Middle school is the only stretch of childhood that arrives with its own weather. A locker combination, six teachers instead of one, a bell that relocates you every forty-five minutes, and a lunchroom with a seating chart nobody wrote down and everybody obeys. Children walk in at ten or eleven still willing to be seen liking things, and spend the next three years deciding how much of that to admit to out loud. The books that get it right refuse to treat the stakes as small: a rumor, a dropped tray, or a best friendship that reorganizes itself over a single weekend are handled as the enormous events they actually are.
Drawing from Bookroo’s collection of 1,058 books about middle school, our editors chose the ones a fifth or sixth grader will genuinely read — graphic novels for the summer before, comic diaries for the reader who insists books are boring, and novels sharp enough to hand to an entire seventh grade at once. Start with our 13 favorites, then browse the wider shelf of novels and graphic novels set in the halls, cafeterias, and club rooms of sixth, seventh, and eighth grade.
A boy with a facial difference leaves homeschooling for fifth grade at a school where everyone already knows everyone.
A seventh grader who wants art school is enrolled instead at a prestigious academy where almost nobody looks like him.
A boy starts middle school certain he is surrounded by bigger, dumber kids, and writes the whole year down.
One fall on the way home from Girl Scouts costs a sixth grader her two front teeth, and years of braces, surgery, and headgear follow.
A new girl’s plan to survive middle school unnoticed collapses on day one and strands her between two clubs at war.
A scholarship sixth grader is assigned to buddy the one classmate guaranteed to make her year harder, while at home her grandfather starts forgetting things.
An eighth-grade football star falls off a roof, loses every memory he has, and returns to a school that greets him in two very different ways.
A girl raised at a Renaissance faire talks her parents into public school for sixth grade and finds the local dragons are her own classmates.
A rule-abiding seventh grader wants one quiet year, until a verdict, a protest, and a black armband make quiet impossible.
The oddest boy in sixth grade wears a paper finger puppet that gives startlingly good advice, and his classmates open a case file to find out why.
Ten blocks, ten stories. What happens when the school bell rings and life takes unexpected turns?
A boy who has spent middle school being invisible is put on a class trip to Europe and comes home as someone else.
Longer stories set in the halls, cafeterias, locker rooms, and group projects of sixth, seventh, and eighth grade — for independent readers ages 9–14.
On a peculiar island, two teens unravel a dog's murder mystery linked to a gangster past.
A girl leaves Syria for America, facing new challenges and discovering herself.
A teacher's mysterious team selection leads to unexpected victories and deeper truths.
A burned-out teacher meets a class of misfits. Can chaos lead to redemption?
A boy races against blindness to finish his comic, while a new friend risks popularity to discover her own talents.
Left out, Katie forms a new club with unexpected friends. Sweet beginnings await.
A girl faces unwanted attention at school and learns to stand up for herself.
Mason's friend vanished. Can he uncover the truth before it's too late?
A math genius must tackle her toughest challenge yet: middle school.
A refugee boy spins tales to claim his truth in a skeptical classroom.
A sixth-grader navigates the challenges of middle school, including a difficult teacher, a crush on a classmate, and a quest to break a world record.
Libby makes a cosmic deal to help her sister's unborn baby.
