Picture Books for the Middle Grades
Discover the best picture books for middle grades, featuring captivating stories by Patricia Polacco, Eve Bunting, and Sandra Cisneros. This curated book list highlights powerful juvenile fiction and historical tales like The Wall and Show Way, perfect for upper elementary and middle school readers seeking meaningful, thought-provoking reads. Explore engaging titles that bridge picture book charm with middle-grade depth.
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That Book Woman
by Heather Henson
A family living in the Appalachian Mountains in the 1930s gets books to read during the regular visits of the "Book Woman"--a librarian who rides a pack horse through the mountains, lending books to the isolated residents. At first only sister Lark reads the books but finally, Cal wants to know what's in them that's so important to the Book Woman.
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So Far from the Sea
by Eve Bunting
When seven-year-old Laura and her family visit Grandfather's grave at the Manzanar War Relocation Center, the Japanese American child leaves behind a special symbol. Reprint.
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January's Sparrow
by Patricia Polacco
Patricia Polacco's most powerful book since Pink and Say. In the middle of the night, The Crosswhites?including young Sadie?must flee the Kentucky plantation they work on. Dear January has been beaten and killed by the plantation master, and they fear who may be next. But Sadie must leave behind her most valuable possession, the wooden sparrow carved for her by January. Through the Underground Railroad, the Crosswhites make the slow and arduous journey to Marshall, Michigan, where they finally live in freedom. And there they stay, happily, until the day a mysterious package shows up on their doorsteps. It is January?s sparrow, with a note that reads, ?I found you.? How the Crosswhites, and the whole town of Marshall, face this threat will leave readers empowered and enthralled. This is a Polacco adventure that will live in the minds of children for years.
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The House on Mango Street
by Sandra Cisneros
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A coming-of-age classic, acclaimed by critics, beloved by readers of all ages, taught in schools and universities alike, and translated around the world—from the winner of the 2019 PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature. The House on Mango Street is the remarkable story of Esperanza Cordero, a young Latina girl growing up in Chicago, inventing for herself who and what she will become. Told in a series of vignettes-sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes deeply joyous-Sandra Cisneros' masterpiece is a classic story of childhood and self-discovery. Few other books in our time have touched so many readers. “Cisneros draws on her rich [Latino] heritage ... and seduces with precise, spare prose, creat[ing] unforgettable characters we want to lift off the page. She is not only a gifted writer, but an absolutely essential one.” —The New York Times Book Review
