Pick of the Decade 1995-2005:
7th Grade

Best Fiction

Dhami, Narinder. Bindi Babes , 2004.

Amber, Jazz and Geena, three Indian sisters, live with their father in England and are blessed with beauty, brains and closets full of designer clothes. All seems perfect on the surface, the girls never talk about their mother who died the year before. Everything changes when their aunt comes from India to take over the running of the house and the girls plot to marry her off. (Sequel: Bollywood Babes .)

Dickinson, Peter. The Tears of the Salamander , 2003.

When Alfredo, a twelve-year-old choir boy in eighteenth-century Italy , loses his family in a fire, he goes to live with Uncle Giorgio, who he discovers is a sorcerer in control of the fires of Mt. Etna with sinister plans for his nephew. (See also: The Rope Maker .)

Ellis, Deborah. The Breadwinner , 2001.

Because the Taliban rulers of Kabul , Afghanistan , impose strict limitations on women's freedom and behavior, eleven-year-old Parvana must disguise herself as a boy so that her family can survive after her father's arrest. (Sequels: Parvana's Journey and Mud City .)

Farmer, Nancy. The House of the Scorpion , 2002.

In a future where humans despise clones, Matt enjoys special status as the young clone of El Patron, the 142-year-old leader of a corrupt drug empire nestled between Mexico and the United States.

Farmer, Nancy. The Sea of Trolls , 2004.

Jack lives in a quiet Saxon village and is unexpectedly apprenticed to the Bard who teaches him the ways of magic. But his lessons have just begun when Olaf One-Brow, who leads a berserker raiding party of Northmen, kidnaps him and his sister. They take the two across the sea, where Jack inadvertently dissolves the beauty of Ivar the Boneless's half-troll Queen, Firth. He must embark upon a quest in troll country to find Mimir's Well, so that he can save his sister, Lucy, who Queen Firth has threatened to sacrifice if her beauty is not restored.

Ferris, Jean. Of Sound Mind , 2001.

Tired of interpreting for his deaf family and resentful of their reliance on him, high school senior Theo finds support and understanding from Ivy, a new student who also has a deaf parent.

Fisher, Catherine. The Oracle Betrayed , 2004.

Mirany is youngest of the Nine, priestesses who serve the god. She is suddenly thrust into a world of deceit and betrayal when the Bearer-of-the-God dies and she must find the new true Archon despite the plots of those around her. (Sequel: The Sphere of Secrets . See also: Snow-Walker .)

Flake, Sharon . Money Hungry , 2001.

All thirteen-year-old Raspberry can think of is making money so that she and her mother never have to worry about living on the streets again.

Fleischman, Paul. Seek , 2003.

Rob becomes obsessed with searching the airwaves for his long-gone father, a radio announcer. (See also: Mind's Eye ; Whirligig and A Fate Totally Worse Than Death .)

Gardner, Graham. Inventing Elliot , 2004.

Elliot, a victim of bullying, invents a calmer, cooler self when he changes schools in the middle of freshman year, but soon attracts the wrong kind of attention from the Guardians who "maintain order" at the new school.

Gilbert, Barbara. Stone Water , 1996.

Fifteen-year-old Grant confronts the difficult decision of whether or not to cooperate with his grandfather's wish that he not be placed on life-support systems.

Goldman, E. M. The Night Room , 1995, o.p.

When a group of students uses an experimental computer program that simulates their tenth high school reunion, they get an unsettling look at their possible futures.

Haddix, Margaret Peterson. Just Ella , 1999.

In this continuation of the Cinderella story, fifteen-year-old Ella finds that accepting Prince Charming's proposal ensnares her in a suffocating tangle of palace rules and royal etiquette, so she plots to escape.

Hautman, Pete. Godless , 2004.

When sixteen-year-old Jason Bock and his friends create their own religion to worship the town's water tower, what started out as a joke begins to take on a power of its own.

Hesse, Karen. Witness , 2001.

A series of poems express the views of various people in a small Vermont town, including a young black girl and a young Jewish girl, during the early 1920s when the Ku Klux Klan is trying to infiltrate the town.

Hobbs, Will. Far North , 1996.

After the destruction of their floatplane, sixteen-year-old Gabe and his friend, Raymond, struggle to survive a winter in the wilderness of the Northwest Territories . (See also: The Maze .)

Holm, Jennifer. Boston Jane: An Adventure . 2001.

Schooled in the lessons of etiquette for young ladies of 1854, Miss Jane Peck of Philadelphia finds little use for manners during her long sea voyage to the Pacific Northwest and while living among the American traders and Chinook Indians of Washington Territory. (Sequels: Boston Jane: Wilderness Days and Boston Jane: The Claim .)

Holt, Kimberly Willis. Keeper of the Night , 2003.

Isabel, a thirteen-year-old girl living on the island of Guam , and her family try to cope with the death of Isabel's mother who committed suicide.

Horowitz, Anthony. Stormbreaker , 2001.

After the death of the uncle who had been his guardian, fourteen-year-old Alex Rider is coerced to continue his uncle's dangerous work for Britain 's intelligence agency, MI6. (Sequels: Point Blank ; Skeleton Key : Eagle Strike and Scropia .)

Howe, Norma. The Adventures of Blue Avenger , 1999.

On his sixteenth birthday, still trying to cope with the unexpected death of his father, David Schumacher decides--or does he--to change his name to Blue Avenger, hoping to find a way to make a difference in his Oakland neighborhood and in the world.

Ingold, Jeanette. The Window , 1996.

When she comes to live with relatives on a Texas farm, fifteen-year-old Mandy encounters the grandmother she never knew and begins to come to terms with her blindness caused by the automobile accident that killed her mother.

Jacobs, Paul. James Printer: A Novel of Rebellion , 1996.

Although he has lived and worked as a printer's apprentice with the Green family in Cambridge Massachusetts , for many years, James, a Nipmuck Indian, finds himself caught up in the events that lead to a horrible war.

Jennings, Patrick. Wolfing Time , 2003.

In  France during a time of witch-hunts, in a village with a corrupt priest, thirteen-year-old Lazlo longs to be able to turn into a wolf as his parents can, but also desires the friendship of a village girl.

Johnson, Angela. Humming Whispers , 1995.

Sophy fears that she will become like her older sister Nicole who has schizophrenia.

Jones, Diana Wynne. The Merlin Conspiracy , 2003.

Arianrhod travels on the King's Progress throughout an alternate Britain, while Nichothodes yearns to walk between worlds. When he is pushed into Arianrhod's England , they are caught-up in a myriad of plots and counterplots. (Companion novel: Deep Secret ; see also: Charmed Life ; The Magician's of Caprona ; Witch Week; The Lives of Christopher Chant ; and Conrad's Fate .)

Jordan, Sheryl. The Hunting of the Last Dragon , 2002.

 In  England in 1356, as a monk records his every word, a young peasant tells of his journey with a young Chinese noblewoman to St. Alfric's Cove and the lair of a dragon. (See also: The Raging Quiet .)