My sixth-grade son and I began reading Listening for Lions not long after our state had begun observing a stay-at-home order. Needless to say, we felt the irony of reading this book – set in 1919 amidst the devastating influenza pandemic – when the world was just embarking on a modern-day battle with COVID-19.  

The main character, Rachel Sheridan, has lived all of her 13 years in British East Africa where her parents are missionaries and run a small hospital. When influenza spreads throughout their village it takes the lives of many, including both of Rachel’s parents. Suddenly an orphan, Rachel finds herself under the care of the greedy Pritchards who just lost their daughter, Valerie, and whom she resembles. Left with few choices, Rachel is coerced into impersonating Valerie on a mission to visit ailing well-to-do Grandfather Pritchard in England. She is to gain his trust and ultimately trick him into willing his estate to his estranged son, Valerie’s father.

Rachel settles into the grandfather’s massive estate and her journey as “Valerie” begins. As the days go by, she unknowingly lets a bit of her true self shine through and unexpectedly develops a friendship with Valerie’s grandfather that changes the course of her life.

In these uncertain times, everyone can use a feel-good story, and I have to share that my sixth grade son said Restart is one of his favorite books of all time.  We read it together, but he definitely could have read it independently. Restart is also on the “Battle of the Books” list at our local library.

Restart is written with a rotation of first-person accounts of the events that unfold when star football player and middle school bully Chase Ambrose falls from his roof and gets a concussion so severe it results in amnesia. When we wakes from a coma, he can’t remember his family, his teachers, his best friends or anything from his 13 years of life. He’s shocked to observe that kids in the school hallways shudder when he walks by, and over the course of time he realizes that prior to his accident he was extremely cruel and aggressively tormented his classmates.  

Chase is given the rare opportunity to start over – to reinvent himself as a new person. His challenges, his choices, and the perspectives of a few key fellow classmates come together in a story we had trouble putting down. We loved the unpredictability – there were several times when we thought a certain event tied up a loose end and then we encountered another twist. 

I’d highly recommend this book for your middle schooler. This was our first experience reading a book by Gordon Korman, and I’m definitely going to be putting more of his books on our reading list.

When a fifth grade boy you have known for years enthusiastically hands you a book at the school book fair and tells you your son just has to read it, you take notice. And that’s exactly how I came across Song For A Whale. This was the perfect book to read aloud with my now sixth grader, who in his early elementary years was a walking animal encyclopedia and who today is often drawn to stories about kids who not only accept their mental or physical challenges, but use them to make the world a better place.

In Song For A Whale, 12-year-old Iris is the only deaf person in her school. She often feels alone, isolated and frustrated with how difficult it is to communicate with teachers and peers. In her free time she loves to repair old radios, using the vibrations of sound waves to know if she’s been successful.

When Iris studies frequency in science class she learns about Blue 55, a whale that lives very isolated from other whales because his unique song is at a different frequency than other whales’ songs. She immediately feels a strong connection with Blue 55’s inability to connect with other whales and vows to find a way to reach out to him and let him know someone out there hears him and understands him.

This inspirational story has themes of love, empathy and perseverance. As expected, my son loved it and I will definitely keep it on the short list to read with my younger son in his middle years. And, like many of the books we read together, this is definitely a book kids this age could read independently.

The Upstairs Room was written by Johanna Reiss, “Annie,” as an account of her time as a young Jewish girl in hiding in Holland during World War II. Annie and her older sister, Sini, who is 10 years her senior, spent several years living in the upstairs of a Gentile family’s home, apart from the rest of their kin who were in hiding elsewhere. They were treated like family by the Oostervelds who risked their lives to protect them day by day and throughout several close encounters with German soldiers.       

The book jacket describes that Reiss originally started out simply intending to tell her story to her two daughters, but her writing ultimately evolved into a book so notable that it received several awards, including a Newberry Honor. My sixth grader definitely could have read this book independently, but because of the sensitive subject matter, I wanted to read it with him.