Girls, Grades 5-6

[1]	Carrie's War [1] by Nina Bawden [2] Carrie and her younger brother spend WWII as evacuees in a small Welsh village where Carrie, upset by a family feud, commits an act that haunts her for thirty years.
[3]	The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits and a Very Interesting Boy [3] by Jeanne Birdsall [4] While vacationing with their father in the Berkshire Mountains, four lovable sisters share adventures with a local boy, to the dismay of his snobbish mother.
[5]	The Rising Star of Rusty Nail [5] by [6]Lesley M. Blume [7] Franny Hansen is a 10-year-old piano prodigy living in Rusty Nail, Minnesota. Once the Coot Capitol of the world, in 1953 it's just a run-of-the-mill town with one traffic light and a bizarre cast of characters. She's long exhausted the talents of the town's only piano teacher and seems destined to perform at church events and school assemblies, until a mysterious Russian woman arrives in Rusty Nail. Franny's neighbors are convinced the "Commie" is a threat to their American way of life, but Franny's not so sure. Could this stranger be her ticket out of Rusty Nail?
[8]	Finding Family [8] by Tonya Bolden [9] Delana has never known her parents. Raised by her aunt and a reclusive grandfather, Delana has lived a sheltered existence, nurtured on her aunt’s wild family stories. But when her aunt dies, Delana embarks on a quest to unravel the truth. This moving fictional story is imagined from real antique photographs.
[10]	A Little Princess [10] by Frances Hodgson Burnett [11] Sara Crewe, an exceptionally intelligent and imaginative student at Miss Minchin's Select Seminary for Young Ladies, is devastated when her adored, indulgent father dies. Now penniless and banished to a room in the attic, Sara is demeaned, abused, and forced to work as a servant. How this resourceful girl's fortunes change again is at the center of A Little Princess, one of the best-loved stories in all of children's literature.
[12]	The Secret Garden [12] by Frances Hodgson Burnett [11] Ten year old Mary comes to live in a lonely house on the Yorkshire moors and discovers an invalid cousin and mysteries of a locked garden.
[13]	The Klipfish Code [13] by Mary Casanova [14] The year is 1942, and Norway is under Nazi occupation. Despite her grandfather’s warnings, twelve-year-old Marit has decided to take action. Through her eyes, readers experience the untold story of Norwegians’ resistance and their response to the arrest of schoolteachers for their refusal to teach Nazi propaganda to Norwegian schoolchildren. Set on an island of fishing trawlers, this novel is about risks taken, secrets kept, and questions about whom to trust.
[15]	Waiting For Normal [15] by Leslie Connor [16] Addie is waiting for normal. But Addie's mother has an all-or-nothing approach to life: a food fiesta or an empty pantry, her way or no way. All-or-nothing never adds up to normal, and it can't bring Addie all to home, where she wants to be with her half sisters. But Addie never stops hoping that one day, maybe, she'll find normal.
[17]	Walk Two Moons [17] by Sharon Creech [18] The struggle of thirteen year old Salamance (Sal) to understand and deal with her mother's disappearance unfolds while on a cross-country trip with her eccentric grandparents. Sal tells them the story of her friend Phoebe whose mother has also left home, but in reality it is her own story. A funny, mysterious, and touching novel. Newbery Award winner.
[19]	Rodzina [19] by Karen Cushman [20] A 12-year old Polish American girl boards an orphan train in Chicago with fears about traveling to the west and a life of unpaid slavery.
[21]	Matilda [21] by Roald Dahl [22] Matilda applies her untapped mental powers to rid the school of the evil, child-hating headmistress, Miss Trunchbull, and restore her nice teacher, Miss Honey, to financial security.
[23]	Thimble Summer [23] by Elizabeth Enright [24] Garnet is sure a silver thimble she found by the river is magic because the whole summer on the farm in Wisconsin has been full of adventures.
[25]	The Saturdays [25] by Elizabeth Enright [24] Four New York City siblings decide to pool their resources so that each can do a special thing on the Saturday that is his turn to receive the combined allowances.
[26]	The Birchbark House [26] by Louise Erdrich [27] Satisfying routines of Omakayas's days are interrupted by a surprise visit from a group of desperate and mysterious people. From them, she learns that all their lives may drastically change. The chimookomanag, or white people, want Omakayas and her people to leave their island in Lake Superior and move farther west. Omakayas realizes that something so valuable, so important that she never knew she had it in the first place, is in danger: Her home. Her way of life.
[28]	The Game of Silence [28] by Louise Erdrich [27] Opening in the summer of 1847, the story follows the family, in a third-person narrative, through four seasons; it focuses on young Omakayas, who turns "eight winters old" during the course of the novel. In fascinating, nearly step-by-step details, the author describes how they build a summer home out of birchbark, gather with extended family to harvest rice in the autumn, treat an attack of smallpox during the winter and make maple syrup in the spring to stock their own larder and to sell to others.
[29]	The Porcupine Year [29] by Louise Erdrich [27] Omakayas was a dreamer who did not yet know her limits.When Omakayas is twelve winters old, she and her family set off on a harrowing journey in search of a new home. Pushed to the brink of survival, Omakayas continues to learn from the land and the spirits around her, and she discovers that no matter where she is, or how she is living, she has the one thing she needs to carry her through.
[30]	The Moffats [30] by Eleanor Estes [31] Even the most ordinary Moffat day is packed with extraordinary fun. Only a Moffat could get locked in a bread box all afternoon, or dance with a dog in front of the whole town, or hitch a ride on a boxcar during kindergarten recess. And only a Moffat could turn mistakes and mischief into hilarious one-of-a-kind adventur
[32]	Understood Betsy [32] by Dorothy Canfield Fisher [33] Nine-year-old Elizabeth Ann, who was orphaned as a baby, lives in the city with her two doting aunts. They suffocate her with love, dedicating all their energies to her care. When Aunt Harriet becomes ill, Elizabeth Ann is ordered away by the doctor. Having heard terrible things about her cousins, the Putneys of Vermont, she's terrified when she has to go live with them. As soon as she gets off the train in Vermont, Elizabeth Ann's life is never the same.
[34]	The Borning Room [34] by Paul Fleischman [35] Lying at the end of her life in the room where she was born in 1851, Georgina remembers growing up on the Ohio frontier.
[36]	Igraine the Brave [36] by Cornelia Funke [37] Princess Igraine is in the doldrums. All that changes, however, with the arrival of a power-hungry intruder who is intent on stealing a set of wondrous singing spell books owned by Igraine's parents. And it couldn't have happened at a worse time: Thanks to a major magical mishap, mom and pop have turned themselves into pigs! Aided by a Gentle Giant and a Sorrowful Knight, it's up to Igraine to be brave and save the day--and the books!
[38]	The Wonder of Charlie Anne [38] by Kimberly Newton Fusco [39] In a 1930's Massachusetts farm town torn by the Depression, racial tension, and other hardships, Charlie Anne and her black next-door neighbor Phoebe form a friendship that begins to transform their community.
[40]	Pictures of Hollis Woods [40] by Patricia Reilly Giff [41] Hollis Woods has been in so many foster homes she can hardly remember them all. She even runs away from the Regans, the one family who offers her a home. When Hollis is sent to Josie, an elderly artist who is quirky and affectionate, she wants to stay. But Josie is growing more forgetful every day. If Social Services finds out, they’ll take Hollis away and move Josie into a home. Well, Hollis Woods won’t let anyone separate them. She’s escaped the system before; this time, she plans to take Josie with her.
[42]	Lily's Crossing [42] by Patricia Reilly Giff [41] During a summer spent at Rockaway Beach in 1944, Lily's friendship with a young Hungarian refugee causes her to see the war and her own world differently.
[43]	The Road To Paris [43] by Nikki Grimes [44] The one constant is Paris's life is her beloved brother Malcolm. When the foster care system splits up the siblings, Paris is devastated. Malcolm is sent to a boys' home, and Paris must travel across the state to live with the Lincoln family. Experience has taught her to keep her expectations low, but this time is different. Just as she learns to trust them, she faces a life-changing decision.
[45]	Ida B and her Plans to Maximize Fun, Avoid Disaster and (Possibly) Save the World [45] by Katherine Hannigan [46] Home-schooled since kindergarten, Ida B is perfectly content spending all of her free time alone outdoors, talking to the brook and the trees in the orchard. When her mother is diagnosed with cancer Ida B's world turns upside down. Her parents must sell part of her beloved orchard to pay the medical bills, and Ida B must enroll in public school.
[47]	Runaround [47] by Helen Hemphill [48] In Kentucky in the 1960's, 11 year old Sassy decides to make the handsomest boy in the neighorhood her boyfriend. First she must learn what makes a boy like a girl.
[49]	Olive's Ocean [49] by Kevin Henkes [50] Martha is bothered by the death of a girl, Olive, whom she barely knew. In this story that takes place in about a week, she manages to remember Olive in a way that will let her go on. Martha is also betrayed by a boy into a first kiss, which she parlays into even more strength.
[51]	The Last Best Days of Summer [51] by Valerie Hobbs [52] For twelve-year-old Lucy Crandall, the last week of August is the most perfect time in the world. It’s the week she gets to spend with Grams at the lake house, canoeing, baking cookies, and glazing pots in Grams’s potting shed. Grams has a way of making Lucy feel centered, like one of the pots on her kick wheel—perfect, steady, and completely at peace. But this summer, Grams doesn’t seem to be exactly the person she once was.
[53]	Strawberry Hill [53] by Mary Ann Hoberman [54] When ten-year-old girl Allie learns that her family will be moving from their two-family home to their very own house in the country, she's hesitant until she finds out they will be living on a street with the magical name of Strawberry Hill. That changes everything! From her struggle to find a new best friend, to her quest for acceptance at her new school, Allie takes readers on her journey to make Strawberry Hill feel like home.
[55]	Our Only May Amelia [55] by Jennifer L. Holm [56] With seven older brothers and a love of adventure, May Amelia Jackson just can′t seem to abide her family′s insistence that she behave like a Proper Young Lady.