Middle School Literature

Eleven-year-old Imogene (Impy) has grown up with two parents working at the Renaissance Faire, and she's eager to begin her own training as a squire. First, though, she'll need to prove her bravery. Luckily, Impy has just the quest in mind - she'll go to public school after a life of being homeschooled! But it's not easy to act like a noble knight-in-training in middle school. When her new friends encourage her to do something mean, Impy goes along with it. Before long, Impy doesn't even recognize herself. Is she the dragon in her own story or the heroic knight?

Rafe isn't exactly considered a winner in Hills Village Middle School, to say the least, but everything's about to change: He's won a school-wide art competition, and the fabulous prize is getting to jet-set off to Australia for a whirlwind adventure! But Rafe soon finds that living in the Land Down Under is harder than he could've ever imagined.

James Patterson's hilarious story of perseverance and courage shows everyone's favorite troublemaker, Rafe Khatchadorian, the star of the Middle School series, learning to become a leader at long last. After a rough summer, Rafe is heading back to the dreaded Hills Village Middle School, the site of the very worst years of his life. And as if that's not bad enough, he's learned that he's going to be held back a year unless he can prove himself on an outdoor survival excursion.

Eleven-year-old Matt is struggling in school, and he has to set up his own business to save his failing math grade. But what is he even good at? The only thing he truly loves is his team of dogs, and so Matt's Sled Dog School is born. Teaching dogsledding should be easy, right? But people, just like dogs, can be unpredictable. And sometimes the bravest thing a person can do is admit they need help.

Things heat up at Hills Village Middle School when Rafe gets an invitation from Dr. Daria Deerwin to join a research study on polar bears. How many times in life do you get a chance to come face‑to‑face with a real polar bear in the wild? Rafe is ready to find out! Alaska is pinkie‑freezing, hair‑freezing, snot‑freezing cold, but Rafe might be headed for a meltdown. He’s spending every waking moment with Penelope, who he definitely has a crush on, and a polar bear Dr. Deerwin is tracking goes missing...with poachers on the tundra.

Amoral, cunning, ruthless, and instructive, this piercing work distills 3,000 years of the history of power into 48 well-explicated laws. This bold volume outlines the laws of power in their unvarnished essence, synthesizing the philosophies of Machiavelli, Sun Tzu, Carl von Clausewitz, and other infamous strategists. The 48 Laws of Power will fascinate any listener interested in gaining, observing, or defending against ultimate control.

It's a dog-eat-dog world, and Rafe Khatchadorian is just trying to live in it. Life in middle school is finally starting to seem bearable - until Rafe spots his grandmother standing on the free-meal line at the local soup kitchen. In order to help bring in more money, Rafe concocts a brilliant plan - a dog-walking business that soon turns into a huge moneymaking neighborhood empire. He'll even have extra cash to buy his own WormHole Deluxe Multi-Platform GameBox!

Rafe feels like a caged lion at his summer job at the zoo - until a real lion desperately needs his help.

New York Times best-selling author Gordon Korman harkens back to his No More Dead Dogs days in this stand-alone that takes a tone more serious than you've ever heard from him before. A boy who's been a bully and hanging out with the wrong friends gets a new start after a memory-loss-inducing accident. But can someone really change who he is, or will the old him merely come back over time?

After sixth grade, the very worst year of his life, Rafe Khatchadorian thinks he has it made in seventh grade. He's been accepted to art school in the big city and imagines a math-and-history-free fun zone. Wrong! It's more competitive than Rafe ever expected, and to score big in class, he needs to find a way to turn his boring life into the inspiration for a work of art. His method? Operation: Get a Life! Anything he's never done before, he's going to do it, from learning to play poker to going to a modern art museum.

After a mostly-successful stint at Hills Valley Middle School, Rafe is excited to visit the incredible city of London with his class. Sightseeing around a foreign country sounds like a blast, until Rafe finds out his roommate is Miller the Killer, bully extraordinaire! Then he's forced to work on a class project side by side with his crush Jeanne Galletta and her too-perfect boyfriend, which might be even worse than rooming with Miller.

When Brianna Justice's hero, the famous celebrity Chef Miss Delicious, speaks at her school and traces her own success back to being president of her fifth-grade class, Brianna determines she must do the same. She just knows that becoming president of her class is the first step toward her own cupcake-baking empire! But when new student Jasmine Moon announces she is also running for president, Brianna learns that she may have more competition than she expected.

On his 11th birthday, Jackson is nervous about moving up to middle school where he knows he'll be bullied by older kids, so he makes his wish, "I don't want to grow up!" When his 12th birthday rolls around, he discovers his wish came true: he's still 11, and he's starting fifth grade (again). At first, this is the perfect life. Jackson is the smartest kid in his class, the best on his baseball team, and the star of the school band. But after a few years of being eleven, he realizes his life is passing him by.

Seventh-grader Jordan Bryant is desperate for a scoop for his year-end ELA project. When the vice principal gets glitter-bombed in front of the whole class—and the wrong student punished for the prank—Jordan thinks he’s found the perfect story. Instead, he finds himself swept up in the biggest thing to ever hit Murray Middle: the Great Prank War. As the pranks get evermore epic and insane, so do the punishments handed down by the draconian administration.

The cat that Olive rescues from a flood has a secret: He's not really a cat at all, but an alien who crashed to Earth on a beam of light. The cat, whom Olive names Leonard, was prepared to visit the planet as a human - but something went wrong. Now Leonard may never know what it's like to hold an umbrella, go bowling, or host a dinner party. (And his human jokes still need some work: Knock, knock. Who's there? Just Leonard. It is me.)

Abby and her classmates have all been invited to Briar Academy to participate in the Challenge, a prep-school competition where teams compete for prizes and the glory of being the best of the best. While there, they figure out their nemesis, the Ghost, is using Briar as headquarters to plan a devastating attack on his enemies (a.k.a. pretty much everyone) using a brand-new invention Toby developed. And this time, the Center and Mrs. Smith will be of no help as Abby suspects there is someone working for the Ghost on the inside - and they can trust no one.

When Rafe discovers that he's inherited a fortune, it's not all good news. Sure, he gets an all-expenses-paid trip to glamorous Beverly Hills…. but he also has to go to school while he's in California. Blergh. And not just any school–St. Benedict’s, the snobbiest of snobby establishments. You can bet your bottom dollar that Rafe doesn’t exactly fit in. Toss in a ramshackle house Rafe’s family has to live in before they can inherit the money and a group of bullies who make Miller the Killer look downright friendly, and this trip might be more trash than treasure.

Rafe Kane has enough problems at home without throwing his first year of middle school into the mix. Luckily, he's got an ace plan for the best year ever, if he can pull it off. With his best friend Leonardo the Silent awarding him points, Rafe tries to break every rule in his school's oppressive Code of Conduct. Chewing gum in class - 5,000 points! Running in the hallway - 10,000 points! Pulling the fire alarm - 50,000 points!

When Mia asks the Cupcake Club girls to be junior bridesmaids in her mother's wedding, everyone is superexcited about the idea...especially when they find the perfect dress for the occasion! It's Emma's dream dress, except it's a little more expensive than she expected. And with her mom recently out of work, there's not a lot of room at the Taylor house for extras.

It all started with a peanut butter cup...which leads Ben Braver to a secret school for kids with super abilities. Ben has never had any special powers - and maybe never will. But could this be his chance to become the superhero he's always dreamed of? The Super Life of Ben Braver is the first book in a hilarious adventure series about the greatness that lies within any middle schooler who dreams big from Marcus Emerson, the author of the smash hit Diary of a 6th Grade Ninja series.