3-5 Books

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  Heidi (Classic Starts)

  Johanna Spyri and Lisa Church

  When Heidi's Aunt Dete brings the orphaned girl to live with her grandfather, no one can imagine the bitter, solitary old man caring for a child. But, to everyone's surprise, the two grow to love each other - and Heidi blossoms in her new home.

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  Helen Keller: Toward the Light

  Stewart Graff and Polly Anne Graff

  A biography of the blind and deaf woman who rose above her physical disabilities to international renown and who helped other handicapped persons to live fuller lives.

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  Here's a Penny

  Carolyn Haywood

  Follows the adventures of six-year-old William, an adopted boy nicknamed Penny for his copper-colored hair, as he attends a Halloween party, adopts kittens, and finds an older brother to join his family.

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  Hit the Road, Manny

  Christian Burch

  As the Dalinger family travels across America in a rented recreational vehicle, Keats grows more accepting of the attention-getting behavior of their "manny"--Male nanny--especially after a visit with the manny's parents on their Wyoming ranch.

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  Hold Fast

  Blue Balliett

  On a cold winter day in Chicago, Early's father disappeared, and now she, her mother and her brother have been forced to flee their apartment and join the ranks of the homeless--and it is up to Early to hold her family together and solve the mystery surrounding her father.

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  Holly's Secret

  Nancy Garden

  When she starts middle school, eleven-year-old Holly decides to become sophisticated and feminine, change her name to Yvette, and hide the fact that her two moms are lesbians.

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  Homesick

  Kate Klise

  Benny's parents are getting divorced, his mom left and his father has become a hoarder, and to make matters worse his hometown has been entered into a contest, and now the pressure is on to get the house cleaned up.

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  Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet

  Sheri L. Smith

  Disaster strikes when Ana Shen is about to deliver the salutatorian speech at her junior high school graduation, but an even greater crisis looms when her best friend invites a crowd to Ana's house for dinner, and Ana's multicultural grandparents must find a way to share a kitchen.

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  House of Robots: Robot Revolution (House of Robots Series Book 3)

  James Patterson

  Robots on strike! Sammy's underappreciated mechanical helpers are causing chaos in book 3 of the bestselling House of Robots series

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  How I Became a Writer and Oggie Learned to Drive

  Janet Taylor Lisle

  A young writer's fantasy world becomes dangerously entangled with reality. Eleven-year-old Archie and his six-year-old brother, Oggie, are constantly going back and forth between their mother's home and the apartment that their father shares with his girlfriend. To distract Oggie from the turbulence of endlessly bouncing from "Saturn" to "Jupiter" and back again, Archie invents a fantastic story about the Mysterious Mole People. When Oggie's wallet is stolen by kids from a local gang, Archie tries to retrieve it and becomes increasingly ensnared in the gang's dangerous activities. Even worse, he soon finds that his fictitious mole story is merging with the darkness of real life in a very frightening way.

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  How I Saved My Father's Life (And Ruined Everything Else)

  Ann Hood

  After her father leaves and marries the glamorous Ava Pomme, Madeline blames her mother for their difficult new life, but in spite of the twelve-year-old's efforts to achieve sainthood, it takes a summer trip to Italy to put her family into perspective.

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  How it Feels to Live with a Physical Disability

  Jill Krementz

  Reveals, through photographs and interviews, the indomitable spirit and strength of children living with such physical disabilities as blindness, cerebral palsy, paralysis, and missing limbs.

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  How Would You Feel If Your Dad Was Gay?

  Ann Heron

  Jasmine thinks she's lucky to have three dads--a stepfather, her natural father, and his lover. However, her schoolmates and even teachers find this hard to accept. Jasmine's brother is subjected to name-calling and almost ends up in a fight over his father's lifestyle. At home, the two dads are supportive and understanding, and the children's natural father contacts the principal about it. A special assembly is the result, with a children's counselor discussing different kinds of families. A subplot, featuring a lesbian and her son, speaks nonjudgmentally to the issue of the sexual preferences among the offspring of homosexual parents. This book with a purpose does a good job of raising the issues sensitively and answering the questions reasonably. Scratchy ink drawings depict an African-American family living in an average neighborhood, with the children attending a racially balanced school.

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  Hurricane Child

  Kheryn Callender

  Born on Water Island in the Virgin Islands during a hurricane, which is considered bad luck, twelve-year-old Caroline falls in love with another girl--and together they set out in a hurricane to find Caroline's missing mother.

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  Hurricane Heat

  Steve Barwin

  Years after Travis's parents die in a car crash and he and his younger sister, Amanda, are separated, Travis sets out to search for her at the risk of losing an opportunity for a future baseball career.

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  I Am Not a Number

  Jenny Kay Dupuis and Kathy Kacer

  A picture book based on a true story about a young First Nations girl who was sent to a residential school. When eight-year-old Irene is removed from her First Nations family to live in a residential school she is confused, frightened, and terribly homesick. She tries to remember who she is and where she came from despite the efforts of the nuns to force her to do otherwise. Based on the life of Jenny Kay Dupuis.

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  I and I: Bob Marley

  Tony Medina

  A biography in verse about the Jamaican reggae musician Bob Marley, offering an overview of key events and themes in his life, including his biracial heritage, Rastafarian beliefs, and love of music. End notes on poems provide further biographical information.

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  I Can Hear the Sun

  Patricia Polacco

  Stephanie Michelle, who cares for animals and listens to the sun, believes the homeless child, Fondo, when he tells her that the geese have invited him to fly away with them.

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  I Funny: A Middle School Story

  James Patterson and Chris Grabenstein

  Resolving to become the world's greatest stand-up comedian despite less-than-funny challenges in his life, wheelchair-bound middle school student Jamie Grimm endures bullying from his mean-spirited cousin and hopes he will be fairly judged when he enters a local comedy contest.

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  I Funny: School of Laughs (I Funny #5)

  James Patterson and Chris Grabenstein

  When a new principal threatens to close the school library, Jamie Grimm tries to save the day by teaching a comedy class for his fellow students.

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  Imagine Me on a Sit-Ski!

  George Moran

  Billy and his classmates, who are physically challenged, learn that they can go skiing just like other youngsters when they are fitted with special equipment, such as a sit-ski, and feel the freedom and exhilaration of a sport from which they once were excluded.

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  Inside Asperger’s Looking Out

  Kathy Hoopmann

  Inside Asperger's Looking Out follows in the best-selling footsteps of Kathy Hoopmann's All Cats Have Asperger Syndrome and All Dogs Have ADHD. Through engaging text and full-color photographs, this book shows neurotypicals how Aspies see and experience the world. Each page brings to light traits that many Aspies have in common, from sensitive hearing and an aversion to bright lights and strong smells, to literal thinking and difficulty understanding social rules and reading body language and facial expressions. At the same time, the book highlights and celebrates the unique characteristics that make those with Asperger's Syndrome special. This is the perfect introduction to the world of Aspies, told from their own perspective, for the people in their lives: including family, friends, and classmates. Those with Asperger's Syndrome will also appreciate this book for the way it shares their own singular perspectives on life.

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  Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus

  Dusti Bowling

  Aven Green loves to tell people that she lost her arms in an alligator wrestling match, or a wildfire in Tanzania, but the truth is she was born without them. And when her parents take a job running Stagecoach Pass, a rundown western theme park in Arizona, Aven moves with them across the country knowing that she’ll have to answer the question over and over again. Her new life takes an unexpected turn when she bonds with Connor, a classmate who also feels isolated because of his own disability, and they discover a room at Stagecoach Pass that holds bigger secrets than Aven ever could have imagined. It’s hard to solve a mystery, help a friend, and face your worst fears. But Aven’s about to discover she can do it all...even without arms.

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  Is Your Family Like Mine?

  Lois Abramchik

  In this book, a 5 year old girl named Armetha has two mothers who raise her. She begins to become curious about other families and asks all of her friends “Who is in your family?” She quickly becomes aware that all of her friends come from different families; some are nuclear while others have a step parent, single parent, or foster parent. Armetha and her friends decide that while their families are different, their common bond is love, and that is what makes a family. This is great to introduce to a group of children from different backgrounds to help them relate to one another.

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  It All Comes Down to This

  Karen English

  Perfect for fans of Glory Be, this charming middle grade coming-of-age novel set in Los Angeles in the summer of 1965 is narrated by Sophie, a precocious, sheltered twelve-year-old. But when her family becomes the first African Americans to move into their upper middle-class neighborhood and riots erupt in nearby Watts, she learns that life-and her own place in it-is a lot more complicated than it had seemed.