


Y Sch The Wednesday Wars by Gary Schmidt
During the 1967 school year, on Wednesday afternoons when all his classmates go to either Catechism or Hebrew school, seventh-grader Holling Hoodhood stays in Mrs. Baker's classroom where they read the plays of William Shakespeare and Holling learns much of value about the world he lives in.

Y She My So-Called Family by Courtney Sheinmel
Leah, who was conceived through a donor bank, decides that even though she loves her mother, stepfather, and stepbrother, she wants to find out if she has any other siblings, and sets out to investigate without telling anyone what she is doing.


Y Son Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie by Jordan Sonneblick
When his younger brother is diagnosed with leukemia, thirteen-year-old Steven tries to deal with his complicated emotions, his school life, and his desire to support his family.

J Tar Emma-Jean Lazarus Fell Out of a Tree by Lauren Tarshis
A quirky and utterly logical seventh-grade girl named Emma-Jean Lazarus discovers some interesting results when she gets involved in the messy everyday problems of her peers.hen his younger brother is diagnosed with leukemia, thirteen-year-old Steven tries to deal with his complicated emotions, his school life, and his desire to support his family.

Y Van Flipped by Wendelin Van Draanen
In alternating chapters, two teenagers describe how their feelings about themselves, each other, and their families have changed over the years.

Y Wee So B. It by Sarah Weeks
After spending her life with her mentally retarded mother and agoraphobic neighbor, twelve-year-old Heidi sets out from Reno, Nevada, to New York to find out who she is.


CLEAN READS WITH HIGH SCHOOL CHARACTERS

Y Car Heist Society by Ally Carter
A group of teenagers uses their combined talents to re-steal several priceless paintings and save fifteen-year-old Kat Bishop's father, himself an international art thief, from a vengeful collector.

Y Car I’d Tell You I Love You, But Then I’d Have To Kill You (Gallagher Girls series) by Ally Carter
As a sophomore at a secret spy school and the daughter of a former CIA operative, Cammie is sheltered from "normal teenage life" until she meets a local boy while on a class surveillance mission.

Y Han The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han
Belly spends the summer she turns sixteen at the beach just like every other summer of her life, but this time things are very different.

Y Lub Sleeping Freshman Never Lie by David Lubar
While navigating his first year of high school and awaiting the birth of his
new baby brother, Scott loses old friends and gains some unlikely new ones as he hones his skills as a writer.

Y Mur Dairy Queen by Catherine Gilbert Murdock
After spending her summer running the family farm and training the quarterback for her school's rival football team, sixteen-year-old D.J. decides to go out for the sport herself, not anticipating the reactions of those around her.

Y Spi Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli
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.

Y Tas The Gospel According to Larry by Janet Tashijan
Seventeen-year-old Josh, a loner-philosopher who wants to make a difference in the world, tries to maintain his secret identity as the author of a web site that is receiving national attention.


Y Wer Rules of Survival by Nancy Werlin
Seventeen-year-old Matthew recounts his attempts, starting at a young age, to free himself and his sisters from the grip of their emotionally and physically abusive mother.