Realistic Fiction For Kids

Gooney Bird Greene likes to be right smack in the middle of everything. That's why she wants to have the lead role of Squanto in her class Thanksgiving pageant. But that role will go to whoever finds someone to be the room mother. All the parents are so busy, no one can bring cupcakes to the play. Gooney Bird Greene to the rescue! She finds a room mother alright, but promises not to tell who it is until the day of the play. Now the kids are really busy getting ready for the show.

The highly anticipated young adult thriller about a serial killer's daughter and her race to solve the crimes of her family's twisted past before it's too late—from E. Kennedy, aka New York Times bestselling romance author Elle Kennedy! The world is hunting for answers—but what if the truth...

When a San Francisco treasure hunt ropes two ex-besties back together, they’ll end up digging into their own complicated, buried feelings in this queer YA rom com! Cam was the one who discovered the hunt. He brought it to Ivy like an offering, took her hand as they combed through San...

Jake volunteers at a nursing home because he likes helping people. He likes skating and singing, playing Bingo and Name That Tune, and reading mysteries and comics aloud to his teachers. He also likes avoiding people his own age . . . and the cruelty of mirrors . . . and food. Jake has read about kids like him in books—the weird one, the outsider—and would do anything not to be that kid, including shrink himself down to nothing. But the less he eats, the bigger he feels. How long can Jake punish himself before he truly disappears?

"Two-thirds royal drama, one-third mystery...like a much darker Princess Diaries.” —Jennifer Lynn Barnes, New York Times bestselling author of The Inheritance Games The second book in the Royal Blood series about an American girl who threatens the royal family by exposing their darkest...

When her grandmother comes off the airplane in Houston from Pakistan, Mahnoor knows that having Dadi move in is going to disrupt everything about her life. She doesn’t have time to be Dadi’s unofficial babysitter—her journalism teacher has announced that their big assignment will be to film a documentary, which feels more like storytelling than what Maha would call “journalism.”

Willa and her clan are the last of the Faeran, an ancient race of forest people who have lived in the Great Smoky Mountains for as long as the trees have grown there. But as crews of newly arrived humans start cutting down great swaths of the forest she loves, Willa is helpless to stop them. How can she fight the destroyers of the forest and their powerful machines?

Valora Luck has two things: a ticket for the biggest and most luxurious ocean liner in the world, and a dream of leaving England behind and making a life for herself as a circus performer in New York. Much to her surprise though, she's turned away at the gangway; apparently, Chinese aren't allowed into America. But Val has to get on that ship. Her twin brother, Jamie, who has spent two long years at sea, is there, as is an influential circus owner, whom Val hopes to audition for. Thankfully, there's not much a trained acrobat like Val can't overcome when she puts her mind to it.

Skye Nickson’s world changed forever when her dad went on the run with her brother, Finn. It’s been four years without Finn’s jokes, four years without her father’s old soul music, and four years of Skye filling in as Rent-a-Finn on his MIA birthdays for their mom. Finn’s birthday is always difficult, but at least Skye has her best friends, Reece and Jax, to lean on, even if Reece has started acting too cool for them. But this year is different because after Finn’s birthday, they get a call that he’s finally been found.

Zeke Stahls is not the best kid in the world. Some days he struggles just to be good. He'd rather be pulling pranks than doing extra credit, and he's too busy performing experiments on his little brother, Nate, or tormenting his older sister, Jackie, to volunteer for charity. Which is why Zeke and his entire family are shocked when they receive word that he has been selected as a contestant in an online competition to find the World's Greatest Kid.

In a small town haunted by unsolved disappearances, a teen with a secret ability must unravel a deadly mystery -- before she becomes the next victim. Mendocino is not the quaint coastal California town Zayn Pereira imagined. It's shrouded in a fog that never lets up. Posters of a missing...

For 16-year-old Ellie, beach volleyball camp is a disaster until she's paired with Sierra, an athletic prodigy who teaches her that volleyball...and love are about taking the right shot in this sporty sapphic romance. Ellie dates the Right Guy, says all the Right Things, and acts the Right Way...

What happens when a girl who keeps her heart underground meets a boy with his head in the stars? In this layered and poignant romance, the award-winning author of A Heart in a Body in the World and Honey, Baby, Sweetheart beautifully captures the kind of love—and loss—that changes you...

Clover O'Reilly is super psyched to run for class president. As the second oldest of five sisters, she struggles to be heard in her ginormous family. But when you are president of the seventh grade, everyone has listen to you! Comedy magician Mike the Unusual feels confident onstage. Offstage, life can be tricky. It's okay that his classmates don't understand him, but it bugs him when his dad suggests he needs more friends. Is he willing to give up his passion to win friends...and votes? Clover and Mike compete to rule their school in this uproariously funny sequel.

In the tradition of Jordan Peele and Tiffany Jackson’s The Weight of Blood, a YA thriller about a Black teen whose fight for survival forces a small southern vacation town to face its dark history of racial violence. When sixteen-year-old Naomi Ward and her family head to a secluded cabin in...

A contemporary young adult novel by Grace K. Shim that mixes the humor of Schitt’s Creek with the heritage and heart of Minari. Seventeen-year-old Elena Ok (pronounced Oak) has mastered the art of being both a Los Angeles party girl and financially savvy influencer, but her family doesn’t...

What's the deal with middle school, anyway? Newbery Honor-winning author and artist Chanel Miller explores the glorious mess that is middle school—and the way growing up, finding friends, and discovering who you are can be both awkward and empowering. At the beginning of seventh grade, Luna...

"Two-thirds royal drama, one-third mystery...like a much darker Princess Diaries.” —Jennifer Lynn Barnes, New York Times bestselling author of The Inheritance Games Royalty, murder and scandal combine in this thrilling new series about an American girl who becomes the British Monarchy’s...

Twelve-year-old Barana lives in a coastal village in Honduras, where she spends every spare minute visiting the sea turtles that nest on the beach. Abby is feeling adrift in sixth grade, trying to figure out who she is and where she belongs after her best friend moved away from New Jersey. When Abby’s papi plans a work trip to Honduras, she is finally given the opportunity to see his homeland—with Barana as her tour guide. But Barana has other plans: someone has been poaching turtle eggs, and she’s determined to catch them!

In this contemporary YA novel, high school student Charlotte Goh is an aspiring Asian American fashion influencer desperately trying to lift her family out of hardship, only to find it may come at a cost higher than any Chanel bag. Seventeen-year-old Charlotte Goh is juggling two very different...