Top 5 Tuesday: Middle Grade Books

Top 5 Tuesday is a weekly series created by Bionic Book Worm and is now hosted by Meeghan Reads. This week’s topic: Top 5 Middle Grade Books.

One of my favorite things about middle grade books is that they often hit relatable issues in a simple, accessible way, especially in the case of contemporary books. I’m usually floored by the amount of development within the plot and the characters in such a short amount of time due to their typical shorter page length. I definitely sit in the camp that middle grade can be enjoyed by all ages and have reread some of my favorites as an adult. Without further ado, let’s jump in to my top 5 middle grade recommendations.

1. Crash by Jerry Spinelli

Crash is a favorite from my childhood and has remained a favorite into my adult life–I even reread it a couple of years ago and possibly enjoyed it even more as an adult than as a child. It hits so many important issues in its pages from peer expectations to bullying to the effects of watching people you love grow old and feeble. The main character goes through so much character development as he moves from popular jock preoccupied by what others think of him to learning what’s actually important in life and making new decisions as he matures. Spinelli’s books often have some major life lessons hidden beneath their various façades which is one of my favorite things about his books.

2. Holes by Louis Sachar

Holes has to be a favorite among a lot of us I feel! It’s so unique with its story of a boy who is falsely charged with theft of a major baseball player’s donated shoes and is subsequently sent to a “camp” that is supposed to help rehabilitate troubled youth. The camp has a strange punishment that is meant to teach the boys a lesson–dig a five by five foot hole every single day in the hot sun. But when the main character uncovers a mystery that surrounds the camp, we get an enthralling tale set in the Wild West era and the true reason why the boys are digging in a dry lake bed. Holes also has a little-known sequel, Small Steps, that details the life of another one of the boys who was assigned to the camp.

3. Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine

Ella Enchanted hovers between middle grade and young adult but I think it qualifies for this list. Even if you’ve seen the film version of this with Anne Hathaway (the film is so cute!), you should still give the novel a try as it’s actually quite different from the film. The story follows a girl who is “gifted” (cursed) at birth by a somewhat-well-meaning-but-ditzy fairy to always be obedient of anything anyone asks of her. At its core, it’s a Cinderella retelling, but partnered with the curse the main character sets out to break in the story, it has a twist of a murderous uncle who endeavors to use Ella’s curse against her to kill his nephew, the Crown Prince and the man Ella has fallen for.

4. What’s the Opposite of a Best Friend? by A. Bates

My copy of this book is so worn and yellowed but I love it still. A next-door neighbor gave it to me as a child (she loved it too and wanted to pass it on since she was now a Teenager and Grown Up haha) and I loved it. It’s such a cute story of friendship about two girls who are as different as they could possibly be. As they go through middle school, their differences become more prominent and the two have a few tough times but it was so impactful as a child to read how they used their differences to learn from each other and allow them to pull them closer together instead of apart. It’s definitely a dated book but it has so much nostalgia from the 90s if you’re looking for that feel.

5. The Ascendance Series by Jennifer A. Nielsen

I wanted to throw a series in here for fun. I actually just discovered upon pulling this cover image that Nielsen has published 2 more books to the series that I didn’t even know about! A fantasy series, this first book follows a boy who is pulled from an orphanage along with 3 others to potentially be used for a plot by a nobleman who has his grip on the kingdom. One of them will be selected to impersonate the long-lost son of the missing king–as long as they do whatever the nobleman says and are willing to let him rule through them. When one of the boys is killed after saying he doesn’t want to participate, the main character realizes that he is in a life-and-death situation–and that he must protect his own secret even harder. I’m excited to pick up the last 2 books now that I’m aware of their existence. I found the first book to be a bit slow but I loved the second and third!

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Thanks so much for reading! Let me know one of your favorite middle grade novels below. Happy reading!

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