Grade 5/6 Battle of the Books List 2024
Also includes "The Blue Bird of Happiness" by Sue Shigemitsu.
Click on the image or title and you will be taken to the online catalogue - then click the "PLACE REQUEST" or "ONE-CLICK REQUEST" button to order the book in with your library card.
Animorphs, the graphic novel. 1, The invasion
Grine, Chris, author, illustrator
2020
Sometimes weird things happen to people. Ask Jake. He could tell you about the night he and his friends saw a strange light in the sky that seemed to be heading right for them. That was the night five normal kids learned that humanity is under a silent attack -- and were given the power to fight back. Now Jake, Rachel, Cassie, Tobias, and Marco can transform into some of the most dangerous creatures on Earth. And they must use that power to outsmart an evil greater than anything the world has ever seen...
Creatures of the flood
Hunter, Erin, author
2021
The pandas of the Bamboo Kingdom have never forgotten the great flood that ended the peaceful life they'd always known. But for three young creatures born that day, the flood marks not an end, but a beginning--the beginning of their struggles to find a place in very different worlds. Leaf, raised in the sparse Northern Forest, works tirelessly to help her family find bamboo to eat; Rain, hot-tempered, refuses to accept a suspicious new leader in her Southern Forest community; and Ghost, clumsy and uncoordinated, worries he'll never fit in with his hunter family in the mountains. None of them know that the others are out there, but thanks to a mysterious tiger that's been threatening the Kingdom, they will soon find each other--and fulfill a prophecy that had been made long before they were born.
Dancing through the snow
Little, Jean, 1932-2020
2007
After four different foster placements, Min is back at Children's Aid a week before Christmas. She has no family, no birthday, no idea of where she came from. Then Jess Hart, a former Children's Aid doctor who sees past Min's hardened shell, decides to take Min home for the holidays. Has Min found her place at last?
The magician's elephant
DiCamillo, Kate, author
2009
When ten-year-old orphan Peter Augustus Duchene encounters a fortune teller in the marketplace one day and she tells him that his sister, who is presumed dead, is in fact alive, he embarks on a remarkable series of adventures as he desperately tries to find her.
One crazy summer
Williams-Garcia, Rita
2010
After travelling from Brooklyn to Oakland, California, to spend a month with the mother they barely know, Delphine and her two sisters discover that their mother, a dedicated poet, wants them to attend a nearby Black Panther summer camp.
Song for a whale
Kelly, Lynne, author
2019
Twelve-year-old Iris and her grandmother, both deaf, drive from Texas to Alaska armed with Iris's plan to help Blue-55, a whale unable to communicate with other whales.
Spy School : the graphic novel
Gibbs, Stuart, 1969-, author
2022
Ben Ripley is recruited for a magnet school with a focus on science-but he's entirely shocked to discover that the school is actually a front for a junior C.I.A. academy. Ben becomes an undercover agent and goes on his first assignment in this graphic novel adaptation of SPY SCHOOL.
Unplugged
Korman, Gordon, author
2021
Relates, in multiple voices, the adventures of a group of youngsters at an electronics-free wellness camp where wealthy, spoiled Jett, leads other campers in trying to stop a criminal.
War horse
Morpurgo, Michael, author
2015
World War I has started and the military needs horses to move equipment, charge the enemy, and carry wounded soldiers off the battlefield. Joey, a farm horse is sold to the Army. Joey misses the farmer's son, Albert, and spends the war years wondering if the war will ever end and if he will ever see Albert again.
When stars are scattered
Jamieson, Victoria, author, illustrator
2020
Omar and his younger brother Hassan live in a refugee camp, and when an opportunity for Omar to get an education comes along, he must decide between going to school every day or caring for his nonverbal brother in this intimate and touching portrayal of family and daily life in a refugee camp.