2012 Kids' Reading List: 12 to 14 Years
Help your kids discover the joy of reading—and build your home library—with this list compiled by the ALA-Children's Book Council and the Association for Library Service to Children.
By the American Library Association
Original Content | August 03, 2012
Laurie Halse Anderson
316 pages
After overhearing a plot to assassinate George Washington, a young slave spies for Patriot forces with the promise of freedom as her reward.
M.T. Anderson
320 pages
In a future society, where everyone is connected by computer implants in their brains, Titus tries to help Violet, who is resisting the feed.
Avi
368 pages
Maks, a newsboy in 1893 New York City, works with a homeless girl to get his sister out of prison in this fast-paced historical mystery.
Vera Brosgol
224 pages
Anya Borzakovskaya, a Russian immigrant, tries to fit in while helping her best friend, a ghost who was murdered ninety years ago, in this graphic novel.
Elizabeth C. Bunce
400 pages
Using her skills as a spy, Digger works to protect a group of rebels while keeping a secret of her own.
Suzanne Collins
384 pages
The game of her lifetime is being played, literally, and Katniss might not survive.
Siobhan Dowd
336 pages
Salim disappears while riding the London Eye Ferris wheel. Ted, his cousin with an Asperger-like syndrome, looks for the patterns others miss while investigating this mystery.
Kathryn Erskine
256 pages
Caitlyn, who has Asperger’s syndrome, finds being in school difficult. After her brother is killed in a school shooting, how will she adjust to life without him?
Catherine Fisher
464 pages
When you are trapped in a prison that is alive and wants to hurt you, you can only escape with a little help from outside.
Candace Fleming
128 pages
Sometimes courage and perseverance can carry you even farther than talent, and sometimes a cascade of mistakes can be fatal.
Neil Gaiman
336 pages
After toddler Nobody Owens’s family is murdered, he wanders into the nearby graveyard to be raised by the spirits who live there.
Jack Gantos
352 pages
Jack thinks his summer is over until his mother volunteers him to help a neighbor. He discovers a mystery behind his unusual assignment.
Thanhha Lai
272 pages
Hà flees with her family from war-torn Viet- nam and comes to the United States only to find that making a new home in a strange country is just as difficult as learning English.
Peter Lourie
80 pages
Follow three intrepid scientists as they investigate the mysterious world of the manatee and strive to protect them from extinction.
Albert Marrin
192 pages
Throughout history workers had few rights, and employers had all the control. That changed after a 1911 fire killed 146 workers locked inside the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory.
Walter Dean Myers and Ross Workman
224 pages
Told in alternating voices, Myers teams up with high school student Workman, to tell the dramatic story of a 13-year-old soccer player who faces serious criminal charges, and the police officer who is investigating his case.
Patrick Ness
224 pages
There are many different kinds of monsters and nightmares, but sometimes what frightens you most also makes you strong.
Kenneth Oppel
384 pages
When Ben’s dad is doing research into animals and language, a chimp named Zan comes to live with the family. What happens when research work is over and medical testing is about to begin?
Richard Peck
148 pages
A shotgun-toting, cherry-bomb-throwing grandma, a corpse that doesn’t seem to want to stay in its coffin, bandits, ghosts and other exciting adventures await when two city kids spend summers away from home.
Laura Resau and María Virginia Farinango
368 pages
Based on a true story, a young Quechua Indian girl in Ecuador is taken from her family to be a servant to an upper class “mestizo” family.
Stewart Ross
96 pages
Real-life stories of daring expeditions undertaken by men and women, including foldout diagrams, maps and cross-sections.
Gary D. Schmidt
368 pages
Doug Swieteck must overcome a deadbeat father, an older brother who steals from him, a brother returning from the Vietnam War and being the new kid in boring Marysville, New York.
Trenton Lee Stewart
512 pages
Four children are selected, through a series of unusual tests, to go on a secret mission that will quite possibly save the world.
Maggie Stiefvater
416 pages
Sean Kendrick and Kate “Puck” Connolly will ride their horses in this year’s deadly Scorpio Races. Both need to win, but someone has to lose.
Shaun Tan
128 pages
In this wordless graphic novel, traveling to a new world and learning about a strange new culture takes on a new meaning.
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Printed from Oprah.com on Tuesday, May 21, 2013
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