Kids and Families

Fiction Fest for Boys: Books for Boys Aged 9-12

Step by Wicked Step: A Novel by Anne Fine. 1996.
Five schoolmates share the stories of their parents' estrangements, divorces, and remarriages and the effects these events have had on their lives.

Words of Stone by Kevin Henkes, 1992.
Busy trying to deal with his many fears and his troubled feelings for his dead mother, ten-year-old Blaze has his life changed when he meets the boisterous and irresistible Joselle.

The View from Saturday by E.L. Konigsburg, 1996.
Four students, with their own individual stories, develop a special bond and attract the attention of their teacher, a parapalegic, who chooses them to represent their sixth grade class in the Academic Bowl competition.

Dave at Night by Gail Carson Levine, 1999.
When orphaned Dave is sent to the Hebrew Home for Boys where he is treated cruelly, he sneaks out at night and is welcomed into the music-and culture-filled world of the Harlem Renaissance.

Arthur for the Very First Time by Patricia MacLachlan, 1980.
Arthur spends a summer with his unconventional aunt and uncle and begins to look at life, his family, and himself differently.

Stones in Water by Donna Jo Napoli, 1997.
After being taken by German soldiers from a local movie theater along with other Italian boys including his Jewish friend, Roberto is forced to work in Germany, escapes into the Ukrainian winter, before desperately trying to make his way back home to Venice.

Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Patterson, 1977.
The life of a ten-year-old boy in rural Virginia expands when he becomes friends with a newcomer who subsequently meets an untimely death trying to reach their hideaway, Terabithia, during a storm.

Holes by Louis Sachar, 1998.
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.

Joshua T. Bates in Trouble Again by Susan Shreve, 1997.
After finally being promoted to fourth grade in the middle of the year, Joshua is so worried about the bully who rules the fourth grade boys that he makes some unwise decisions.

Boys at Work by Gary Soto, 1995.
When ten-year-old Rudy breaks an older boy's Discman at a baseball game, he and his friend Alex come up with a variety of ways to make money to pay for a new one.

Miracle's Boys by Jacqueline Woodson, 2000.
Twelve-year-old Lafayette's close relationship with his older brother Charlie

changes after Charlie is released from a detention home and blames

Lafayette for the death of their mother.

The Friends by Kazumi Yumota, 1996.
Curious about death, three sixth-grade boys decide to spy on an old man waiting for him to die, but they end up becoming his friends.