Contemporary Realistic Fiction 6-8 |
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Author Name |
Title |
Illustrator |
notes |
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Bruchac, Joseph |
Heart of a Chief |
Penobscot protagonist |
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Carter, Anne Laurel |
The Shepherd's Granddaughter |
Palestine |
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Amato, Mary |
Invisible Lines |
Issues of Class/Parent in Jail |
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Howe, J |
The Misfits |
bullying/ includes a gay protagonist |
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Totally Joe |
one of the characters in The Misfits gets his own say in this book, written in the form of an "alphabiography" |
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Budhos, Marina |
Tell Us We're Home |
friendship novel, focusing on 3 girls whose immigrant families live in an upscale suburb, where their mothers work in the homes of the wealthier residents |
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Draper, Sharon |
Out of My Mind |
protagonist has severe cerebral palsy, has never spoken a word, but LOVES words and language |
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Alvarez, Julia |
Return to Sender |
Mexican migrant farmworkers in VT |
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French, S Terrell |
Operation Redwood |
ecoactivism adventure with a diverse group of characters |
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Baglain, Nora Raleigh |
Anything But Typical |
slice of life, 6th grade narrator with autism |
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Fusco, Kimberly Newton |
Tending to Grace |
story of a neglected child taken in by an older relative, stuttering and illiteracy are minor themes |
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Giff, Patricia Riley |
Pictures of Hollis Wood |
foster child searches for a family |
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Gilmore, Rachna |
A Group of One |
Indian-Canadian immigrant family |
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Woodson, Jacqueline |
I Had Not Meant to Tell You This |
Friendship across race & class/abuse |
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The Notebooks of Melanin Sun |
Family, race, GLBT |
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Conner, Leslie |
Waiting for Normal |
neglected child, class issues, and ultimately a story of hope |
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Martinez, Victor |
Parrot in the Oven |
Coming of Age -Mexican American |
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Soto, Gary |
Petty Crimes |
short stories Mexican American |
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Laird, Elizabeth & Namir, Sonia |
A Little Piece of Ground |
Palestinian boys trying to turn an abandoned lot into a soccer field encounter opposition |
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Perkins, Mitali |
Bamboo People |
Child soldiers in Burma/Myanmar |
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Lee, Marie G. |
F is for Fabuloso |
7th grader immigrated to US from Korea has an F |
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Danticat, Edwidge |
Behind the Mountain |
13 yr Haitian immigrant to US |
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Park, Linda Sue |
Project Mulberry |
Science loving girl |
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Appelt , Kathie |
Keeper |
a foster child searches for her birth mother and finds love in a number of surprising places, elements of magical realism |
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Jones, Traci L. |
Standing Against the Wind |
uprooted from Georgia, Patrice struggles to fit in to her new inner city Chicago home |
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Cochrane, Mick |
The Girl Who Threw Butterflies |
Molly, who throws a mean knuckleball, tries out for the boys' baseball team |
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Rhuday-Perkovich, Olugbemisola |
8th Grade Super Zero |
funny, yet thoughtful story of Jamaican Brooklynite Reggie's attempts to rise above his unfortunate nickname of Pukey |
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Sheth, Kashmira |
Boys Without Names |
kidnapped in Mumbai and sold into slavery, Gopal learns the power of story as he struggles to escape |
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Meminger, Neesha |
Jazz in Love |
when Jazz's strict Punjabi Sikh mother decides to find her suitable boys to meet, the results are surprising |
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Leitich Smith, Greg |
Ninjas, Piranhas, and Galileo |
a diary format is used to tell this fast-paced school story from the 3 different perspectives of best friends Elias, Shohei, and Honoria |
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Zimmer, Tracy Vaughn |
Reaching for Sun |
Josie loves plants and gardening, but the farmland around her home has been sold to developers. Free verse tells the story of an appealing protagonist with cerebral palsy. |
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